Things started out pleasant. It was a cute little meadow, with a stream flanked by weeping willows. Birds singing, bees buzzing, and flowers releasing perfume into the breeze. It was bliss. Usually, Cali either had a nightmare, or no dream at all. It had been months now since she'd had a good, pleasant dream and her subconscious was taking advantage of this. Currently the dream version of Calintha was lounging on the banks of the stream, dipping her hand into the cool clear water.
Brown eyes turned up, looking at the sky. Puzzled, she really stared at it. Something seemed wrong with it, it wasn't quite the right shade of blue. It was darker and a hair redder, turning it a strange brown-blue color usually reserved for sunsets. Shrugging it off, she went back to relaxing. A chill wind creeped over her, making the hairs on her arm stand up straight. It was strange really, the day had been so nice. But now she was so very tired; her eyelids were getting droopy and she was shivering from the wind. She looked up again before she would succumb to sleep, this time pointing her eyes towards the willow tree beside her.
Odd...she hadn't remembered the tree being covered with roses. Or really, roses at all. Roses were not something the girl associated with a good time. Fighting off the urge to ignore it, the girl sat up, one hand perched in the stream. Absentmindedly, she ran her fingers over the smooth pebbles in the stream. They were sticky.
It took her a few moments to register the feeling. Bewildered her brown eyes turned down the stream behind her, looking in horror to see that it was choked with blood; a LOT of blood. Calintha stood, brushing the rose vines off that had become entangled around her legs. Had those always been there? Brushing off the weird feeling, the botanist turned, surveying the landscape for something out of place.
Everything was out of place. The meadow she had just been lounging in had turned barren, choked by thorny rose bushes that were wildly out of control. The girl continued turning, finally resting on a figure in the distance. The figure was impaled by vines, surrounded and halo'd by black roses. Calintha took a few steps forward, ignoring the stinging sensation of walking on thorns. The closer she got, the more details she could see.
The figure was what was choking the stream with blood. It trickled steadily from their wounds, painted the black roses a deep red where ever it dripped over them. So focused on the roses she was, that Calintha only bothered to look at the figures face when shew as directly next to it. A drop of something hit her in the face, but it wasn't blood. It was a tear.
A tear that had dropped down from the frozen open eyes of her sister. Her baby sister, beautiful as ever, impaled by roses. Calintha couldn't believe it, it was too much. Turning from the scene, she ran as a fast as she could into the roses, ignoring the shredding thorns that were catching all over her body. She fell suddenly, down into the bushes. Pushing herself back up again, she saw something other than rose bushes ahead.
A looming forest of dark green trunks and stems reaching forward into the sky. It was canopied by brilliant flowers, which the girl identified vaguely as African Violets. Calintha ran as fast as she could into the forest crashing through the branches and through to the other side, stopping abruptly at a low terracotta wall that blocked her way.
She wanted to go deeper into the forest, but there was no more deeper to go. Calintha wanted to keep running; running stole her breath from her and kept her eyes from shedding tears. She wanted to keep running forever, and ever and ever. And as she looked out beyond the wall, Calintha got that feeling that you only ever get in dreams. The realization that something ridiculous and impossible has occurred, but it all makes perfect sense.
Calintha's sudden clarity came in the form of realizing that she was very, very small. The forest she had run through was a normal sized African Violets plant, potted in a terracotta pot. It was suddenly very relieving to be there, on the edge of something unknown. It was nice knowing that you were small and insignificant. That your problems were small and insignificant.
A raven cawed above her, roosting on one of the pristine petals. The black bird swooped down low, making a terrible shrieking noise. It dropped an eyeball at her foot. Calintha recognized it immediately, it was her sisters. There were no maybes in a dream; it was a world comprised of black and white.
The eyeball started beeping and flashing in rhythm, much like what a bomb on television would do. It was strange, and she stared at it with her head cocked to the side. It felt dangerous, that it was beeping.
She woke from her slumber groggily, staring at her surroundings and feeling very confused. For a second, Calintha wondered if she was still in the world kept in a flower pot. The annoying sound of beeping next to her made the girl cringe and duck under her pillow. It was a quick realization that it was an alarm clock. The blaring red letters read 6:30AM as she reached over and clicked the contraption off.
She swung her legs out of bed, feeling no more rested than she had the day before, or than she had in a week. It was always the same thing; blood, roses, and eyeballs. The blonde had no idea why, but it was worse than the senseless fear and violence dreams she used to have. Those were disturbing at a base level- they did not make you think or analyze. These nightmares were complex, and they haunted her throughout the day.
As she got ready for the day, Calintha silently prayed for the first time in a very long time. She prayed for rest.
