Role

Chapter 2

I know why. There must be no other explanation. Dreams killed
Milean.They killed mother, too, and probably father. I remember
when we were little, before Milean got sick, he would wake in the
middle of night screaming. Horrible nightmares had jolted him from
his slumber. Mother would rush in, comforting him. I was too afraid
to look, too afraid to listen to him describe his dreams to her.
I did not want to open my eyes, nor did I want to keep them closed.

Mother would leave a lantern on, in the room Milean and I shared,
overnight. Milean was dreadfully afraid of the dark. Mother must
have been, too.She kept a lantern on for herself, and I remember
times when Milean would crawl in bed with her only to come back and
proclaim how impossible it was to sleep with her, with all the tossing
and turning. I vaguely remember mother telling Milean on one of his
midnight spooks how she had bad dreams as well, but they are only dreams,
and when you wake, when the sun rises, all will be forgotten.

I do not know what Milean dreamt, not do I know what my mother dreamt.
I do know that Milean dreams in my dreams, but I am not sure, of all
he tells me, what is dream and what is not.

I was walking through the dunes south of the Jade Mountains. There was
a sandstorm. A violent, turbulent conglomeration of wind, sand, brush,
dirt, and rocks alike. I started off in the opposite direction when the
sand turned to all the colors of the rainbow. Brillian hues of violet
and deep blue. The colors swirled, entrancing me, and for some reason,
agains my better judgement, I walked toward the mealstrom. Immediately,
I was tossed against boulder after boulder, again and again unmercifully.
Later that same day, I found myself fighting a dragon while I was all but
naked. He called to me, like a siren, sometimes like a banshee. It was
terribly sweet, and then, THEN I heard my mother's voice singing. I
walked straight toward him, not thinking.

I do not fear sleep. I do not even fear my dreams, they disturb me more
than scare me. But my dreams are trying to do away with me, too. But why?
And who? I have heard people speak of my family's curse. Could it be
true? Has my family been cursed in their sleep, doomed to dream to death?
I only hope I can find the answer before it takes me, too.