WITCH AWAKENING

I watched the burning tower below, hot air brushing my face and blowing my hair back. From the corner of my eye, I could see the tiny lines that disrupted the structures of the bedchamber I was in. Right below the room, the fire crackled, but the wooden floors remained cold against my bare feet. And behind me was a black door, always waiting for me since the day I first woke up in this dream. In my years traveling through dreams, I've encountered thousands of doors and I could count in my fingers how many of them were black.

"You're afraid," his voice said beside me. His dark hair reflected the fire below, his eyes golden with the display of yellow and orange. I had forgotten what he looked like without the fire. For so many years, I had seen him nowhere else but this place, dressed in black and covered with the reflection of the great murder below.

"I'm not," I said, looking away. How many years had it been? How many nights had I been appearing in this place every midnight? Too long, I thought. But it seemed only yesterday when I met him. I nearly killed him, and I might have if we were not in his dream. In this place where I died. In this kind of dream woven from memory. His memory.