Dream On. Chapter 74: Blood.

Previously...

Blood

Marla woke up feeling some stiffness on the skin of her stomach, she tried to brush whatever it was that was pulling her skin just to see how blood crusts fell off it. She looked down and saw some strange lines, they looked like letters, but she couldn’t make out what they meant. She stood up fast to get to see it in the mirror, however, she saw that she didn’t need to see herself on it, as the message was clear and plain across its surface. She turned paler than she already was, how was it possible that he had done this without waking her up? He seemed to have more power than she had thought. She ran to the bathroom and wetted a towel to erase the message from the mirror, afterwards she entered in the shower to get all the crusted blood out of her body. She scratched herself with the sponge furiously until the only thing left were the fine red lines of the scars. She was furious, she knew she would have those scars until she had learned how to erase them. At least, she would have to be grateful that they were on her stomach and not on somewhere more visible. Still, she wondered if they would be visible for a long time. She scrubbed herself clean, and then she dried up with a towel. She looked at the scars in the mirror, the message was the other way round, but it was clear they were letters. She passed her finger over them, it hurt a bit, nothing too painful, but enough to remind her why it was there. She decided to bandage her stomach, the scars didn’t look likely to bleed again, but better safe than sorry. Afterwards, she dressed herself up with a loose pink summer dress. It was the only thing she had that would not constantly compress her stomach.

By then she was determined. She had to do something. Her mother had prepared her breakfast, and surprisingly she was starving.

-Did you sleep well?- Naomi asked her while pouring herself a cup of coffee.

-I did, however…- and she explained to her what she had discovered in the morning.

Her mother was horrified and insisted on seeing it. At first, Marla was reluctant, but it was her mother after all, and she was the one who had taken care of her when she was little. Her mother softly followed the trace of the letters with her fingers.

-It looks as it were cut with a laser, but lasers cauterize and these bleed.- she said looking at it closely.

-I can tell you it bleed, the same exact thing was written across the mirror. In blood, I guess it was my blood, but I didn’t care to analyze it.- Marla half-joked.

-We should go to the hospital.

-No, we won’t go to the hospital. How are we supposed to explain this? It will heal on its own, I expect it to leave a mark, but I will be able to get rid of it, eventually.

-Are you sure? Maybe we could get a doctor to come visit you here.

-You know as well as I do that half of the doctors in this city have some kind of ties with them, the other half are just worthless.

Naomi resigned in silence, it was clear that her daughter wouldn’t bend to anything. She saw her finish her breakfast, clearly lost in her thoughts. Without a word, Marla stood up and went to the living room. She had left her books there, and she found her curled on the sofa reading one of them.

Marla was looking frantically for something that told her how to get rid at the same time of Albert and of them. The book wasn’t proving to be much helpful, but it was clear that a book about the Dreamers, written by Dreamers wouldn’t tell in plain sight how to defeat one of the most powerful Dreamers there had been in a long time. She perused through all the chapters, reading them twice if it was necessary. But there was nothing. She ended up blaming the Creator for having created them and not having been able to keep them on leash. The Creator made the mess and, now, it was her the one who had to clean it up. She was so focused on her reading that she didn’t even hear when her mother called her for lunch, and she certainly didn’t feel the heat that made her skin stick on the leather sofa.

When she realized that she was hungry it was already dinnertime. Her mother had prepared some rice salad with vegetables and fruits that tasted delicious. She ate it languidly, still focused on what was she supposed to do. She stayed thoughtful during the whole dinner, and, after it, gave herself permission to watch some TV, it would help her clear her mind. Suddenly, sitting there, she knew what she had to do.