Who: Hansel hans What: Nightmares and Dreamscapes When: Tuesday, Oct. 27, very early morning/late night before dawn Where: His shared home with Gretel. Rating: Audience Discretion is Advised Warnings: Memories of childhood imprisonment by an evil witch. (Literally.) Status: Completed Narrative
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His stomach ached, throbbed inside his belly as if it were a second heart. Every breath he drew in was tainted with sugar---it was as if he were breathing through a cloth soaked in the stuff. Hansel couldn't stop shaking. Courtesy of the amount of candy he'd eaten, his body felt as if it were being lit up by lightning, fire from the sky racing through his veins with every sugar-soaked breath he drew in. Gretel was saying something to the witch. Her face was stained, dirty; Hansel thought they were both crying. It was hard to tell with the buzzing in his ears and the film forming over his eyes.
"Eat!"
The witch screamed at him again. She hit the bars of his cage and Hansel took another bite of the sweet, sweet candy to keep her from hitting him or Gretel. He was going to throw up. Waves of sickness washed over him inside the cloying space of his enclosure. Hansel thought back to a time when his mother had refused him another sweet at a festival. It had made him angry enough to shove Gretel away from him when she'd tried to offer him the rest of hers. He'd gotten a long talking to about how too much sweets could make him very, very sick, even kill him.
Hansel hated realizing his mother had been right.
Too little too late.
They were going to die in this place.
Cold spread over his limbs as he tried to keep eating the block of hardened icing he'd been handed. Hansel could only take in shallow amounts of air. Had the fire from her oven thinned the air in the house? Would he pass out soon? Some old man had fallen asleep never to wake up again the winter before. No matter how much energy seemed to be inside him, Hansel still felt as if he could shut his eyes and let the buzzing push him into dreams. Gretel was fighting the witch. Fighting back. Fighting.
She had her hands on him.
Hansel couldn't wake up enough to push the witch away. He couldn't stop her claws from picking at his clothes or make her stop cackling in his ears. She was so strong. Gretel couldn't think she could stop her, could she? Hansel couldn't even tell if he was still holding the candy he'd been ordered to eat. His fingers were numb on both hands. Tingling sensations raced through all his limbs. Escaping her was impossible. Hansel didn't struggle as she started to shove him into the oven, fire licking at his skin, Gretel's screams echoing in his ears.
How could he still be cold even when he was on fire?
Fire licked at his skin, blisters forming, his eyes were leaking, running, melting----
Falling into the floor with a thud, Hansel looked around his modern bedroom trying to reorient himself to the world he was in.
This was the life he knew very well. This was his real life.
He was shaking as he got up from the floor, his hands and feet tingled as he padded down the hall to the bedroom where Gretel stayed. Hansel didn't knock as he let himself in. He couldn't help the chattering of his teeth. Sickness churned in his stomach as if he'd actually been eating all the candy in his Dream.
Hansel settled onto the thick rug at the side of Gretel's bed, curling into a tight ball as he tried to focus on the sound of his sister breathing.
Gretel wasn't screaming. Hansel was not on fire. There were no witches here.