Chapter Text
Ashley Campbell woke up screaming. The sound burned through her chest, tore through her throat, and ripped itself out of her mouth.
It was muted compared to the noise in her head. She barely heard it over the wails and shrieks and nonononoNO- they'regonethey'regoneit'sallmyfaultthey'regone-
The echoes of chanting to summon an unnameable horror. The desperate banging on a window as cracks of electricity coursed through someone she didn't yet know.
The memories that are hers, but not.
Her door slammed open and heavy footsteps rushed in. Someone yelled her name, the sound lost to the noise. She was pulled against a person, the motion cutting off her screams. He - her dad. It was her dad - rocked her gently as she took gasping breaths. Tears streamed down her wet cheeks. When had she started crying?
"What's your name?" Her dad asked gently.
Grounding technique , she numbly realized.
"Ashley Campbell," she whispered, voice hoarse.
"How old are you?"
"Tw- ten."
She had almost said twenty-eight. She was twenty-eight in her memories-that-weren't-her-memories. But she wasn't. She was ten.
Her left arm twitched, the phantom feeling of electricity coursing through it tickled her skin.
Her dad continued asking her the questions that Dr. Werner suggested. She answered them correctly. Well, she answered them how he wanted her to answer them. It doesn't make much of a difference if she says that her favorite song is the one always playing on the radio and not the one her best-friend-she-hadn't-met always played on his guitar.
She had made that mistake once. She had to explain who the blue-haired boy with the face prosthetic that shared the song was.
(She didn't say his name. She never shared any of their names, for fear of them being found. If, of course, they were real. But if they were, she feared that mentioning the prosthetic may have been too much.)
She was eleven then. Her family had moved to Nockfell two months ago. Her nightmares started as soon as they moved. Her parents thought that they were just caused by anxiety, that she was scared of living in an unfamiliar place and was worried she wouldn't make friends. They got her a psychologist - Dr. Werner - when the nightmares didn't stop after a month.
"She just has an imaginary friend," her dad had said after her mom relayed the description of Sal to him.
Both of her parents were in the kitchen, out of view from where she hid in the hallway. They thought she had fallen back asleep.
"She's eleven. She's outgrown imaginary friends. She hadn't talked about any of her old ones for years."
Ash had more frequent meetings with Dr. Werner after that.
Her dad finished the questions and they sat in silence for a few minutes. She grabbed the glass of water on her nightstand and took a few sips, the coolness washing away the remainder of her nerves and soothing her sore throat.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Her dad asked.
Ash shook her head, holding the glass with both hands. "I have a big test tomorrow. I think the stress from that caused the nightmares this time."
That had to be the cause, right? Stress could cause nightmares, and there were no other reasons she knew of that would trigger them.
Dad nodded, pausing before asking his next question.
"Do you want to visit Dr. Werner again?"
Ash shook her head, smothering the voice in the back of her mind hissing that he was a part of it. That he's in the cult that caused her nightmares.
"I haven't had nightmares for a while now. I should be fine," she said.
She finished off her glass before setting it back on the nightstand. She leaned against her dad. He was so much bigger than in her not-memories.
“You ready to go back to sleep?” her dad asked softly.
Ash nodded and clambered back under the covers. Her dad tucked her in and kissed her on the forehead before leaving, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Ash slammed the alarm clock off, groaning as she forced herself to sit up. Her sleep schedule was more consistent than it would be in high school, but-
But she didn’t have nightmares in her not-memories like she did now.
She pushed herself off of her bed and shuffled to her dresser. She pulled open a drawer at random and proceeded to get dressed.
Her movements were less lethargic the longer that she was awake. She felt completely aware of her surroundings and in control of herself by the time she went down the stairs for breakfast. The clatter of utensils on plates and the hiss of a faucet spraying water came from the dining room/kitchen area as she approached. A plate of eggs sunny-side-up and toast (her favorite, and the now-routine “nightmare breakfast”) was already at her usual spot.
“Morning!” She called, her smile only half-forced.
Benjamin looked up at her, giving her a muffled "hi" through the eggs stuffed in his mouth. She ruffled the hair of her chipmunk of a brother as she sat down.
"Good morning," her mom called, the faucet turning off. "How did you sleep?"
Ash suppressed the thrum of tension as she poked at her eggs.
"Pretty well, all things considered."
The conversation shifted into small talk and banter as she ate. Her mom joined them at the table, her brown hair in its regular bun. The bags under her eyes were less prominent than before, when Ash's nightmares were more frequent, but they were still more obvious than they were in Ash's not-memories.
The thought weighed heavily on her mind.
She excused herself as soon as she was done - making sure that she put her plate in the dishwasher - before grabbing her bag.
"I'm heading to school!" She called.
The crisp March air was a small comfort, but a welcome one. It was too cold in the last few months to fully enjoy the outdoors, and she finally had enough energy to do so. Maybe she could sketch something to paint later. She hadn't painted anything in a while, and she needed to start practicing again.
The wind picked up, tussling with her hair. She had been wanting to cut it for a while, but she never had a good reason to do so. She remembered what it felt like to have her hair be short, how the wind would race against her neck as she tore down the highway at eighty on her motorcycle. She loved that feeling, but…
That feeling wasn’t hers , was it? At least, not really. Hell, she’s not entirely sure that it was real. Maybe the nightmares were just that: nightmares. Delusions. Little pieces of unreality.
Maybe she should have made another appointment with Dr. Werner. Maybe she should have been more open with him during their sessions. Maybe she should have told him about her nightmares instead of being difficult and lying to him. Maybe then he could have actually helped her, maybe she could have gotten better . Maybe-
She slammed face-first into someone. She jumped back, the person - messy, dark brown chin-length hair, lanky, jeans, dark t-shirt that almost hung off of him - stumbling forward.
“Oh my God!” She said, “I’m so sorry, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” a familiar, albeit higher-pitched, voice said.
He turned around and Ash nearly stopped breathing.
She found Larry.