Chapter 173: Nightmares (I)

Elara:

The moment I realized where I was, terror slammed into me so violently that I couldn’t breathe.

The familiar walls surrounded me, the same walls I had once considered the safest place in the world, but they no longer felt like home. They felt like a prison built from memories I would have given anything to forget.

I could hear mom screaming somewhere ahead of me, dad shouting, Felix yelling at someone, and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.

My feet moved before I could think, carrying me toward the living room, and when I turned the corner, I saw them. Dad was on the floor, mom was beside him, and Felix stood between them and the masked men who had come looking for the lost Moon Princess.

My stomach twisted as the memory unfolded exactly as I remembered it, yet somehow everything about it felt wrong.

The warriors weren’t looking at my family anymore. They were staring directly at me. Six pairs of eyes followed me as I stepped into the room, and then Felix turned around too. His face was covered in blood, but his eyes were clear. He looked at me with something I had never seen there before... disappointment.

"You did this."

The words came from Felix, but they sounded like Dad’s voice. Then Dad looked at me, and mom followed, and suddenly all three of them were staring at me as though I was the enemy standing in their home.

I shook my head desperately, stumbling backward as I tried to tell them that I hadn’t known. I hadn’t known who I was. I hadn’t known anyone would come for them. I hadn’t known anything about lost Moon Princesse or Starfall or Reapers.

But my mouth wouldn’t work. No matter how hard I tried, not a single word came out.

The masked warriors began moving toward my family again, and I threw myself between them, desperately trying to stop them, but my hands passed through their weapons as though I was nothing more than a ghost.

"Please," I begged, finally finding my voice. "Please, don’t hurt them."

Nobody listened. Felix looked at me one last time, and instead of fear, I saw accusation in his eyes. "They came because of you." Then the first blade came down.

"No!"

I woke inside the nightmare only to find myself standing there again, watching the same thing happen over and over. Every time I tried to change something, it became worse.

When I grabbed Felix’s arm, he slipped through my fingers. When I tried to pull Mom away, she screamed that I was the reason they were dying. When I reached Dad, he looked at me with tears in his eyes and asked why I hadn’t saved them. Their voices followed me even after their bodies disappeared, filling every corner of the house until I couldn’t tell whether I was hearing them or hearing the cruelest parts of my own mind.

I knew it wasn’t true. Somewhere in the deepest, most rational part of me, I knew it. I knew they had been murdered because people were searching for someone who wasn’t even aware of her own identity.

I knew I hadn’t invited those men into our home. I knew I hadn’t chosen for my family to die. But knowing something and feeling it were two entirely different things, and my nightmare had decided that tonight I wouldn’t be allowed to remember the difference.

So, I ran.

I ran through the hallway, past the living room, past the kitchen, past the staircase, desperate to escape the voices behind me. I didn’t care where I went. I only wanted to get away from the blood, the screams, the accusing eyes.

I pushed through the front door and kept running, tears blurring my vision as I begged the nightmare to let me go. But instead of reaching the street, I found myself sitting behind a steering wheel. My hands were already wrapped around it.

My breath caught instantly as I looked beside me and felt every muscle in my body turn rigid.

Jasper.

He was sitting in the passenger seat, exactly as he had been that late afternoon. For a single heartbeat, a distant part of my mind recognized what was happening. This was another nightmare. I had already lived through this. Jasper had survived. He was alive. He was safe. I knew that. I knew it with every rational part of myself. But then I pressed the brake.

Nothing happened.

I pressed it again.

Nothing.

My heart began pounding. I reached for my magic, desperate for anything that could help us, but there was nothing. No ice. No wind. No spark. My magic had been cut off completely, just like that terrible afternoon.

Then I looked ahead and saw the truck. It was coming straight toward us.

The awareness that this was a nightmare disappeared instantly. I knew exactly what would happen next. I knew the impact. I knew the screaming metal, the violent roll down the slope, the helpless feeling of being trapped inside something I couldn’t control. And I knew Jasper would be beside me when it happened.

"Jasper," I whispered, my voice shaking violently.

He looked at me, and I tried the brake again. Nothing. I tried my magic again. Nothing. I grabbed the steering wheel and desperately tried to turn, but my hands felt useless. The truck was getting closer. I could hear the horn. I could hear my own heartbeat. I could hear Jasper telling me something, but I couldn’t understand his words because terror had completely consumed me.

The impact came.

The car twisted violently, glass shattered around us, and the world became a blur of metal and darkness. I screamed Jasper’s name as we went down the slope, certain that this was where the nightmare would end.

It didn’t.

Suddenly, I was outside the wreckage.

I turned around and saw the car lying below me. For one brief, impossible second, relief filled my chest. But then I saw Jasper.

He was still inside.

"No!"

I ran toward the car, but my legs wouldn’t move fast enough. I screamed for him, clawing at the ground as I tried to reach him, but something invisible held me back.

Jasper looked toward me through the shattered window. His face was bloodied, his body trapped, and his eyes were fixed on mine.

"Jasper!"

The car caught fire.

"No! NO!"

I tried to move again. I screamed until my throat hurt. I begged him to get out. I begged the world to give me one chance to save him. But the flames spread across the wreckage, and I could only watch.

Then the car exploded.