We both know you wouldn’t have done it if I had been there.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Dylan Storm-Daii
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human / Strife
Age: 42, physically about 24
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 755 words
 

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I’d like to think I’m pretty mellow. Surprisingly, most of us are, if I think about it. I mean, I know we’re all chipped, it comes with the package deal, but I think it’s just as a precaution more than anything else. From the stories I’ve told, it was more of an issue the purer the bloodline was and since we’re third down the line, I guess we’re all right.

That’s not to say that things were always and forever perfect at home. Kids get into trouble every so often and when there’s a pretty big age gap, at times things can get dicey, I guess. You can’t plan for how the kids are going to interact. Though, thinking back about the books I’ve read on parenting—boredom during school time will do strange things to you—even if the gap isn’t big, I don’t think you can really predict how things might turn out.

There are only a couple of years between Kall, Beth and me. Rachel, on the other hand, is ten years younger. Her weird and constant mood swings, while she was growing up, didn’t bother me much, but there were times when I couldn’t handle them. I mean, I wasn’t the one who was mainly dealing with them but, now and again, our parents would step out of the house, and we’d all be old enough to babysit and all and we took turns, so we had to be with her, one-on-one.

There was just that one day, I’m not even sure why I remember that now. I hadn’t been feeling great, most of us had had to deal with the cold that had been going around and, in a way, I was fine enough to take care of Rachel, I was just feeling a little cranky and short-tempered. The thing is, I don’t even remember any of the details from that day, all I remember is that she was in her room, listening to one of the audiobooks being read to her. I was in the kitchen trying to prepare a quick snack. I might have been sixteen or so, so she was six, give or take.

One moment, I’m putting that sandwich together, trying to keep from clearing my throat because I still felt a little clogged up and the honey-lemon drink I’d made for myself hadn’t really helped; the next, I hear crying from her room and just, I know that I was unfairly frustrated at that point. It wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t control her emotions. It wasn’t her fault that I was feeling cranky because I was tired.

I remember standing in her doorway, just heaving this huge sigh and while still mostly keeping my voice level, I told her to cut it out, that she wouldn’t have started crying if I’d been there with her. Of course, me being a grumpy idiot and whatnot, that only made it worse. I didn’t have it in me to comfort her at this point, even though I knew it was what she needed. That or a distraction of sorts.

Thankfully, Beth was at home too and with a tired grumble at her, I asked—more than told, so I had that going for me!—to go deal with Rachel because I just couldn’t. Food was on the counter, I was going into my room.

From what I do recall, I did apologize to Rachel later on the same day, not that I think she could understand why I was apologizing to her. At least I apologized and I did mean it. I couldn’t really understand it, back then, that she had no real control over her reactions to things. None of us could understand it until the docs mostly figured things out and got her on those meds but, yeah.

As I said, I’m usually a really mellow guy. I don’t normally get exasperated about much of anything but on that day, I guess, things just were too much for me to handle. I also remember just how tiredly grateful I was for Beth being in the house as otherwise I would have had to try and calm Rachel down myself and well, yeah, I don’t know that I could have managed overly well. Then again, looking back, I probably could have found one of the plushies she had in her room and waved it at her, it would have done the job I’m pretty sure. My brain just wasn’t thinking about these things, back then.

The pirate’s life is definitely not for me, so maybe you can turn the boat back around? Let me off at the first port, possibly?

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Dylan Storm-Daii
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human / Strife
Age: 40, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 679 words
 

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I think I’ve already mentioned that I talk in my sleep. It hasn’t happened in a while, or so I was told, but recently, there was a talk incident that left us both in tears when she recounted the whole thing to me. It was short and sweet but it was hilarious since I have no idea how my mind could have conjured up the whole thing.

