Awaken

from my mind. As the instinctual terror receded, it changed into a more powerful instinct: survival. I began to run. With no way of seeing what was in front of me, I held my arms out in order to avoid running into something. Or someone.

“Anastasia,” I whirled around at her voice. The breath caught in my throat as recognition hit. Her bright red hair was blowing in a nonexistent wind and her eyes were shining with madness.

“Nicolet? What’s happening? Why are we here?” I asked, hoping for an ally in this desiccated hell.

“You did this,” she glared at me, completely ignoring my questions.

“No-“ I began, but she was quick to step forward and interrupt me.

“This is your fault! If it weren’t for you I’d still be alive!” Crushing guilt slammed into me as I lost my balance and fell to the ground again.

“Nicolet, I’m so sorry!” I pleaded.

“Liar!” she shouted, suddenly standing over me. Her green eyes turned dark as she berated me with accusations. “This is all your fault! You killed me! You did this...!”

On and on she continued screaming at me. I curled into a ball on the blistered ground and clamped my hands over my ears. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, hoping she would go away. I tried to remember what Finn had taught me about controlling my reveries, but I couldn’t think straight. I felt helpless to protect myself.

Blaring silence filled my ears. Was she gone? Or waiting for the opportune moment to murder me? A crawling panic spread across my chest as I tentatively opened my eyes and looked around. There was only darkness. I jumped when something tapped my shoulder and spun me around.

“Boo!” Nadia was inches from my face, her dark eyes smiling. Then I was falling. Endlessly falling into a bottomless pit of despair and guilt that I hoped I would never wake up from.

I sat straight up, gasping for air and drenched in sweat. I looked around me frantically, but only saw my own darkened bedroom. I pulled my shaking knees in to my chest and closed my tear filled eyes. I accepted what I already knew. Nadia had found a way to not only enter my reveries, but to also control them.

Chapter 19

“My bronzer is leaking off my face,” Phoebe screeched in her best Jersey shore accent, and then collapsed into a fit of uncontrollable giggles.

“I’m going to have to veto that costume. I’m not going to a Halloween party with…that,” Carmen turned her nose up at the Snooki costume Phoebe was parading around in. A tacky wig full of dark coarse hair that sat at least two feet off of her head in a pouf completed the outfit.

“If people start dressing up as me for Halloween, please do me a favor and shoot me,” Willow shook her head as she perused the rack of pirate costumes.

A week after Nadia had invaded my reverie, we had gone to the mainland to one of the hundreds of Halloween stores that seemingly popped up out of nowhere during the month of October.

I hadn’t told anyone what I suspected about Nadia’s ability to now terrorize not only my waking hours, but my reveries as well. I was hoping that I was just imagining things. I didn’t particularly want to consider that it had actually happened. The idea that someone else had control of my soul was too terrifying to consider. Maybe if I stashed it away with my other repressed memories, it would magically vanish.

“What do you guys think about this?” I held up a white chiffon Greek goddess costume.

“You can’t go as yourself, silly,” Phoebe informed me casually, as she put the Snooki wig back onto the mannequin’s bald head.

“But I’m not a….oh.” I smiled sheepishly and hung it back on the rack. Carmen pressed a red bathing suit against Willow and tossed a red rescue tube over her head, and then nodded in approval.

“You’re welcome,” she told Willow with a smirk, who looked down at herself and grimaced.

“There is no way I’m going out in public dressed up like a Baywatch lifeguard.”

“You could so pull that off, but you’d have to run around The Hole in slow-mo,” Phoebe laughed, as she showed us her best impression of the slow motion Baywatch run.

“Stasia! You should go as the Corpse Bride! Look at this one!” Carmen came running around the rack, waving a white dress. She placed the veil over my head and held the dress up to me.

It was actually kind of pretty.

“Not bad. I’ll go try it on,” I admitted, and made my way to the dressing room. Phoebe followed with some sort of red and white striped ensemble she wanted to try on. I smiled to myself as I slipped the form-fitting white dress over my head and zipped it up. The bottom of the dress was cut in a ragged fashion to appear torn, and several slashes ran along its length as if I’d just been stabbed.

It was slit up the side all the way to the top of my thigh, showing a lot of leg. The strapless bodice was trimmed in black, and the accompanying veil flowed down to my shoulder blades. I pulled on some lacy thigh highs and turned around in front of the mirror. Some white makeup, a little fake blood and a ratty hairdo would do nicely. My new aqua highlights actually helped the otherworldly look.

I shimmied the dress off; deciding to leave the big reveal for Halloween. I left the dressing room in search of my roommates and found them gathered around Phoebe with questioning looks.

When Phoebe turned to face me, I understood why she was being met with such skeptical looks. She was dressed in a skin-tight red and white striped dress with red and white stockings that came up past her knees. A red hat with a white ball sat precariously on her head.

“What am I?” She quizzed me; standing very stiff.

“A candy cane?” I surmised, and Carmen laughed so hard she snorted. Phoebe’s face fell slightly while she waited for Carmen collect herself.

“No! I’m ‘Where’s Walda’!” She twirled around, still thrilled with her find.

“That’s it. I’m picking out your costumes from now on,” Carmen informed her sternly, giving her a light push towards the fitting rooms. Phoebe slinked away to change back into her clothes.

“What’d you think?” Willow asked me, gesturing to the dress in my hand.

“It’s coming home with us for sure,” I smiled.

“Good, now you can help me figure out what I’m going to wear. I’m at a loss.”

“Maybe you and Liam should come up with a couple’s costume,” I wiggled my eyebrows at her.

“We’d have to be a couple first.” She shook her head in confusion, and then let out an exasperated sigh, “I can tell he likes me, but he just won’t do anything about it! He hasn’t asked me out or even tried to kiss me. I’m definitely not making the first move,” she declared stubbornly.

“You just make him nervous. Give the poor kid a break! Want me to get Finn to talk to him?” I winked at her.

“No!” she said a little too frantically, “I mean, I want him to ask me out when he’s ready. I just wish he’d hurry up,” she grinned.

“Jackpot!” Carmen came around the corner holding a sexy nun outfit, “I was born to be a sexy nun,” she announced dramatically with a devilish grin.