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Ruben was dreaming. He’d been doing that a lot lately. Dreaming about people and places that didn’t make any sense; dreaming about faces and feelings he couldn’t comprehend. Everything slipped into everything else like dream logic is wont to do. He’d fallen asleep in a grassy glade with a ukulele in his hand. He wondered absently when he would wake up.
Sometimes it felt like he was awake. He couldn’t be, though. Catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror with his features all wonky. Why was his hair so dark? Why was there circles around his eyes as dark as his clothes? A funhouse mirror, his life had become; wonky and out of shape and wrong. There was a taste in his mouth, acrid like something burnt. Smoke seemed to suck in and out of his lungs on every inhale. He couldn't push himself back into shape if he tried.
And the anger. So much of it, endlessly seeping through every crack and pore, oozing red and black. Every little thing made him burn with rage. He wasn’t sure why, or what he was even angry about, but he knew for some reason that those kids were the reason why he hurt so much, all the time, infinitely. The Bad Kids. He hated them. He hated them so much and he didn't know why.
“Is this a dream?” he asked someone, their features blurry. They responded with a deep belly laugh, a huge hand slapping him on the back in mirth. He stumbled. His feet were heavy, like wading through mud. He was vacantly aware of this person's authority, but couldn't muster up the energy to lift his head.
Throughout the dreams there was a girl. He liked her. She was there, in the background of his dreams, watching with dark eyes. He wanted to talk to her. Maybe she wouldn’t make him angry. Maybe she’d be as kind as Lucy. But she disappeared whenever he got close, and left him alone.
Days and nights were all the same. Sometimes there were mountains. Sometimes there were forests. Sometimes there were classrooms. Sometimes there were monsters. Sometimes he let himself drift away into a nice dream. His favourite was one where Mary Ann and Lucy were sitting with him on the steps of Basrar’s eating ice-cream. Ruben was strumming the strings of his ukulele as chocolate ice cream dripped off Mary Ann’s chin.
“Did you write that one, Rubes?” Lucy asked, nudging his arm lightly. “It’s really good.”
Ruben smiled proudly, stealing a lick of her ice-cream. “I don’t know, it’s kind of a work in progress. My uncle said I should try adding lyrics.”
“I think it sounds pretty,” Lucy said, as Mary Ann nodded in agreement. Ruben smiled and began strumming again, something light and floaty. The sun warmed his bare arms and put the ukulele a little out of tune, so it twanged on every low note.
“Maybe one day you’ll be a famous singer,” Lucy mused, “And we can all say we knew you before you were a celebrity!”
Mary Ann looked up from her ice-cream. “That would be cool.”
Ruben’s fingers ran deftly across the fretboard of the ukulele, a smile heating up his cheeks. Mary Ann gave him the tiniest, barely-there grin, chocolate smeared all around her mouth. That was a nice dream. Lucy never smiled at him anymore. In fact, he hadn’t seen Lucy in a long time. He missed that smile. When he thought too hard about how much he missed it, he got angry, and then that weighty rage would build up again within his chest.
The girl with the dark eyes watched, and disappeared yet again.
Once, in a dream that felt a little too much like life, he’d asked Kipperlilly why Lucy wasn’t around. Her eyes went hard, like crystals, and her mouth pulled tight. “She’s gone, Ruben,” she snapped. “Why can’t you get that through your thick skull?”
No matter how angry Ruben was, she had always been worse. Worse than even Ivy, with all her snappy sarcasm, worse than Oisin with his silent hatred. She held every little injustice, every slight, close to her chest like a hand of cards. She wasn’t dreaming. She was alive and angry and dangerous. Ruben didn't understand where it all came from, or why she so often pushed him to hurt people he barely recognised.
There was a way to vocalise anger, but she never did. Ruben could, and sometimes he’d pick up an instrument heavier and louder than a ukulele, striking each chord and feeling the vibrations zip through his skeleton. It almost made him feel better. Almost.
It was getting worse. Everything was hot, and uneven, and they were running out of time. For what, he couldn't recall. He wished the dream would change so he could be with Lucy again, instead of in this hot, confusing, corrupted space, facing off against The Bad Kids. Teenagers who looked at him with as much hatred as he felt. But as hard as he willed it to change it wouldn't. He was stuck in this space, and the smoke was crawling through his lungs beneath his skin. His chest ached.
He watched Ivy crumple beneath someone’s sword, her blood as red as the haze in his eyes. This dream wasn’t nice. This dream made him angry. He felt the rage erupt from him in a silent scream. Faces turned toward him; one of them was familiar.
The girl moved toward him. She’d make it better. She’d smile like Lucy and turn the dream sweet instead of sour. Her hand lifted, and
pain.
Now Ruben was falling endlessly. He felt heavy and light all at once. He could remember, distantly, the face of the girl before him; she’d been saying something important, but he couldn’t remember what. She killed him. But she didn’t kill him; this was a dream, a bad dream, a nightmare. He’d been dreaming for a long time. And though he might be falling forever, at least the fall took away the heavy weight on his chest and made it feel like floating.
He shut his eyes, and searched for a dream. A good dream. A face formed before him; a hand took his, with a sweet smile.
Lucy.