Now, I think I have to preface this whole (brief!) retelling of the odd not quite conversation I’ve had with her by saying that I’ve never been interested in anything relating to pirates. I’m not a fan of pirate stories be they past pirates or more ‘recent’ ones. I’m not actually all that interested in the idea of being on a boat because I’m pretty sure I’d get seasick. The swaying motion of a boat sits weirdly with me. That much I remember from watching one movie where they’d managed to get that motion weirdly well through the shift of the camera and my stomach rebelled.

I don’t remember the end of that movie and I’m not interested in finding out.

Now, according to my delightful pair—and man, I could go with a nibble right now—the whole thing started out innocently enough. There was some incoherent mumbling from which a few odd words stood out. Some of them about treasure and water. Supposedly, I was mumbling for a couple of minutes before I went quiet and resettled again. Clearly, nothing in there even worth a chuckle and I think she probably only half-heard me through her own sleep haze.

No, it was nearly in the dead of the night that things really got going. Now, I’m told I started whimpering; that’s probably what woke her because I’m usually a pretty quiet and peaceful sleeper. She told me that she’d been moments from trying to wake me when I started talking about how the pirate life was definitely not for me. I sounded like an uncertain teen—her words. I asked that maybe, they could just turn the boat back around? By that point, she said I was starting to sound desperate and nearly ready to beg.

There were a few more choice things offered in there about getting them to let me off the boat, one of them about maybe just possibly letting me off at the first port but by my increasingly uncertain tone and the fact that I kept on trying to get them to drop me off somewhere, my requests weren’t being listened to.

I woke up not very long after with, I kid you not, a ‘sploosh’ coming out of my mouth. All I remember of that dream is being thrown overboard and somehow, my brain supplied that my mouth had to make that one sound because, well, it clearly was necessary because being made to walk the plank and sink into the deep, watery depths requires a sploosh. Not even a splash, no, a sploosh.

Never you mind that I was a very confused guy when I could focus and her snickering beside me was weirdly confusing to come back from a dream to. Since it was clear that this wasn’t so much a nightmare than just a very strange and weird dream, it did spur the laugh-till-you-cry reaction out of both of us. We spent almost two more hours trying to figure out what was going on in that dream. Usually, we can ping-pong ideas back and forth and it’ll bring up brief images from my dream so I can recount it but in this particular case, I can’t really remember anything of it at all.

To most, the whole thing might not have led to the reaction we had, but it’s so rare that I sleep-talk that it’s always worth a chuckle, and considering that it was clearly about something I can’t stand but I didn’t feel even the slightest bit stressed about when I woke up, it made it doubly so funny.

I’m strange, so what?

I wanted to leave my old life behind.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 3rd Generation
Characters: Dylan Storm-Daii
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human / Strife
Age: 40, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 676 words
 

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So apparently, I talk in my sleep.

That came to be discussed some years ago, when it first cropped up but I never gave it much thought because it hadn’t been repeatedly brought up so, clearly, it wasn’t much of an issue. I wonder if I used to talk in my sleep when I was younger. I never thought to actually ask my parents about that because, I guess, it never felt as though it might be a necessity to know. What would it change?

Now and again, though, Yolie wakes me because the stuff I’m saying is really out there but it’s not all that common either.

Last time it happened was some months back, I think it was somewhere in the middle of the summer and it had been seriously difficult to sleep in that heat. I don’t know if that’s what prompted that particular pointless sleep-time rambling. All I really remember from that particular time was the slightly confused look on her face because I supposedly had been rambling about leaving my old life behind.

What makes this one confusing and-slash-or confounding is that I don’t have an ‘old life’, or was I dreaming about something else entirely and that’s what happened? I don’t remember my dreams; I’m one of those people who feel as though I might never actually dream, though I know otherwise. I wear the smart tracker like a lot of people do, it can be programmed to keep track of a lot of things and it helps me keep on top of my health, so I know when I enter REM sleep, when I’m in light sleep, when I’m in deep sleep, all of it.

