He was drowning again.

Daran Moreau wanted to think he was beyond such silly things like dreams and nightmares but once again he was proven wrong. What was the point of dreams and nightmares when he lived them every day of his life? Every waking minute was spent reminding him that he had gotten pulled into this insane war, that events of magic and monsters were real and that somewhere in this city a psychiatrist was having his or her work cut out for them.

He didn't want to dream anymore. He simply wanted to sleep without the burden or fear that his bruised psyche would attempt to make him endure through another relapse of Mistral or the ball or Victoria's death or how he had imagined it went. Granted he knew those to be memories as opposed to actual nightmares but the fact that they had existed and thoroughly affected him at one point in time made them all the worse.

Nightmares and dreams were not real. But that didn't make them any less annoying for Daran.
This particular nightmare was it's own level of he'll and then some. He couldn't breathe and his vision was wavy and a distortion or many light colored hues clouded his surroundings. He was drowning but he could not see where he was nor could he surface. He looked around frantically but there was no surface. He waved his arms but to no avail as he only sunk deeper and deeper into darkness. Into the depths He went, so deep that he feared his head would constrict and compress from the pressures of the deep. Perhaps that wouldn't have been so terrible a thing... compared to the fate of lingering on without hope or purpose.

He was drowning but he didn't know why. There were no shackles or rocks to weigh him down. There were no hands that clung and pulled him deeper in. There was nothing that he could see that kept him down. Perhaps the problem was him, he pondered, as he suck deeper and deeper and even deeper into the depths, the color around him fading into darker hues until they had become completely black. Before too long, he could not see his own hands and garments, as they too were succumbed to the thick, deep, never-ending darkness.

He was drowning again. And there was no way out.

When he finally woke, he felt drenched to the bone and soaked, but he knew it wasn’t from his nightmare. No, all of it was his own sweat, and he let out a disgusted grunt but could not bring himself to move. How many times had he had this nightmare? What did it all mean? How many more nights must he endure this hell?

His cellphone rang, and the blast of ‘Sexy and I Know It’ made him groan. “Not… not today, Richard…”

He was drowning again, and this time, his anchor would be that blasted brother of his.

((Word Count: 497))