#agelesswatch

    She is looking at you, her mouth moving as if in speech, but the crowd drowns her words out. They are pouring onto the stage, grabbing at your hands, your clothes and your face. They are killing you. 

    They call it love.

     You are in a bright city, filled with music and magic. 

    You are dancing in the streets carelessly alongside creatures as they drink out of gold-like goblets. They offer some to you and you pour the dark liquid down your throat. You are laughing into the fur of a great beast you did not recognize, but did not fear. The beast is dancing with you. The beast is braying, it is calling to you. It asks you to open your eyes. 

    You do not. You do not want to see it. They are offering you more of the drink. You do not take it. You feel the soft fur underneath your hands grow coarse, brittle. Dead.

    You are laughing. You are crying. You open your eyes ( too late too late too late ) and you can see nothing but ruins. Everyone you did not know has already been long gone.

    There is a lady standing in the courtyard, aged as the cracked stone she stood upon, yet as new as the day they were set. She is staring at you in what you wondered to be pity. 

    She is trying to talk to you, but you cannot hear her past the blood rushing in your ears and the oil that laid heavy in your gut, claiming you from the inside and dying you ink black.

    It calls you theirs.

    You are at a home that does not belong to you. 

    There is a man holding onto your shoulders, wearing an easygoing smile on his face that mirrored your own. He speaks, but you cannot understand him. Perhaps you never could understand him. He speaks, so merrily, and does not stop speaking. There is black liquid pouring out of his mouth, he is choking. He cannot stop talking. 

    The man let goes of you. He cannot breathe, the liquid is pouring from his eyes. He is trying to look at you. He does not recognize you. He does not blame you. You know he is wrong.

    There is a lady standing in the yard, face filled with youth that was not hers. She is looking at the black oil staining your hands. You do not know how they got there. 

    She does not speak. You can feel her wordless judgment suffocating you. The man grabs your arm, he is begging you. You cannot look at him. Shame fills you. He is crying. You made him cry.

    He calls it regret.

    There is a demon standing before you. His face gaunt with black eyes and a grin that stretches painfully wide across his mouth. On the floor between you and him were mangled bodies of people you knew names for but could not recognize. You do not understand. You feel so tired. 

    “ You’re not real, ”   the demon says,   “ You’re running out of time, no matter how much you insist elsewise. They will find her, and when they do, you will die, as you have before. ”

    You realized that the man’s mouth had not been moving as he spoke, his grin kept perfectly still as if carved into a marble face. You knew how much it hurt, because it mirrored your own. You hear the sound of metal crumpling, the sound of people screaming.

    He asks, as he crumbles into dust before you, the words tasting bitter in your mouth,

“ Is it not time to remember? ”

     You couldn’t feel anything but envy as you watched him disappear, sinking deeper into your throne that you cannot leave. Time passes. You cannot stand it. You have to. You don’t. You do.

     You call it eternity.

    You hear footsteps approaching and look up into the dark.

    There is a lady staring at you, signs of age carved into her skin, yet her eyes remain clear. In her hands she is holding a key. She is approaching you.

    You do not want her to find out what it does, but you cannot speak, cannot beg. 

    She grows closer and you attempt to run from her, but there is no room to run on the stage. The stench of rotting roses overwhelms you. She is speaking, but you do not want to hear her words. She is reaching towards you, you move away. She does not give up, you take another step backwards.

    You are falling.

    Falling.

    Falling.

    Falling through memories. You are mad, you are sane. You have long grown tired of both. There is blood and fuel staining your hands, sins etched into them too deep to ever dream being free of. You are staring into eternity. Your mind fractures, you break it further. 

    The sound of a ticking clock accompanies the song that drowns you. They are laughing at you, your screams join Their chorus.

    There is a lady staring at you. In her hands she is holding a broken key, she is offering it to you.

    You reach out for it with trembling claws.

    You want to call it retribution.

    William bolted up and clamped a hand tight over his mouth, muffling the screams that threatened to escape him as he woke up. With shaking hands he reached for- no, no please- his glasses and shoved them messily onto his face. He wasn’t sure for how long he sat there, struggling to control his breathing. The details of his dream were already long faded, yet the pit it’d left in his stomach refused to recede. Good grief.

     Suspecting he’d be getting no more rest, nor did he want to risk another nightmare, he dressed as quickly as he could and slipped out of his tent alongside all it’s accursed dreams, holding a lantern in hand. It was still night out, with the barest slimmer of the moon high in the sky, though it served nothing to dissuade the impenetrable darkness. William had never feared the night or the dark, not really. For a long time, it’d been his friend.

     What he feared was the things that lay hidden within it. 

     Still, thank the heavens, the fresh air already served to calm him. He’d been having nightmares he could never remember ever since he woke up in this nonsensical world. Sometimes he still wondered if it all really was just hell he found himself in. Had he really been so cruel in his life to deserve such fate? 

     The thought made him violently flinch, though he couldn’t comprehend why.

( He could, he could understand, he knew who it was he had to ask for. But he wouldn't, he couldn't.

How selfish of him. )

“ William? ”

     There is a lady staring at him-

“ Are you well, dear? ”

It was just Ms. Wickerbottom, it was just her, he quickly told his racing heart as relief flooded him. William turned to look at her, still fearing he would see another ( who ? ), but it was just Wickerbottom. He let out an awkward laugh and nodded at her question, praying that the lantern he carried would not betray how much he shook.

“ I’m- I’m quite well, Ms, ”   he answered, still chuckling. 

( He couldn’t tell her, he could never tell anyone. Even though he couldn’t remember, guilt still clogged his throat, suffocating him. )

“ Just, just needed to clear my mind! Anxieties have been… getting the better of me, I suppose. ”

“ I see, would you like to talk about it, dear? I might be able to help. ”

He could never tell anyone. 

“ It’s- It’s quite alright, but I thank you for the offer. ”   he said with a strained smile. He couldn’t.

     ...and it was only fair. After all, they’ve been hiding things from him as well. Besides, there was no use in worrying over something as silly as forgotten dreams.

     It was fine. It didn’t matter.

There is a lady staring at him. There is a clock ticking. She is speaking to him but he cannot hear-