Nightmare, The Inversion of Light

(Akane's PoV)

—

The darkness of the dream descended like a heavy, iron shutter slamming violently into its concrete tracks, cutting off the warmth of the mattress and the quiet, grounding scent of sandalwood in a single fraction of a second.

Suddenly, my frame became small. Entirely too small.

I was standing barefoot on the cold, unyielding tiles of a luxury kitchen hallway that smelled of stale tobacco and old grease. 

My small fingers were locked tightly around the worn fabric of my socks, my knees shaking beneath a faded childhood dress as the air in the corridor turned thick, suffocating, and impossible to breathe. 

I knew this wallpaper, with this exact pattern of the peeling yellow flowers near the baseboards, and I also knew the heavy, sickening cadence of the rain rattling against the glass panes at the far end of the room.

'No…'

From just around the corner, a voice shattered the quiet like a dynamic blast.

"Where the hell were you?!"

The roar was immense, vibrating through the floorboards and rattling right up into the marrow of my tiny bones. It was his voice. 

The kind of voice that belonged to a piece of shit. 

I crept toward the doorway, my small eyes wide and filled with an ancient, unadulterated terror as I peered into the dim light of the kitchen.

My mother was backed entirely against the linoleum counter, her narrow shoulders hunched forward as if she were trying to make herself small enough to slip through the cracks of the wall. 

Her work blouse was rumpled, and her hair were a messy, frayed curtain around a face that was already slick with a cold sweat.

Standing directly in her space, his massive frame daping a long, predatory shadow over her body, was my father. 

His face was twisted into a cruel, unhuman mask of pure, authoritative fury, with his veins bulging like black wires along the line of his neck.

"YOU WERE TOO LATE!" he screamed, his heavy palm slamming down onto the wood of the kitchen table with a terrifying crack that made the porcelain cups dance. "Who exactly were you with, you miserable whore?! Why the hell didn't you answer my calls when I called the office?! Tell me!"

"I... I just encountered heavy traffic on the industrial high street, Shinjro, please...!" my mother wept, her voice a thin, ragged thread as she held her hands up to protect her face. "The train gates were locked down... I didn't ignore you... I swear...!"

"Don't you dare lie to me, you fucking bitch!" he bellowed, his arm swinging through the air with a brutal, merciless momentum.

The heavy back of his hand hit her cheek with a sickening, wet thud. 

My mother's frame was violently thrown sideways, her shoulder smashing hard into the cabinet doors before she collapsed onto the linoleum, a dark line of crimson immediately trickling from the corner of her swollen mouth.

"Mommy!"

The scream ripped free from my childish throat before my common sense could lock it down.

I didn't think about the the danger. The only thing I wanted to do in that moment was nothing more than protect her.

I just lunged forward, my small bare feet flying across the cold tiles as I threw my tiny body directly between his heavy leather boots and my mother's shivering form. 

I reached my thin arms out, trying to build a protective wall around her head, my eyes burning with a wild, desperate rage.

"Stop it! Leave her alone! Don't touch her!" I shrieked, my voice cracking into a high, pathetic sob, while my entire body was shaking with fear.

My father's massive shadow slowly turned toward me.

His golden eyes slided down to look at my tiny face, carrying a cold, surgical disgust that was far more terrifying than his physical anger. 

He didn't look at me like a daughter; he looked at me like an insect that had dared to disrupt his schedule.

"And what exactly do you want to do, you useless little parasite?" he whispered, his voice dropping into that dangerously quiet, skin-crawling register that filled the room like gas. 

He reached down, his large, rough hand catching the front of my dress, and violently shoved my frame away. "You were nothing but a miserable mistake from the very start! You should have never been born into this family!"

I was thrown backward, my spine colliding hard against the sharp metal edge of the refrigerator before I slid flat onto the floorboards, a sharp, blinding pain exploding through my lower back. 

Then, I began to weep openly, my small hands wrapping around my knees as the sheer, suffocating cruelty of his words turned my blood to liquid ice.

"Akane... please..." my mother groaned from the linoleum, her eyes wide with a frantic, desperate terror as she tried to lift her head through the blood. "Please, just go back into your room... don't stay here… do it for mommy..."

I tried to push myself up, to crawl back into the space to shield her, but before my fingers could catch a grip on the wood, the entire kitchen began to warp and distort. 

The yellow wallpaper dissolved into a gray, featureless fog, the sound of my mother's cries fading into a heavy, continuous static that hummed through the center of my brain.

The scenery flipped upside down in a single heartbeat.

Suddenly, I was standing in the long, white corridor of the senior administrative wing at school. 

The morning light was pouring through the large glass windows, illuminating the polished floorboards with a brilliant, blinding glare.

Standing less than seven feet away from my classroom door was Shin.

My heart executed a sudden, weightless leap of pure relief. 

'Shin,' my mind called out, my legs automatically preparing to lunge toward his space to escape the lingering frost of the kitchen dream.

But as I took my first step forward, my boots froze dead against the linoleum.

He wasn't alone. He was standing dangerously close to another girl, his fingers locked tightly, securely within hers in a deep, unbreakable grasp. 

I tried to see at who the girl beside him was, but when I tried to look at her face, my vision encountered a terrifying, blank void. 