I do have plenty of dream-sleep time; I just don’t remember any of them. With me saying shit like that, though, I don’t think I really want to know, either. I mean, what could seriously be going through my mind that I’m saying I need or want to leave my old life behind? It certainly can’t have anything to do with my life now because I love my life as it is. The only thing that bugs me is my slow-everything metabolism but that can’t be helped.

So I guess there’s also that. Sure, the rare time Yolie wakes me from these talkative moments, I startle awake but I’m not really awake, my eyes are open but it’s likely I won’t remember any of it after I’ve fallen back asleep. I need a good hour after I wake up to be able to be a functional person and I’m not even joking. If I have places to be in the morning, I have to set up my alarm clock for an hour prior. During that time, I’ll shower, I’ll even eat and get ready but I still won’t be fully all there as far as the mind is concerned until that hour is just about over.

Docs have never been able to tell me why I’m like that. My metabolism as far as everything is concerned has always been slow. I grew up way slow—I was about twenty-four when I finished growing up—I digest food really slowly, I take a long time to wake up, as has been mentioned, and don’t get me started on alcohol. I had some only once in my life and it took me so long to get over the buzz it gave me—which also took forever to hit me—that I told myself I never would touch the stuff again.

I haven’t.

All in all, it’s not such a bad way to go about life in general but there are days when I wish my brain would just snap to awareness and I wouldn’t have to worry about anything else but that. That’d feel really good but, hey. I’ll take what I’ve got and I’ll just deal with it as I can. There’s nothing else to it, in the end. This is my life and I’m living it to the fullest, no matter what.

I was tired, but now that it’s midnight I’m somehow totally awake.

Timeline/World: Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Dylan Storm-Daii
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human / Strife
Age: 38, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 564 words

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You know, when you reach that point in your schedule where you’d rather just curl and sleep, not be found awake at all and not open your eyes for the next who knows how many hours? Yeah, I’d reached that point last night at around ten or so, then again I’d be up since five that morning due to a somewhat upset stomach. The last few days had been a little on and off as far as being able to sleep properly and I’d been meaning to just crash and sleep then but my brain had other ideas.

I had wanted to look out at the stars on that very night, we’d been told there would be a meteor shower and I hadn’t seen one in a long enough while.

My options seemed simple enough, set myself up with an alarm that would wake me up a short while before the shower was due to begin or stay awake. The issue with my first option is that I’m not a waking up person. I can be a morning person but I’m not a ‘waking up’ person. I need at least an hour after I’ve woken up to be functional. No matter if it’s in the morning, in the afternoon or even at night. So it seemed pointless to go for that option, I would have only had an hour of rest and then another hour to wake myself up from the drowse and it wouldn’t have done me much good.

So I made coffee, something I rarely ever do because the stuff leaves a bitter taste in my mouth most of the time and I’ve tried to counter that with cream and sugar. It ended up being way too much and as it turns out I have a partial intolerance for too much sugar and that one time ended up being far too much. I did learn to make a nice, just semi-sweet and somewhat spicy latte though and this particular coffee was turned into just that. A dash of frothed milk, a bare hint of sugar and a small kick of spice.

It didn’t wake me up right off the bat, it’s a semi-slow process too and I wonder if my whole body isn’t just all around slow. Slow digestion, slow growth—I was pretty small for most of my teenaged years, I finished growing up by the time I was close to twenty-four—slow everything. I’ve grown used to it but it still is a little frustrating at times.

Finally, though, midnight rolled around, the rooftop terrace was kept warm, and there were some blankets out because the temperatures had dropped to sorta cold recently during the night, the chairs were waiting and I was wide-awake, a bit like a kid in a candy shop, waiting to see the trails of light across the sky.

Normally, I like being out during the night, it’s just so calm and quiet and the light during the day bothers my eyes a little, it always has, but considering I’d been up since five, I suppose that it was inevitable, coffee or otherwise, that I fell asleep an hour later on that rooftop. At least I was comfortably bundled in, a meagre plus, if you ask me. I missed out on most of the shower, so that was a general let down, too.