Things are Changing || Closed
However, this seemed to not be the case. After a month and a half at Clayton it wasn't getting any easier. Instead, it was getting more difficult. Had he been raised differently, or had a different life he would have gone to someone for help, for advice, for something. This wasn't the case though, so he never stopped to consider it as an option. The only people he had ever gone to for help were the gang, and well, they weren't here now. Not only that though. It wasn't really getting help. Not the way they did it. It was more like giving orders and making plans that helped. This was hardly the kind of thing he could have approached them about though. Standing developed over time, and yes he had been with them for a long time so he had a pretty good standing and plenty of respect, but if he had been having nightmares and said something, well, that was the kind of thing that could make you lose standing and respect in less than a second. Only the strong got respect. Only those who were able to do something for the group. Having a weakness- even if it was one so innocent as nightmares would result in a loss. It was just the nature of it. None of that mattered anymore though. He was at Clayton, not on the streets of Romania. Still, the only option was to deal with it himself, just like he had done with almost everything else.
It had started innocently enough. Waking up and remembering the dreams. Remembering how his father had found him and forced him to go home. This was the beginning of the bad dreams, with him being forced back into the life he had once had. With these dreams he hadn't really been scared. More than anything else, he had really been angry. He was done with that, whatever the consequences might be. There would be no more handing over the money to his drunkard of a father. There would be no more getting beaten for not satisfying demands that couldn't possibly be met. That was done. He had made that clear before he had left. Yes, he was replacing himself with Alexandru, but he had changed the conditions of it before he had gone, because it was the least he could do. Knowing how he had threatened his father before he left and made the gang accept Alexandru and promise to retaliate if his father beat Alexandru made the dream only anger him. He was certain everything he had done would hold and his siblings were fine. They had to be.
Then the dreams changed. Dorian was still being found by his father and forced home, but there were variations that never seemed to be the same every night, though every few nights one variation might repeat itself. He began to remember dreams where the deals and arrangements he had made fell through and when he came home Maria was selling herself on the street, Alexandru had been abandoned by the gang and was being beaten worse than he, Dorian, had ever been, Elena was working somewhere but was contemplating joining her sister on the streets since the money was better, Gabriel was doing his best to help out but really a twelve-year-old couldn't do anything, and Iona was starving because she was too young to help out and often forgotten. Sometimes he would be able to make things better and bring things back to the way they were before, sometimes he couldn't. Still, he managed to hide it. It was his problem. Nobody else could help him.
Then there were the dreams where his father somehow brought Elora's father to Clayton with him. Then they were both forced back to Romania and everything they had done was for nothing. These dreams ended in Elora being more unhappy than she had ever been, not that Dorian ever got to see her, and things going back to the way they were- with Dorian doing things he had thought he was finished with to find ways to make ends meet.
Elora disappeared the first time her father appeared in his dream. Even though he knew it had only been a dream, he couldn't rationally really separate it all. His dreams were beginning to haunt him. He was trying to act normal, but it wasn't easy. Elora came back and he thought he was dreaming. It was becoming more difficult to separate it out. His dreams were too vivid. They were too much like reality. His powers were seeping through. He was scared. Yes, he was no longer angry but instead was scared of what he would see when he would sleep. It was beginning to take its toll. He was less attentive. He was less aware. He was more irritable. He could feel himself suffering for lacking sleep, but there was nothing he could do. He, Dorian Niculaie, was scared to sleep, but couldn't get past the idea that he had to handle it himself.
All of this was weird and upsetting, but it was about to get stranger. He woke up one morning a little under two months since he had gotten here and suddenly, he was a girl. He had no idea what had happened. He had hoped it was a dream, though truly he knew it couldn't be. After all, the path that his dreams took was consistent. Struggling to figure out how to be a girl for the time that he was temporarily one wore him down. He managed to hold it together, and actually get a little better while he was a girl, because the situation demanded it, but pretty soon after he was back in his normal body, he lost control.
It had been something so simple. Elora had left him a note. It was full of sentiment that he didn't understand and left him with the impression that she had been trying to say something to him that he just wasn't capable of understanding. He spent the day reading it, hoping that maybe the more he read it the more he'd understand, but he didn't. He didn't understand why she left. He found himself questioning whether three days would stay as three days, mostly because what she said echoed through his thoughts. He told himself that he didn't care and that her life was hers to live to keep himself from thinking any more about it.
