It’s a different sort of world, here, the world where my eyes are shut. My dreams. Here, in this reality, the lights around me are bright and I’m nervous. I look down at myself and I’m wearing a dress, blood red and clinging to my body, falling to the floor. I look up again, and Papa’s there, talking to some person or another, the charming smile on his face. I look around, and feel myself slipping away from him.

“You look beautiful tonight, my love.” A voice is murmuring against my ear and I feel myself smiling, turning in the long arms that are suddenly around my waist. I rest my forehead on the person’s chest, so familiar and yet not at the same time. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more stunning than you… I always loved the way you looked in red.”

“You look handsome, too.” I tell him softly and blush. I feel so inadequate, the way he speaks against my ear make me feel so informal.

“You haven’t even seen me.” He tells me softly and I feel myself laughing nervously. I don’t want to look up, because a part of me feels like it’ll ruin the moment, but his hand is on my chin and he’s lifting it up, my eyes slowly finding his face. My breath stops and that’s when I know that I’m dreaming because even though all of this seems so familiar to me, I know… that this could never have happened.

But I smile anyways.

“Now I have.” I whisper and he slowly smiles, his lips coming down to land on mine softly. They’re cold, just the way that, in reality, they felt on my neck. I slide my hands up to his shoulders, and his move from the small of my back to hold my hips and we begin to sway back and forth. Not really dancing, but enough to make me feel like a princess.

“I love you.” I murmur softly against his lips. “I love you, so much.”

He pauses for awhile, and there’s an aching in my chest when I realize that he’s probably not going to say it back. And I realize that that’s okay, because it’s probably bad to tell a monster like him that you love him. But in a minute, his lips are pulling back against mine in a smile and he presses his nose into my cheek.

“I love you, too, Saesa.” He murmurs and I breathe out softly, a smile working up on my face again.

My eyes snap open, and I look around. I groan softly, my head is pulsing and I bring my hand up to it, and it takes me a minute to realize that there is a crudely wrapped bandage around my head. I try to sit up for a minute, and then almost immediately give up when the pulsing pain gets worse. I lay back down, staring at the ceiling, and wondering where I am.

The ceiling is white, and smooth, and I turn my head a bit, squinting. The wall paper is a dusty pink and has a rose print. This room looks old, smells musty… My eyes catch site of a wardrobe against the wall. It’s a deep mahogany color, or it would be if there weren’t a film of dust over it, and it occurs to me that this room hasn’t been used in a long time.

My eyes scan around the room, and they finally come to land on the door. He’s leaning against it, his arms folded behind him and his eyes on me, narrowed slightly. I smile slightly, and he scowls at me.

“I had a dream about you…” I whisper and my voice cracks. “How fucked up is that, huh?”

“Did you now?” He murmurs, pulling his eyes off of me and looking away. I smile and shut my eyes, I know he doesn’t want to hear it but I let my lips open, and I’m telling him about it. I’m telling him about my father and the way he smiles, about the lights and how chandeliers always scared me. And then I’m telling him that we’re dancing. And I’m telling him what we said. I’m telling him that I loved him, that in my dream, I loved him, and I’m asking him, how messed up is that?

I hear the door open and I want to open my eyes, but I don’t.

“That wasn’t a dream.” He’s snarling and he’s angry, and my eyes snap open and he’s already gone. The door is slamming shut behind him and I force myself to sit up, breathing quickly and looking around. I force my legs off of the bed I’m laying on and wince again, shutting my eyes.

It wasn’t a dream…