In My Dreams

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MY FIRST FEATURE!

INTRODUCTION:~~~

Hello, everyone! Here's a little story I wrote for the #Themeweekend. I used this as an opportunity to introduce a few of my OCs so  I hope you enjoy :blush: .

Word count: 1,900

Time taken: 6-7 hours

Characters: Reina, Akame & Naoko (OCs)

Trigger Warnings: Chronic pain, ...Drug use?

Synopsis: Reina had been feeling weird all morning, something wasn't right. Was she simply being paranoid? Or was there really something wrong?

Tags: #CCCWritingReview,

#Featurethis

In My Dreams

“Hey, Reina,” Akame was waiting for me when I stepped outside. It was nothing unusual; we had been walking to school together ever since primary school. But something about the action still felt weird to me. Shrugging it off, I walked towards him and greeted him.

“Naoko isn’t here yet?” He asked as we began to walk. I shook my head even though it wasn’t really a question. He spun around and started walking backwards, his peculiar slitted red eyes studying me. I opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong when he interrupted me, “Is something bothering you? You seem kinda out of it,”

I sighed. Nothing slips past this guy. “It’s nothing. I probably didn’t sleep well. Everything just feels weird.” He looked at me for a while longer, brows furrowed and head cocked to the side. Then raised his hand as if to check the temperature of my forehead, but before he could touch me I flinched and knocked his hand away.

He blinked, mirroring my surprise. “Reina?”I looked at my hand and then back at his concerned expression. “I...I’m not sick...I don’t know why I did that,” He still looked like he wanted to ask something but, to my relief, just shook his head and we continued to walk together in silence.

Soon I began hearing the sound of pounding footsteps getting closer. Akame sighed beside me just as Naoko crashed into us, flinging her arms around our shoulders and nearly causing us to fall over. I couldn’t help but laugh once I regained my balance. I’d been feeling weird all morning, but this? Naoko’s cheerful aggressiveness was one of the most consistent things in my life.

“Good Morning!”

“Yeah, yeah. Good morning to you too. I swear, one of these days you’re going to snap our necks if you continue jumping on us like that.” Akame slipped from underneath her embrace and glared at her half heartedly.

She just rolled her eyes at him and turned around to look at me. “Reina, I found a book yesterday that I wanted to show you. Will you come by my place after school?” I nodded and assured her that I would. She usually read such fascinating books so I was a more than a little interested.

“I’m not invited? I’m heartbroken.”Akame said. “Besides, did you waste the whole of last night as well by reading?”  He gestured towards the bags under her eyes.

“It’s not wasting if I’m reading,” She snapped. “And no, I was studying. It took me longer than expected to make sense of what I had written in my notes.”

Akame gasped, his eyes blown comically wide, and raised a hand to his chest. “You were studying?! Nao, are you alright? Did you hit your head somewhere?”

“Shut up, jerk,” She growled and moved to shove him, but he danced out of the way with a laugh. He took off running, Naoko right behind. I rolled my eyes and let a smile form on my face. Not wanting to be left behind, I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, enjoying the feeling of the wind rushing by me.

================

“Kaida-kun!”

Naoko snapped upright in her seat, “Yes, Sensei?”

“Were you listening to what I was saying?”

I watched Naoko freeze in place, “Yes...”

“Really? Then tell me, what was I saying right now?” Sensei asked.

“You were explaining how certain elements displace each other...” She trailed off.

I winced slightly as Sensei sighed and shook his head. “We’ve already moved past that. Please try to pay more attention Kaida-kun.”

Naoko slumped in her seat in front of me. I reached out and patted her on the shoulder. It was clear she was frustrated with herself. She tries hard but she couldn’t help spacing out during class at times. Especially in classes she didn’t find particularly interesting.

Akame leaned back in his seat in front her, “Tough luck, Nao,” He whispered. There was a slight thud and Akame jolted in his seat. Naoko began muttering furiously about how insufferable Akame was. Luckily for her Sensei chose to ignore the noise. Her hard shelled tail was flitting side to side right in front of my desk, the stinger dangerously to my face. “Might wanna calm down a little, Nao.”

She huffed and leaned back, “You’ll help me out with this later, right? I can’t understand a single thing he’s saying.”

“That depends, are you going to actually listen to me this time?”

“Of course, sweetheart. Your voice is so beautiful that I just simply cannot tune you out.” I rolled my eyes; I could almost envision her sharp grin while saying that. Shaking my head, I returned to writing my notes.

Soon enough, the bell rang and we were done for the day. I could feel the beginnings of a headache and wanted nothing more than to get back home so I could sleep. We started walking towards Naoko’s house, talking about the exams that were fast approaching.

“We’ve already told you, Nao. Ask us if you need help studying. We’re not going to judge you, we understand your situation.” Akame was dribbling a basketball at his side and looking at Naoko.