He argued with Alice. He just didn't want to talk about it and she just pushed. Part of him understood that was who she was, but the rest of him didn't care. He was suddenly fed up with getting things he hadn't asked for, and having people care. It seemed so stupid, that he would be done with something like that, people caring, but truthfully, in his mind it only complicated things. When people cared he was obligated to start figuring out his actions and reactions would make them feel, something that he was extremely bad at. He walked away from Alice, just like he had been doing with everyone else lately and told her that he didn't want to see anymore. It couldn't have been more true. He didn't want to see anyone anymore. He had, quite simply, shut down. He was done.
His room was where he took refugue and where the change from reality to illusion happened. It was seamless, the change from being in his room at Clayton getting ready for bed to being in his room in Romania getting ready for bed. One moment of laying his head down on the pillow in exhaustion was all it took.
"DORIAN!" The little voice screamed. He quickly sat up, before a mass came flying at him and knocked him back over.
He hardly minded though. This was normal. Iona did this sometimes when she had bad dreams or when she thought she saw monsters in the dark. Dorian was her protector, her hero. He had been since she had been a small child and he had comforted her on that first scary night because no one else would. Dorian cared about her.
"Liniște Iona. Te vei trezi toată lumea în sus," (Quiet, Iona. You'll wake everyone up) he commanded quietly, as he always did whenever she came running into the room he shared with Alexandru and Gabriel, righting himself as he spoke. The boys did what they always did which was groan and then roll over. They knew that Dorian would handle it just like he always did and that they could sleep. She said nothing but just cuddled close and whimpered.
"Du-te înapoi în pat, Iona," (Go back to bed, Iona) He said as he always did. He always relented and let her stay, but it didn't stop him from trying. Maybe one of these days she would go back to bed. She would have to at some point. She had to grow up. Everyone did.
"Nu Dorian, te rog nu-mi fac. Există monștri acolo. Ei au spus că au de gând să mă mănânce." (No Dorian, please don't make me. There are monsters in there. They said they were going to eat me.) She sounded scared, which was due to the fact that she was scared. Still, Dorian had to try again. The routine dictated it.
"Iona. Du-te." (Iona. Go.)
"Dorian. Te rugăm să-mi stau. Destul de te rog? Destul rog cu ce vrei pe partea de sus?" (Dorian. Please let me stay. Pretty please? Pretty please with whatever you want on top?).
She always begged to stay. He sighed, knowing that he had to let her. It was the same thing every time. He didn't know why he relented at that phrase, but he did.
"Amenzii. Nu voi pleca nicăieri." (Fine. I won't go anywhere.) He made sure to sound reluctant, which wasn't that hard, since he was a bit reluctant to let her. She was nine. She wasn't four anymore and it wasn't so cute at this point.
She lay down as she knew he expected her to and then stared at him as best as she could through the dark to make sure that he wasn't going anywhere. As he always did, he held her hand and waited for her eyes to close and for her breathing to even out before he detached his hand, laid back down next to her and let himself fall asleep. Never once did a thought of Clayton Academy cross his mind. There was no Alice Lee, no Kendrick, no Kid, no Presley, no one from Clayton. Elora was still only the girl that he met in secret every once in a while, rather than his best friend who he had run away for. He slept without dreaming for the first time in the recent past.
He woke up and she wasn't there. Iona was always there. He looked around the room a little frantically, wondering where she could possibly have gone. Without really thinking about it, he left his room at Clayton and began to look for her, wandering the halls of Clayton calling her name every once in a while. He never saw anything but the halls of his house and the streets of Romania though. There was no Clayton Academy in his mind or his eyes. He wasn't seeing the walls of Clayton. He was seeing the illusion his mind had created for him. Somehow it all managed to merge together so that he wasn't banging into walls and missing doors. If he hadn't been so scared of his power and so used to suppressing it he might been proud of he had managed to accomplish. He wasn't though. Still, it did some good. It left him able to look for Iona.
"Iona, unde ești?" (Iona, where are you?)
