Who: Cora Hale What: Dreams. Repercussions of dreams. When: Middle of the night, 27/28 September Where: Hale-Martin apartment Warnings: Violence. Reference to abuse. Reference to family dying. Status: Narrative | Complete
To say that Cora was stressed would be an understatement. She was mostly avoiding the network and would prefer to forget it even existed. The Dreams continued on. Each one worse than the other. The things she had done in order to survive on her own for so long. No family because she thought they had all died. When awake, she knew it was that they hadn't looked for her, that they thought she was dead. But in the Dreams, no. She was alone and that was all she knew. Surviving. It was as if each job and situation she found herself while on the move was worse than the one before, if that were even possible. She woke up with the injuries and always made sure to hide them before Lydia caught wind of them. All Cora wanted was for them to go away. She wanted the confusion to go away as well. The not knowing who to trust or if she could trust her own instincts. She had always been able to before, but now with Stiles and his vendetta against Uncle Peter for the Dreams and nothing else, for how he acted and behaved, she had to question if she had made a serious error in judgement and if she had, then what did that mean for other judgements.
God it would have been so much easier had she not let him in at all. Then she'd just write him off and be done with it.
Instead, she was out running more often than not. Heat waves happened, and she still ran. It was familiar. It was what she knew, even if she wasn't doing cross-country anymore. But classes were starting this week, which meant she had to try and regulate her routine. And there was only so much running a person could do before their limbs felt like they would fall off.
So long as she didn't sleep too long, Cora would be fine. The cursed sleep had been bad enough. Nothing from the Dreams, just the question of who could she actually trust, or would they all turn on her. Was it a wonder she wanted to avoid sleep, even now? Especially since they were just plagued with Dreams. Surviving the foster system only barely. Killing someone at the age of maybe thirteen just to get out. Moving, always moving. Having to learn how to control werewolf shifts all alone, all while trying to avoid detection of hunters. The scents, the sounds, they haunted her even when she was awake. She just had managed to keep from bothering Lydia too much by seeking blanket fort comfort. But in her Dreams, there was hope. Hope because someone was building up the Hale pack. She could go home. She wouldn't have to be alone anymore. She wouldn't have to be so tough and so guarded. That was the hope.
Cora wasn't sure what time she fell asleep, just that as with each Dream, all the feelings from the previous ones became alive in her. She was on the run. But she was surrounded. Howls every which way and she was knocked out. There had been too many and suddenly she was in a vault. She never left it. She was stuck. There were two others but she couldn't figure out who they were. Just that she wasn't alone. That all of them were stuck. Trapped. It was almost like a fight club. They were forced to fight. They were kept alive, but barely. They were being pushed to a breaking point. For what cause, who knew, but that was the plan.
Not only that, but there was always an Alpha to fight. To push them around. To punish them. Cora fought as best she could, but even though she couldn't tell how long she had been in that cursed vault with no sign of the moon, she could tell that it was a long period of time. Her limbs struggled with every fight, shaking. She felt weaker. She could feel a full moon and the need to change yet physically being incapable of doing so. And the walls were always the same.
Images flashed. Always one of the Alphas. Always a fight. Her body was beaten, bruised and broken and healing just to be punished all over again.
And then she was up, gasping for breath. She could feel blood on her throat and reached up, wincing at the puncture wounds from claws. Great. That would be a lot more difficult to cover up than bruises and gashes along her arms, legs or torso. God, everything hurt. There was always the possibility it was her body protesting all of the running she'd been doing as of late, but Cora knew better. She knew that this was from the abuse in the latest Dream cycle. Not only that, she felt trapped in her own room. Like the walls were closing in around her.
"Come on, snap out of it."
The comment was growled under her breath. She was not about to let the Dreams freak her out this much. Not since seeing her family die in a fire. Not since waking up sickened from killing a man who had been meant to take care of her. She knew the Dreams would only get worse. All she had heard was how fucked up they were from Derek. Well he had no idea.
First she tried to open her window and see if that did any good. Nothing. The walls kept moving in on her and she felt so incredibly dizzy, even as she pressed her hand against the wound on her neck.
"Fine!"
Annoyed and feeling closed in, Cora left her room and after getting the first aide kit from the bathroom, she went to the only place she could go without freaking Lydia completely out by disappearing. The balcony. There was fresh air. She wasn't in an enclosed room. She could breathe. And right now, that was all she really cared about.