I nodded, agreeing with him. Naoko had difficulty concentrating during classes due to her ADHD. She excelled in math and language, two subjects that she enjoyed, but others not so much. She had tried explaining it to us before, saying that she had a hard time getting herself to start and continue studying them without getting distracted.

“I know, I know.” She sighed. Then snatched the ball from Akame and glared at him. “You’re one to talk. You're too busy teasing me to be of any help.”

He scoffed, “What, do you expect me to let you wallow in your self-pity? I’m your friend, Nao. It’s my job to tease you and snap you out of your funk.” He made a move for the ball but Naoko pulled it out of his way.

My head was pounding way too hard right then. I felt like I was about to out.

“Oh, yes. Highlight of my life, aren’t you?” I heard Naoko snark through the roaring in my ears. I stumbled and bumped into something. Looking down I realized I had bumped into a little girl with dark blue hair. She looked up at me with wide gray eyes filled with fear. I noticed she had dark vein-like shadows swirling across her skin. But before I could say anything she quickly ran away.

Something about her deeply unsettled me. She looked uncannily like me if you ignore the shadows moving across her skin. Akame and Naoko had come to stand beside me and was asking me if anything was wrong, but I couldn’t say anything. My eyes had found and were fixed on something lying on the ground in the direction the girl had come from.

It was a man, his eyes wide, body unmoving. Dead.

His body was covered in the same dark shadows as the girl that had run away. I stumbled away, a scream building in my throat. I fell back and shut my eyes. My head hurt and I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. My lips parted and the scream erupted from my throat.

The sudden feeling of my back slamming into a hard object had my eyes flying open. I was no longer in an alleyway but rather in a dark room. I gasped, my entire body felt like it was on fire. Feeling disoriented, I looked around until my head cleared and I could understand where I was and what was happening.

I was in my room. That was all a dream. And now my quirk was going haywire. I struggled, trying to sit up, but I kept crashing back onto the bed. My chest was tight and I was having difficulty breathing. Squirming around in my bed caused me to fall off and I hit the ground with a thud.

I pulled myself onto my knees and reached towards my nightstand where I normally kept my quirk suppressants. The pressure around my eyes made it difficult to see where I had kept it, and the lack of light in the room wasn’t helping. I kept hitting my hand against other objects until I finally felt the slim shape of a syringe and the small bottle of the drug. After nearly stabbing myself with the needle a few times I finally drew some of it into the syringe, hoping desperately I wasn’t mes the measurement.

Hands shaking violently, I inserted the needle into my neck and pushed the plunger down. I tossed the empty syringe aside and braced myself against the floor with my hands. I was trembling and my breathing was ragged. Slowly but surely I felt the drug start to take affect and the intensity of my quirk began to decrease.

Once the pain was little more bearable I raised my hand and wiped my eyes, trying to stop the tears from slipping out. “Damn it,” I hissed through clenched teeth. This stupid quirk, it had been a while since I last had such an intense attack and I’d nearly begun to forget what it felt like. But, of course, such reprieve wouldn’t last long.

I thought about the dream I had just had. I didn’t have a quirk in it, and the little girl that had bumped into me was me from the past.

And the man, I swallowed, that was the first person I had ever killed. Dead bodies were nothing new to me. I had been an assassin for too long to be scared of a corpse. But the sight of that man was probably what had jolted me out of that weird dream and caused my quirk to act up so violently. I looked down at my arms and saw the same shadows from the dream crawling under my skin.

It was the only visible evidence of my quirk that brought me so much pain. It still hurt, the quirk suppressants never truly got rid of it, just reduced its intensity.

I dragged myself off the floor and slumped down on my bed. Throwing my arm over my eyes, I let out a laugh that had been bubbling in my chest. Such a ridiculous and foolish dream that was. A world where I was quirkless and didn’t have to suffer every second, where I didn’t have to be careful and worry about accidently touching someone and hurting them as well.

Where Akame, Naoko and I were accepted by society and not judged for the way we were born. It was such a preposterous thought, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bitter. It would have been nice, to live in such a world where we were just normal high school students rather than wanted villains. Where our greatest worries were ing the next exam and not wondering who was going to be the next person attempting to kill us.

I sighed and settled into a more comfortable position, knowing full well that I probably wouldn’t get any more sleep tonight.

The world was unfortunately too cruel for something like that to ever happen but it was nice to get to visit such a utopia in my dreams at least.

THE END

A/N- I'm working on wikis for the characters and considering how much I enjoyed writing about them I'll probably use them a lot more in the future.

Just a little clarification incase anyone is confused, Naoko's quirk gives her a tail like a scorpion's stinger. And the chronic pain T.W was referring to Reina's quirk.

Cover Art

Thank you for reading, Have a nice day!