The past few nights had been terrible for sleep. She had been surprised she hadn’t fallen asleep at her desk during some lectures yesterday, but sleep was not happening for her. She wasn’t sure why, maybe she just couldn’t get her mind to calm down. She’d hoped that tonight would be better, but by the time her alarm went off the next morning, Roz had still barely slept.
But she had things to get done, so she forced herself out of bed with a yawn, sleepily making her way to the washroom while Phoebe rolled over and helped herself to the warm spot Roz had vacated. Must be nice to be a cat of any kind.
She made her way to the bathroom and turned on the water to wash her face. She started with it cold, splashing it over her face to wake herself up more. She was going to need all of the coffee to get through the day.
It was when she reached for her cleanser that things started to get weird. In the span of a few seconds, it started to go blurry, more and more so. It took half a second to feel panic start to rise. She’d experienced something similar before when she’d gone blind. But that had been slower, before all at once. By the time Roz reached for the water, splashing more on her face in hopes that it would somehow clear it up, everything was dark.
She immediately turned and began feeling her way out of the bathroom, then her bedroom, trying to find the door. Stay calm, she kept telling herself. stay calm.. If her eyes had been fixed once, it could be done again, right?
After tripping over a pair of shoes, and nearly hitting the wall, she found her way to the bedroom door. Roz threw it open and stepped through, hoping to find someone else in the house to help her. She took two steps forward and crashed hard into something in her way. The bathroom sink. She was back in her bathroom somehow, and couldn’t find her way out.
Sabrina had eventually left Nick, knowing she needed to check in on the others and somehow locate wherever Dan was in this hellscape of a dreamland. There was only one creature she knew who could fuck with their dreams this much and it was going to take Dan’s abilities to get rid of Batibat. It wasn’t his dream that Sabrina stepped into though, finding Roz at her bathroom sink instead.
She wasn’t sure what was going on at first or why being in the bathroom would be terrifying to her friend. Looking around for a moment wasn’t giving her any answers either. Sabrina hadn’t been able to snap her aunties out of their dreamloops the last time around, only Ambrose, but Sabrina hoped she would be able to help break Roz from whatever twisted occurrence was happening.
“Roz?”
The sound of Sabrina’s voice caused her to jump slightly, her grip on the handle of her bathroom door tightening. Roz turned her head toward the sound of Sabrina’s voice, but her eyes were unseeing, likely looking past Sabrina, or the space around her. “Sabrina?”
That was her, right? This wasn’t somet kind of trick. She reached out her free hand in the general direction she’d heard her. How did she get in? Had she just become turned around by mistake? “Brina, that’s you, right?”
Blindness. That had to be what this was. Sabrina knew it was something that Roz had struggled with when it had happened to her back home. She’d managed to cure it but Batibat was really good at playing with their fears, picking at the ones that could be twisted the worst, locking them into an endless loop. One that was realistic enough that they wouldn’t think to break out of it.
She couldn’t exactly get Roz to look at her hands and realize this wasn’t real though. Not like she had with Nick. She wasn’t sure if Roz even knew that trick. Dan had taught the other two about it so they had some control over their nightmares.
Sabrina reached out and caught her friend’s hand. “It’s me. We’re being attacked by a sleep demon, Roz. None of this is real.”
What did a sleep demon have to do with her not being able to see? Rosalind felt Sabrina’s hand, it was there, she was there, which meant Sabrina could help her again, right? “You have your celestial powers still.” Roz stated, “Can you heal my eyes again? Why did it go back?” Did Sabrina lose her powers, or was the spell only temporary?
Roz squeezed Sabrina’s hand in one of hers, and tried to reach around for the sink with the other, looking for the taps to turn the water. That was how it had been done the first time, it could be done again, right?
"I do, yeah. But they're not going to work here, Roz." Sabrina knew that Batibat would only keep manipulating the dream to tighten around her friend, never quite giving her the relief of sight again.
She watched her friend fiddle with the taps and let out a sigh. It had been like this with her aunts. No amount of trying to reason with them had helped. They had been trapped and unable to break free from what was happening.
"I have to go find, Dan."
“Why not?” she asked, a little more panicked. “It worked before, it can work again.” It wasn’t like someone had recursed her, right? She eventually did find the tap, and turned it on. She turned her head in the general direction she knew Sabrina to be in, squeezing her hand one more.
“We can go find Dan right after.” She was, essentially, desperate. Her blindness before had not been handled gracefully, she knew that. But the feeling of loss and hopelessness had been overwhelming, and she could not go back to that again.
"This isn't reality, Roz. Magic won't work here like that. Miracles won't work here." Not like they had before. She squeezed her friend's hand, knowing it wasn't the answer she wanted to hear.
Sabrina pulled away, letting go of Roz's hand. She didn't want to leave her friend but every second trapped in the dreamworld left them vulnerable, open to attacks on the physical and mental planes. Salem was probably doing what he could to help in the waking world, but even he could distract the demon for so long.
"But I know how to fix this so I need to go. I'll be back. Or Nick might get to you first. But I need to get to Dan." Preferably before Batibat are anyone.
“Wait, Sabrina!” she took a few steps forward, leaving the tap running and trying to find where her hand went. She couldn’t find her though, and Roz once again found herself carefully moving from the bathroom, through her bedroom, and trying to find the door to the hallway. If she caught up to Sabrina, or just found anyone else, they could figure it out from there.
I’m sorry, Roz.
Sabrina didn’t stop though, stepping through the liminal space between the criss-crossing dreams. She cringed when she heard Roz call out for her, hopeful that Nick would manage to get to her next and be able to stick with their friend. She needed to get to Dan and pushed through, heading off toward the next dream, pulling at the connection the two of them shared.