The Nightmare's Protege

Content Warning: Witness of attempted physical assault and on-screen panic attack

Connie Elizabeth’s life was this: Wake up, drink coffee, put on gloves, go to school, try to smile, run until it her feet bleed and her mind stopped thinking, stare at self in mirror and say “I will not have a nightmare. I will not have a nightmare. I will not- “, go to bed, have a nightmare, wake up, drink coffee-

Her life had distilled down to a series of numbers:

Two thousand ninety days since the nightmare began.

16 foster homes- a girl who wakes up screaming every night isn’t worth the check. A girl who transmits nightmares through one touch shouldn’t be allowed in a home, ever.

537 days until she could legally buy her own cabin in the woods and not talk to anyone ever again.

But now, on a Monday as dreary as the last one, she had a new timer ticking away in her head:

Ten minutes, 54 seconds since Eliza Campbell entered her life in a spinning storm of floral shoes, leather jacket, and a bright pink afro.

Eliza was talking now, but Connie had long since lost the thread of the conversation. She kept being drawn back to Eliza’s teeth. God, were all teeth that white? Should hers be that white? Connie’s gloved hand drifted to trace her own lips, desperately hoping Eliza would keep talking so she didn’t have to show off her nicotine-stained teeth.

“Oh, I love your gloves by the way! Super retro,” Eliza said, and Connie snapped her hands back into her pockets. Eliza kept looking at her though, gold rimmed glasses sitting at the tip of her nose.

“Hm,” Connie supplied, hoping it’ll be enough of a response to get Eliza talking again.

“So…what hall is this again? Mrs. McConoughey said you’re involved in all sorts of activities. What’s your favorite?”

Oh shit, that’s what she was supposed to be doing- giving the new kid a tour of the school, not fantasizing about how those teeth would feel biting her lower lip and-

Stop, Connie. Girls like you don’t get romance. Girls like you get restraining orders and prison sentences. Connie couldn’t touch someone without transmitting a nightmare. So, kissing someone? Nope. Out of the equation. Try again in your next life.

The silence between Eliza and Connie had stretched on to an awkward degree. A bead of sweat trickled down Connie’s temple. She thought of wiping it away but that would draw attention to her gloved hands again… but if she didn’t wipe it away Eliza would think she was just some gross 16-year-old with bad hygiene.

“I’ll uh, show you the cafeteria,” Connie’s words came out jumbled and barely above a mutter. “It’s just through this door.”

They stopped outside the double doors leading to the school’s cafeteria. Connie hesitated, really not wanting to bring her hands outside of her pockets. She had spread the rumor of her being a germ-freak; it stopped the consistent barrage of peer’s teasing and teacher’s fussing over her constant state of over-dress. But Eliza just got here and wouldn’t know. Connie clenched her teeth and began to reach for the door when a slender, black-leather gloved hand opened the door first.

“Uh, I got it,” Eliza said. Connie stared at the gloved hand. Then at Eliza’s jacket- with its collar pulled up around her neck. The tie-dyed bandana that wrapped around her head and covered most of her forehead and ears. The long pants and combat boots that rose to her mid-shin. It was New York City in the first week of August and Eliza Campbell was wearing more clothes than Connie.

“Aren’t you hot?” Connie blurted. Instantly her cheeks heated, and she looked to the ground, shifting from one foot to another. She hated when other kids asked her that question.

“Aren’t you?” Eliza sounded… soft. Questioning.

No, Connie thought-shouted at herself. No, you’ve been down this road. There’s no one else like you. You’re alone and you might as well get used to it.

Connie plastered her smile back on her face and withdrew her hands from their pockets. The gloves were cheap dollar store ones, and the black fuzz was already starting to wear off. She tried not to think of it as she opened the other door leading to the cafeteria and said to Eliza with all the pleasant normal teenager-ness she could muster-

“I kind of hate touching people.”

Eliza’s eyes lingered on Connie’s gloved hands holding open the door before finally shaking herself and smiling that brilliant, luminescent smile.

“It’s terribly overrated if you ask me.”

