CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

As Aurelio crossed the street and hurried home, he fought the urge to turn back, find his uncle, and start profusely apologizing. He didn't even know why. Maybe for shouting. Maybe for lying. Maybe for the attitude. Whatever the reason, guilt swamped Aurelio's chest, a little overwhelmingly compared to the situation.

He hung his coat and trudged up the staircase to his room. He'd used up whatever remaining energy he had racing home. So when he sat down on the edge of his bed, his body slouched on its own, and he could hardly maintain himself upright with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.

You can't avoid the nightmares forever.

Sighing, Aurelio let himself drop onto his side, and he lifted his legs up to the mattress. His eyelids closed on their own. A part of his brain screamed in protest, reminded him of the nightmares he'd have to go through. He told it to shut up. His subconscious mind already betrayed him; when it couldn't manifest as nightmares, it had seeped into reality.

Better nightmares than hallucinations, he thought, and he fell asleep.

In his dream, he was somewhere and nowhere. Someplace bordered by black walls, but underfoot, there was a normal path. Ahead of him stood Leslie's boyfriend, facing away, and Leslie there with one arm hooked around him, in the middle of a halfhearted hug. Except Leslie was staring straight at Aurelio over her boyfriend's shoulder.

Her lips moved. She spoke. Aurelio heard nothing. Cautiously, he strode a tiny step closer. Then he shook his head, telling her he didn't understand. Urging her to repeat.

"You're Elio."

At first, Aurelio thought it was an accusation. As if being Elio was a terrible, terrible thing. He still nodded. "I'm Elio, yeah."

"No."

Aurelio frowned. "No?"

Her fingertips didn't touch her boyfriend, Aurelio realized. She held them up off his shoulder. "You're my Elio," she said.

It didn't sound affectionate. If anything, it sounded like she was trying to identity him, and her shaky, lost voice made Aurelio shudder.

"Your Elio?" he repeated, puzzled and chilled to the bone. "What do you mean?"

She glanced at her boyfriend, then back at Aurelio, and repeated desperately, "You're my Elio."

Her eyes watered, then tears trickled down her cheeks and the sight was too painful for Aurelio to bear, so he found himself saying, "Okay, I'm your Elio," just to end Leslie's misery. And it worked; the moment he confirmed her statement, she unhooked her arm from around her boyfriend, then pointed a finger at Aurelio, gesturing him closer. Come, she mouthed.

When Aurelio tried reaching for her, he was tugged back. For a moment he thought he was tied to his spot, but instead he found his hand locked in Blair's while she was looking elsewhere, unaware of his presence, unaware they were holding hands.

Shaking his hand, Aurelio tried to free it from Blair's grip. She wouldn't let go, entranced. He followed her line of sight and found Matt, in the distance, holding her gaze with longing in his eyes. He looked small and defenseless and hopeless, and so, so sad.

"Blair," Aurelio said. "Let me go." After a lot of squirming and curling and clenching his fingers, he managed to break free, and in that moment, something behind him screeched, like letting go of Blair's hand had activated a mechanism. Leslie and her boyfriend gaped over Aurelio's shoulder at whatever was behind him with horror in their eyes, then they darted away.

Slowly, Aurelio craned his neck, then spun around entirely, his heart leaping to his throat.

The black walls weren't walls. There were mist, and now the top chunk curled, tipping over, surging down like a violent wave. Aurelio staggered back, then he noticed Blair had gone to Matt, both unaware of the disaster behind them.

"Matt! Blair!" Aurelio shouted. "Watch out!"

But Matt didn't move and neither did Blair. Without thinking, Aurelio raced towards them and caught Matt's arm on the landing, shoving him behind, then he did the same to Blair. The mist was whizzing down like an arrow. With a trembling hand, Aurelio reached back until he blindly touched Matt's chest. "Run," he said, roughly pushing him further away. "Run!"

Matt ran then, followed by Blair, then Aurelio last in line. The mist caught up with him first, and it wrapped around an ankle and knocked him facedown. Quickly, he turned on his back and lashed his leg out, trying to break the link, but the action only hurt his knee. The arrow had devided and a shaft of it lunged for his throat and curled around it. Aurelio thrashed and fought until he ran out of breath, and he had to stay still for a moment, only his chest rising and dropping. While he tried to conjure more energy to break free, a wisp of the mist rose and formed something like a shard, then it plunged into his stomach, tearing it apart.

The energy he gathered during the moment of rest was meant for fighting, but instead he wasted it on screaming. He could do nothing else, the pain too unbearable; it sliced deeper and deeper until every nerve in him flared and fired, until tears streamed down his cheeks, until his lungs crippled. And while his mouth was open, a sliver of the mist crept inside, burned his tongue and seared his throat. It tasted bitter, so bitter, like an ugly truth, and he choked on it.

Aurelio woke up in the same state: screaming and crying, but he was in his bedroom, and there was no mist attacking him.

He sat up. His heart was racing. His hands trembled at his sides where they were pressed into the mattress. Tucking his chin, he glanced at his stomach then touched it, making sure he was fine. He was. Of course he was. This was just a nightmare, and he'd say he signed up for it the moment he decided to sleep, but no--he had signed up for a nightmare about the car crash, not one about some damned demonic mist.

Sniffling and rubbing his nose, he got off the bed and glanced down the window, as if expecting that his screaming must've been loud enough to draw a crowd, and all the neighbors would be gathered down there frowning and judging him.

His parents hadn't arrived yet, and he knew because if they had, his mom would've barged in the second he whimpered, let alone scream his lungs out. His dad wouldn't have done that; he would have left Aurelio to deal with it in private, the way Aurelio preferred.

He went into the bathroom, and only when he looked in the mirror did he realize that he hadn't been crying. At least, not just crying.

He'd been sobbing.

Aurelio winced as he focused on the image in front of him; his eyes and the tip of his nose were red like he had wept for hours on end, and his cheeks were flushed and streaked with tears, except some of these tears had slipped sideways while he'd thrashed in bed, so now just about his entire face was crisscrossed by drying water.

He hated that. A little too aggressively, he washed his face then marched downstairs, frowning at the walls and the floor and the entire world, and made coffee in the kitchen. Then he tasted it and made a face because it was too bitter for him. He wondered how the hell people liked it plain like that, then poured sugar in and carried it to his bedroom.

There he set the cup on his desk and sat in the chair. As enticing as the idea of dismissing the nightmare was, to ignore it the way he always did, he forced himself to think about it. To decipher it, to understand why the nightmares were getting weirder and weirder. He grabbed a pencil off the tabletop and fiddled with it aimlessly. His leg bounced. He thought.

The nightmare was already fading, but he could still recall the way the mist had attacked him right after he'd let go of Blair's hand, like a consequence, a punishment. Aurelio took that and aligned it with what was happening in real life, tried finding a connection whilst simultaneously worrying he'd lost his mind for thinking there was a message behind a nightmare.

Then it hit him. Conditioned. That was the word. That was part of the feeling he hadn't been able to understand these past few days. He felt conditioned to keeps things as they were, despite the confusion, or else there would be consequences.

• • •

sorry about the late update! Had exams and they pretty much killed my brain lol. Thank you so much for reading/voting/commenting! Hope you're still enjoying the book ❤❤