i have no time no life my existence is nothing i am merely a dream i dwell in your head and feast on your anxiety and when you feel joy i am enraged a wretch like you should never feel joy only pain lay down and die lay down and die
He never saw his dreams. He wondered if this was the result of injury, perhaps he hit his head against something and knocked something loose in his brain. Or if he were cursed. An Akero who could not dream was a liability. He didn’t want to let his people down.
“What did you see, Heaven?” asked the Headmaster.
“I...”
And yet he could do nothing but let them down, again and again.
“No-nothing.”
Headmaster’s expression was was always locked into a frigid gaze, and his eyes pierced his psyche and paralyzed his senses.
“Your mind is dull, Heaven. You lack the joy, the imagination, the love that it takes to be a seer. You have talent but...talent alone will take you nowhere.”
Headmaster left him staring at his bended knees, his heart pounding and heavy. He only wanted to do well, to do right by his people. They needed him. He gazed around and saw his peers, eyes closed as they laid on their own oval platform. Behind their eyelids they dreamed vividly, picturing worlds foreign to him, worlds he would never see.
“Heaven. Heaven. Heaven!”
He was shaken from his stupor by her soft voice, and he turned away from the cliff and gazed into her eyes, blue as anything he had ever seen. He thought they were wonderful.
“Stephanie...you shouldn’t be around me.” he murmured.
“Why not? We’re friends, right?”
He turned away from her.
“Heaven? Don’t be like that.” She reached out and grabbed his wrist and he blushed suddenly. “What’s wrong with you?”
“W-well..I’m just...I’m not..you shouldn’t hang around someone like me. Someone’s whose no good, you know? There are better people to talk to. You can talk to them about your dreams.”
Stephanie sighed, shook her head and looked into the sky fettered with clumped clouds.
“You’ve been listening to Headmaster. I don’t know why. He’s just jealous of what you can do.”
“That’s nonsense, I don’t do an-”
“Stop it!”
Her expression made him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to annoy her.
“You’re so talented. You do everything perfectly...it’s like you were born to be a seer. The rest of us...we’re so jealous," she said as her expression softened. “The Headmaster talks about how you can’t dream. Well, dreaming isn’t everything. They’re only visions. We need people like you to act on them.”
She touched her shoulder and smiled. He didn’t blush, the pit of his stomach merely burned and twisted.
“You’re too kind to me...Stephanie.”
He smiled even though he knew her words were empty. To dream was to exist.
“Come on,” she said. “The lunch room is serving double layered chocolate cake.”
His eyes light up at the thought of eating lunch with her.
Two, three days, if not less.
