InsaneJournal

can you tell me, am i still dreaming.

Who: Jackson.
Where: The Budget Lodge; Jackson’s room.
When: Very early morning.


She was so close he could reach out and touch her, brush his fingertips against her cheek, trace the line of her jaw or her lips, through her hair, down her neck; he could pull her to him in a kiss. When he reached for her, though, the nearness became a horrible, cruel lie, and she was so far out of reach that he couldn’t even feel her warmth; his feet were anchored to the spot, he couldn’t move forward to find her face and take her in his arms. When warmth came it was too much, hot and uncomfortable instead of comforting and familiar, alien and frightening, driving a spear of panic through his chest and down to the pit of his being. No, he screamed in his mind as the first flame sparked into being, licking hungrily up into the space between him and his mate, no, not again, please not again.

That first flame was joined by another, and then another. All too quickly it became an inferno, flashing into existence between him and the woman he loved, separating them by an obstacle he could never hope to overcome, but still he tried, attempting to throw his weight forward and into the blaze. He would walk through fire to get to her. He would give his life if it meant getting to hold her one more time.

She screamed, her voice a high, agonised wail that made him howl in anguish and terror. Over and over again he tried to throw himself forward to no avail as the flames rolled and crackled, eating everything. Eating her. Her screams grew louder, longer, reaching an inhuman pitch as she burned and melted into nothingness--


With a ragged, choking gasp Jackson bolted upright in the bed, the sheets clinging to his sweat-soaked body as he fought for air that refused to reach his lungs. His chest burned, feeling tight, caught in a vice that could crack his ribs and crush him to death at any moment. God, he couldn’t breathe. Tears stung his eyes and a foul taste like bile sat heavy and immovable on the back of his tongue. His body trembled. Inside of him, his wolf paced and thrashed, confused and frustrated and pained.

Jackson swung his legs from the bed, gripping the edge of the mattress as if for dear life, like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline, his eyes squeezed shut and his chest heaving as he struggled to get oxygen down to his lungs. Slowly, ever so slowly, he regained the ability to breathe, but the pain didn’t ease or subside, that tightness didn’t go away. The shaking in his frame ebbed but didn’t stop. The emptiness in his heart and soul was still there.

Dropping his head into his hands, Jackson heaved a heavy, trembling sigh, a hopeless sound, flooded as it was by grief and hopelessness. There would be no more rest for him tonight, that much he knew; the images would be waiting for him if he tried to sleep again, chasing him back into the emptiness of the waking world with razor sharp teeth and claws. This was how it had been since the night of the attack. The night he had lost his pack, his home, and his mate. Jackson was starting to believe, with a dread-laced certainty like a lead weight in the pit of his stomach, this was how it was going to be for the rest of his life. The pain would never stop, the loneliness and the guilt and the grief were never going to leave him.

Jackson didn’t know how much more he could take.