She possessed absolutely no features: no eyes, no mouth, no strawberry curls or dark hair. 

She was a hollow, faceless silhouette woven out of pure shadow, representing every single nameless girl who walked the hallways of the school.

Then Shin slowly turned his head to look at me. 

His dark eyes, which always held that quiet, beautiful warmth when they processed my outline, were completely cold. 

They carried a flat, detached indifference that turned my stomach to stone.

"Akane," he said, his voice dropping into a level, emotionless register that lacked a single drop of human warmth. "I can't stand your insecurities anymore. Your paranoia has become a suffocating weight, and I don't need someone who denies me to live. Thank you for what you've done, but I need a girl who is sure of herself."

After his words, he turned his torso away from my face, his fingers maintaining their secure hold on the faceless girl's hand, and began to walk smoothly down the corridor, their two silhouettes completely vanishing into the white glare of the sun.

"SHIN! NO! WAIT, PLEASE! JUST W—"

And then, I ripped myself out of the dream with a violent, frantic convulsion of my entire body.

My eyes flew open in the dark room, my throat letting out a sharp, strangled gasp for air as my lungs fought to clear the suffocating weight of the nightmare. 

I sat bolt upright on the mattress, my breath coming in jagged, desperate pants that rattled loudly against the quiet of the night.

A cold, heavy sweat was dripping down the nape of my neck, and my vision was completely blurred by a thick, stinging wave of hot tears that were already spilling over my cheeks.

Moreover, my entire body was shaking with a massive, uncontrollable tremor, my fingers frantically clawing at the duvet as if I were falling through an empty sky.

'Where is he? Where is he?'

My mind was a chaotic, screaming vacuum of pure panic. I turned my head wildly through the dark room, my eyes desperately searching the shadows for the only anchor that could make the world stop turning to dust.

Then, beside me, the heavy fabric of the duvet shifted.

The sudden, frantic movement of my frame had broken the slow cadence of his sleep.

Shin slowly pushed himself up from the pillow, his hair disheveled, and his eyes blinking through the gloom as he heard the ragged sound of my breathing.

"Akane...?" he murmured, his voice deep, carrying the heavy lethargy of the night.

The mere sound of his voice clearing the air acted like an electric shock.

Without saying any single word, I simply lunged across the space separating our pillows, my bare arms flying out to tackle his frame as I threw my entire weight against his chest.

I buried my face deep into the rough, warm curve of his neck, hiding my entire head beneath his chin as if I were trying to physically merge my skull into his collarbone.

Then, I locked my arms around his naked shoulders with a white-knuckled, desperate tightness, my fingers digging hard into his skin to verify the absolute solidity of his presence.

Without even realizing, I was sobbing, with my tears falling freely from my eyes.

Shin didnt ask anything. 

The exact moment my wet face hit his skin and his ears heard the silent, violent hitching of my chest, his arms just opened wide. 

He wrapped them securely around my back, pulling my shivering self flush against his radiating torso, locking me into an embrace that was so incredibly tight it practically squeezed the panic right out of my lungs.

"I'm sorry..." I choked out into his skin, my voice a broken, wet whimper that was entirely stripped of pride. "I... I just had an incredibly horrible nightmare, Shin... My father... the blood... and my terrifying fear of losing you... the ghosts simply refuse to leave my mind alone. They don't want to let me live or breathe... Please... I beg you... just hold me tight. Don't let me go." I said, holding him even tighter. 

After my words, Shin remained completely silent. And… that was the right thing to do.

No words could calm the terror inside of me.

I just needed to be protected.

So, Shin tightened his lock around my waist, his broad palm moving up to press against the back of my head, anchoring my face firmly against his pulse point. 

Then, he began to rub the center of my tensed back in a slow, rhythmic, and incredibly gentle way that matched the steady rise and fall of his own deep breathing.

"I'm right here, Akane," he whispered into the dark strands of my hair, his voice a low, solid, and completely unyielding anchor that cut through the remaining fog of the dream. "I am right here beside you. Nobody is coming here."

Then, Shin leaned his head down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss directly onto my wet temple, his breath a warm, comforting current against my skin. 

He kept his fingers moving through my hair, gently detangling the messy locks with a patient, silent devotion that slowly, carefully began to draw the poison out of my marrow.

I held onto him like a lifeline, my chest gradually slowing its frantic pounding as the deep scent of sandalwood and pure skin completely filled my lungs, replacing the stale tobacco smell of my father's kitchen. 

The white gauze on my left forearm was stil pressed against his side, like a quiet reminder of the real world we were building together, one lunch break at a time.

I let the silence run between us, my tears slowly drying against his neck as his steady, unhurried warmth pushed the dark ghosts deep back into the shadows where they belonged.

With every slow stroke of his hand against my head, the tight wire behind my ribs turned slack, until the heavy exhaustion of the night finally began to pull my consciousness back down into a deep, dreamless safety.

That night… I didn't leave Shin's side for a second. I couldn't.

As long as I remained in his arms, the ghosts couldn't find me.

—

Author’s note: I’ve been writing this from my phone since I’m in hospital, lol. If there’s any mistake, just tell me