8 hours, 11 minutes, and 16 seconds later



           Connie couldn’t get Eliza Campbell and her gloved hands out of her head. All the way home from cross country practice she kept replaying the girl’s words over and over again in her head:

It’s terribly overrated.

It’s terribly overrated.

It’s so, so terribly overrated.

She thought of these words, and the way Eliza’s leather gloves matched so perfectly with the rest of her outfit. And the way she laughed at a joke Connie made about the school’s chicken. And the way her voice filled all the silent, sleep-deprived places in Connie’s brain.

And the way it would never, ever happen.

She was three blocks from the bridge overpass where she was staying her nights with a nice old man named Doug. She was 90% sure he was gay and 100% sure he was harmless, but better yet- he wore gloves because his eczema would get so bad that people would fire him for looking “unprofessional”. He didn’t question her story and she didn’t question his; it was the most at-home she had felt since the nightmares started.

Three blocks from her home and she heard the whine of a man not getting his way. Connie’s feet stopped on their own accord.

“Not your problem,” she told herself. “Keep walking, Connie. Not. Your. Problem,”

Her feet stayed planted. The man began to talk.

“Come on kid, just one more time. Last time I’ll ask, I swear.”

Someone responded but it was too low for Connie to hear. Slowly, she began creeping up to the alley where the voices were coming from.

“Damn it kid, can’t you see I need this?” the man’s voice had taken on a dangerous edge. Connie gripped the edge of her left glove. She’d done this before, just a few times on the streets until her reputation got around. ‘One-punch Connie’ was her unoriginal but official street name.

“Another step and I’ll scream, I swear,” the other voice said, and Connie stopped breathing. She heard wrong; she must have. That voice belonged in nice apartments and cute coffee shops and vintage thrift stores, not down a dark alley this close to Connie.

“I said I’ll- “

There was a sharp crash and muffled shouting. A thud Connie knew as a fist making contact.

“Let go of me! I’ll- “The screams were cut off. Connie tore of her glove and skidded around the corner.

“Hey!” she yelled, and two sets of eyes turned on her. A man with a tattered trench coat that Connie vaguely recognized, and Eliza Campbell. Eliza’s eyes were wide, her glasses lay on the ground a few feet away, the lens shattered. The man had one hand over her mouth and the other scrabbling to take her glove off.

Something sharp and warm boiled in Connie’s gut.

“Leave us alone, kid,” he growled. “This doesn’t involve you.”

The feeling slithered up Connie’s spine.

“It is now,” she said through gritted teeth and tossed her glove to his feet. The man sneered at it, but Connie saw the way fear pinched at the corner of his eyes.

The boiling warmth wrapped around her head and squeezed.

“I said leave,” she growled, and the man flinched. Connie smiled. It was more sneer that grin, but everyone on the street knew the meaning of Connie Emerson showing her teeth. Still, the man didn’t let Eliza go. Connie started to see red.

“I’ll pay you to leave, right now. What’s your price?” The man’s eyes darted between Connie and Eliza, who had gone incredibly still, her focus entirely on Connie’s discarded glove by the man’s feet.

The red in Connie’s vision pulsed along to her heartbeat. She felt herself move forward, saw her ungloved hand lifting. Saw the fear in the man’s face and relished in it.

The nightmare began ripping through her. It needed a conduit to get into this world, and Connie was the only thing cold enough around.

Dreams are a reflection of our reality. The monster is you. The nightmares chose you because you are them and they are you.

“Wait wait wait- “The man backpedaled, forgetting about Eliza and his bribery and resorting to begging. They always do.

The nightmares would stop if you were a good person. But you’re not. You’re twisted and-

The man registered the blank look on Connie’s face and gave up begging too. He turned and ran. Connie was faster.

bad. You think your gloves and jackets can contain you? You think anything can contain what you are?

Connie’s hand closed around the man’s wrist and the nightmare tore through him, too. It was different for every person but always contained the Connie guarantee- drowning. Some drowned under shadows, others under bugs or insults or people they’ve let down. This man drowned under a wave of blood and teeth and for some reason, piano keys. Connie could feel the way the nightmare consumed his mind the same way it consumed hers. She felt the panic rise next to the cold joy of power.

