"If I could speak, wouldn't that change everything?"

However, I didn’t get the chance to consider anything else, as a pair of lips pressed down on mine, sealing away my power to speak. Seeing her lick her lips with satisfaction afterward, made me stunned and strangely happy. However, I also was at a loss for words... I honestly had no idea how to treat this strange dream anymore.

[Hehe! Now that I got my payment, let’s finish the ritual. You might be comfortable, but my legs are killing me… I don’t understand why you and my brother had to decide on such a stupidly complex ritual for the…]

For the? I couldn't hear the last part... her lips moved but I couldn't hear her voice over the loud and aggressive static-like noise, akin to a reminder of the hourglass that I’ve completely forgotten about. Upon turning my look onto it, the last grain was falling. The upper part was empty and at that point, with a large solemn gesture, she took the jar from my hand and smashed it violently against the concrete floor. She then reached for something that was within the pieces of shattered glass and sand. It was a small, folded piece of paper. Looking at it and then at me with a surprised face, she took her time reading it and continued with an angry face:

[Really? After all the troubles you've put me through you think this is funny, or it makes up for my lost time while searching for you? Do you think it was easy even locating the hourglass? Do you know what kind of price I had to pay to find the dagger? Do you… do you know how lonely this whole world felt without you? ‘Thank you for finding me.’ That’s your message? After so many years that I’ve lost count of?]

Tears were streaking down her fair face, creating an interesting contrast with the moon above and her red flaming hair. Her eyes were clouded by tears, unlike the clear summer sky above us...

“It is indeed a shitty message after all that work… What a shitty ancestor. Hmm? Ancestor? Ugh… My head hurts like hell again…”

Unable to voice out anything that might be able to console her, I forced every muscle in my body and slowly raised my right hand. She looked surprised and curious, while still a bit angry at me for some reason. Crazy or not, seeing such a beautiful woman cry and doing nothing about it, my dad would slap my face so hard that my head would do a 360.

After, what it felt to me as an inhumane effort, with a trembling hand and beads of perspiration on my forehead, I wiped a falling tear from under her ocean-like blue eyes and did my best to smile.

[A certain idiot should learn more from you. Thank you!]

For some reason, I realized that this kiss she was planting on my lips again, was intended for me and not someone else. I couldn’t realize for the love of me how they felt so different, but I was certain about it. Nevertheless, my thoughts have been brutally put to a stop when she took the dagger from my hand and point it at my heart while saying:

[Now, enough with the cute human! Let's awake my beloved raven from his slumber!]

I watched the blade plunging towards my heart at a high speed. I totally freaked out, but then I thought how this was the end and now I’m going to wake up from this dream, this nightmare that became so beautiful after seeing her face and feeling the taste of her lips. However, nothing happened...I just watched the blade coming straight at me in a slow and almost theatrical manner.

My heart raced like crazy, while the tip of the blade came closer and closer to my chest, making my whole body tremble in fear. With a sudden chill, I could feel it piercing trough my skin, voraciously reaching for my insides. I felt pain like no other i've experienced before, while my hands where grabbing at the hard concrete around me, squeezing it tightly and ripping the skin around my fingers as result. Then, my whole body became cold from the touch of the blade that cut into my heart. I could feel something being pushed inside it, akin to a syringe, while fresh blood was seeping out of the wound. The blackness from the dagger disappeared and in its place, the blade became red with blood… my blood! My eyes filled with unwilling tears from the pain, were helplessly looking at the dagger while my paralyzed body was being killed. It hurts so bad...and the feeling of cold seems to further freeze my body, not helping at all. My headache finally stops, while I am falling into a pit of darkness and solitude, while my head still rests on her lap. Pride! My pride, my idiotic pride as a man does not allow me to scream in pain given that she is still around. So I grit my teeth and hold on onto the little vestiges of dignity I have left.

[That's all! I think that we finished!] – she said on a happy tone

And at the same time, reaching for the dagger and pulling it out making me yelp like a small child. There goes my dignity... The pain is so intense that I fainted and woke up again, while the red dagger is being thrown aside like a toy that she got bored of. My sight becomes blurry and I try to see her face once more before I die. It became painfully clear to me that this wasn't a dream, and anyway, if I we were to listen to the voice of people, even if it was a dream, whoever dies in their sleep, dies in reality as well. Therefore, either way I may look at it, I am facing death. It is as simple as that!

It is wrong of me to want to kiss her at least once more before I die? I couldn’t think of anything else but that. She infected my poor soul to the point that even in death, all I can think of, are her soft lips pressed against mine. However, the grip that the death has on me is too tight, and I can't move or speak. This… is the end.

[Time to go too sleep. I hope you dream about me, my beloved raven!] – she said while tears were continuously falling on my forehead

With my last bits of power, I lifted my right arm, and gently touched her face while trying to force a smile through the pain, obtaining as result a really surprised look on her face. After that, I let my hand smash against the cold concrete floor under the force of gravity. I wanted to leave behind some words but I couldn't think of any. After all, her own lips sealed my fate with one final kiss. My wish has been fulfilled and so, I, Michael Kyrie closed my eyes and waited for the death to come and claim me.

My heart struggled to beat one last time, the sound of it echoing through my whole body, resonating with the sound of her tears falling on my face and after that… silence was bestowed upon my soul, along with a feeling of relief and no more pain from my mortal body.

It's mid-night and it's quiet...I died! Happy Birthday Michael!

...

I forcefully sat up from my bed, unable to breathe properly. Grabbing onto the sheets with my right hand, while my left was searching the wound in my chest, I couldn’t find a way to calm down. Wheezing and gasping, I looked around me and saw the same bed on which I’d always wake up, followed by the rays of sunlight from outside, a cold temperature in the room and the realization that it was just a dream.

“Wasn’t it too fucking real!? I can still feel the pain of being fucking stabbed to death! Just what…”

[Same nightmare?]

At the all too familiar question, I froze. This… how can this be? How did I get home if I fell asleep on the bench? Did someone took out my phone and called Vic? Or was the entire thing a dream from the point where I woke up. My head felt like it was splitting apart and I was on the verge of having a panic attack.

[It sure is cold like hell in here, did you let the A/C on again? The bill for this month is going to burry us both and here you are, trying to recreate the North Pole!! How many times must I tell you? There is no Santa Claus!!]

Staring at his cup of coffee, I could feel the blood in my veins freeze. This was not possible, right?

“It's getting really tiresome…” – I said with a breaking voice

“Come to think of it, what are you doing on my bed with a cup of coffee in your hands? Did I scream again?”

Looking straight into his eyes, I prayed that this was just a joke he was playing on me and that he will soon make fun of my naivety, while waiting for his answer.

However, his reply was not the one I was hoping for…

[Yep! And it was kind of funny, in a native Indian sort of way! If you stop and think about it for a second, you're just like my personal alarm clock in the morning. I do not have to worry about the time that I go to sleep, or the condition I am when I do! You will wake me up for sure, even if I happen to freaking die!] (Vic)

My heart seemed to have stopped and my brain shut down after receiving the same reply as the one in my ‘dream’, word-by-word. Is that even possible? Racking my brains to find out an explanation, I couldn’t help but think, what if that wasn’t a dream?

“But if it’s not a dream, then what was it?”

[What are you mumbling on about? Are you angry that I didn’t wake you up? Think of it as a payback for my sleep depravation...It's KARMA man, KARMA!](Vic)

Listening to him delivering the same lines I already know, I got scared. To make matters even worse, the headache got so bad, that I thought my brain was preparing to leave my fucking skull.

“Just what the fuck is going on!?”