The Deepest Black

She has nightmares every night now. Nightmare. Just the one. The same one every time. She tells herself she's being silly, what she sees is impossible and she knows it. It does not, however, stop her from continuing to bolt upright in bed at the same time every evening. It is always the darkest part of the night, the most still. The silence is so suffocating and oppressive that it feels as though it is its own entity. She has to force herself not to scream and cry for help, to run into her mother's room for comfort. Instead she peels back her sweat soaked covers, tip toes across the cold floor, and curls up in the hard chair beneath her window. At these times even Titus is quiet, standing tall and solid beside her.

It is her habit now to stare into the blackness. It used to be the dark that she feared, but now it is the light. She dreams in only one color, the brightest, most blinding white. There is no escape, it sears its way into her very soul, chilling and scorching at the same time. She is back in Antarctica, and she is falling. Speeding downwards, spinning and tumbling, the end never coming. But even that isn't so terrible. What keeps her up, the reason she is always looking over her shoulder and feels eyes on her back, is that Uncle Victor is with her as she falls. He crawls up from the darkness, wild eyed and snow burned, unstoppable. He pulls her into the depths with him, and there is nothing she can do to stop him.

He squeezes her to himself too tightly as they plummet to their deaths, whispering in her ear the words that haunt her waking hours. "I've got you now Sym, we'll be together this time. You'll be with me forever Sym, forever." She thinks that she could find peace if only she knew for sure that he was dead. She had seen Manfred's body, broadcast on the news and splashed across every tabloid cover. In truth it had only been his coffin, but just the quick glimpse of wood had been enough to put to rest her fear that he would be forever wandering the ice, searching for her. But her Uncle will forever be a question mark, a shadow swallowed by the dark, lingering in the recesses of her mind.

She hates the fact that sometimes she wishes Victor hadn't been wrong. She has bad days, and they always happen for the same reason, because she forgets. For just a moment, Uncle Victor is still the man she loves and admires, and she is still his innocent and awe-struck niece. But the day dream always ends. And no matter how much she hates him, she can't help but love him still.

Titus is all that keeps her sane. He is the only one that she can tell her fears, and who can allay them. But sometimes even he isn't enough. She is smart enough to realize that even Titus isn't real. He belongs only to her, and he is as she wishes him to be. And she wonders if the same could be said for Uncle Victor. Will she wake one day to find him sitting beside her, a product of her tortured mind that only she can see, and only she can overcome?

Sym hopes that the old saying 'time heals all wounds' is true, because she doesn't know what else will. And so she sits tonight, as she will do the next night and the one after that, staring out the window. She prays for the strength to shield herself from the white, to hold back the black, just long enough until she can find the grey. She thinks that she can live in grey.