You’re a monster. You’re a monster. You’re a monster, Connie Emerson, and no one can love a monster as dark as you.

The man screamed and tore away from her grip, tripping over himself as he sobbed and staggered out of the alley. Connie’s heart was pounding. Her throat ached. Her vision wobbled.

“Stop,” Connie said, and the man listened. They usually did. “Spread the word- Eliza Campbell is not to be harmed.”

The man barely managed to nod before he tore off down the alley and around the corner. The second he was out of view; the panic crested and fell.

This was the worst part. Connie had gotten used to the terror, the un-humanness, the sickly void of nightmares. But this panic was real. It was real in a way the nightmares never were because the nightmares existed in a realm entirely made for Connie. Panic was too human and no amount of gloves or jackets could protect her from it.

She felt herself hit the cold wall of the alley. Felt the wet seep into her pants as she sunk to the ground. But mostly she felt her lungs constricting, her throat closing her ribcage compressing and she couldn’t- she couldn’t-

“Hey hey hey, you’re alright,” a soft voice broke through the rush of her thoughts. You’re going to die. You’ll be alright. You’re sick. You’re hopeless. You’re going to be okay.

A face swam in Connie’s vision. Black leather collar up to a chin below bright pink hair. And then hands lifting, hands cupping her face. Skin on skin- on her skin. Connie gasped, clutching Eliza’s wrists to fling her off but…

But the nightmares didn’t come.

Nothing did.

Just the sweat passing from one human skin to another.

Her ribcage loosened. Her lungs breathed in, and her body filled with light.

Eliza and Connie sat like that for a minute or an hour or a decade- hands intertwined, tears on cheeks, lungs gasping for another breath.

“I’m Connie,” Connie said eventually, still not letting go of Eliza’s hands.

“Do you feel it?” Eliza asked, words still thick with tears.

“I feel you.”

“Do you… see anything?”

“I see you,” Connie paused, searching Eliza’s face for any sign of terror or pain. “Do…do you see anything? Or feel anything?”

Eliza paused for a long moment in which Connie thought her heart would burst out of her chest.

“I see you,” Eliza whispered back.

3 hours, 14 minutes, 32 seconds later

Connie Elizabeth’s life was distilled into one number:

3 hours, 14 minutes, 32 seconds since she had seen Eliza Campbell and since Eliza Campbell had seen her.

“How long have you been able to give people good dreams?” Connie passed Eliza a can of Campbell’s soup. Doug had taken one look of Connie and Eliza striding into their campsite with hands interlocked and declared supper was on him.

“I’m not sure, about 3 years probably?”

“Two thousand thirty days?” Connie blurted out. Eliza gave her that look that towed the line between amusement and teasing. Connie was already addicted to what it did to her stomach.

“Um, yeah, something like that. You too?”

Connie nodded. “Except, you know, nightmares.” She twirled her one gloved hand around. Eliza smiled, but it was soft and sad.

“That sounds hard.”

Connie shrugged. “People leave me alone. Sounds like they never really…leave you alone?”

“No,” Eliza whispered and clutched her canned soup tighter. “They don’t.”

Connie reached over and put her hand over Eliza’s. The thrill of it- of skin-on-skin contact- still sent shudders up her spine and a happy buzzing through her head.

“Don’t worry,” Connie whispered. “I’ll take care of you.”

Eliza looked up, bemused and maybe a little offended. Connie knows Eliza doesn’t need anyone to look after her, that’s not what she meant, just that it would be nice for the rage in her to have an outlet, to have something good to protect and-

“And who will look after you, Connie Emerson?”

Connie shrugged again. “Doug does a pretty good job.”

Eliza laughs. “He is a great chef.”

18 days, 6 hours, 32 minutes later

Connie and Eliza strode into school hand in hand. The taunts were starting to become less frequent and the stares not quite as pervasive. Not that either girl cared. Why would they? They were the nightmare and the daydream. Twin souls of a magic neither of them understood. They might, one day, seek to understand their dreams. But for now, both were content to walk hand-in-hand into another day, and another, and another, and-