A dream within a dream. It was a particularly interesting night. Russell and I had gone out, he convinced me, for a second night. I admit that I was looking forward to a good row with someone and that was what I got. Even Russ had his own. He did well. We went to the Red Dragon and we ended up badgering each other there. Somewhat like old times. As if I could forget the demons and nightmares lurking in the dark. But that was where I ended up, snagging Russ along with me for the ride in the dark. He enjoyed it as did I. I helped him back into the Inn, where we slept. And then the dream. I woke, in my old bed, the old house, the smells and sounds as if I was back in that bloody town.

Everything was so vivid. As if the four years that had passed were in fact nothing but a dream. Russ, Grif, Joey, Lykos, Sasha, everyone I had met in the place called Rhydin was nothing more than fantasy, tricks of the mind. My reality was the house. I could hear my parents downstairs, my father up and ready to leave for the morning. My mother fixing breakfast that I would never eat. I was quick to throw the covers off and grab my clothes, I did not care what I wore, I needed to get out of the house. The window had been a place of escape many times and it was where I found it this time as well. It was summer. If I timed it right I could get out without anyone being the wiser, but then I had always done this, no different from any other time.

Climbing down the roof was no huge feat. Once my boots hit the ground, I took off. If there was one place I needed to go, well it was to David. I had to see if he was all right. That if four years of my life had been nothing but a dream, David was alive. Normally I would be getting ready for school, calling Sebastian and having him drop over to eat my breakfast for me. My mother smacking him out of the kitchen, luckily my father was always gone before Sebastian came. But this was not a normal day for me. Not after the dream I had just had.

The mind has a particularly interesting way of coping with tragedy, with things you cannot cope with. It takes those memories and hides them from you. Waiting for a day that is more suitable that you could cope and sometimes you never remember. Some would rather have it that way. I am not one of them. That dream had been a cruel joke of my mind. Telling me that David was dead, that those years I had made friends, become close to some was nothing but a dream. I realise now that had I sat and truly thought about it, I would have realised that it was a dream that I was in. But at the time, my hope of seeing David alive was far too strong for any rational thinking.

I did not know the date. All I did know was that I had to see him. Could I change what had happened? So many questions ran through my mind as I ran through the wooded landscape that divided my home from his. A place where we often met, where the lake was that we had enjoyed together. I must have tripped a few times, my hands became bloody, I could feel the sting on my cheek and lip from where I ran into low branches. As if when I closed my eyes for even a second, time fasts forward. It was then that I started to wonder what was happening. Was I awake?

The forest cleared before me and there was the house. The morning sunlight surrounded it. I could hear laughter from within, even from where I was standing. I will admit right now that if I could go backwards, if I could stop him from killing himself, I would. Spare him. In the church, that confessional, I should have walked away. Screamed in his face to get out and for him to never speak to me again. How many times it has played through my mind that I had just left him alone, he would be alive. Was a few months of happiness worth a life? Such a question that is. Because we had thought we would have a lifetime, or at least I had. I imagined years and years of us together. And as I stood there staring at the house, listening to the laughter, I did what I never thought I could. I turned and walked away. Letting go. Letting him go. I woke not long after. It was nothing more than a dream within a dream.