She wasn't quite sure where she was running.

Aubrey was getting a little bored of running aimlessly, if she was being honest with herself. She was used to stability. Structure. All this runaway stuff... it was all uncharted territory. Unfamiliar and new. And not in the good way. 

It didn't take long for people to catch sight of her. And oh, Aubrey was certain that she was a dreadful sight indeed. Pale and bone-thin as a starved ghost, dressed all in black and white with gore streaked across her face...

She must've looked like a monster.

She could be a monster. She wasn't quite sure anymore. 

Aubrey ran out of breath quickly. She was exhausted. The taste of something bitter and dreadful hit the back of her tongue. But it was liberating at the same time. The kind of bitter she could take solace in. 

A shrill laugh pierced the air. It took Aubrey a couple moments to realize it was her own. 

As she sprinted past the buildings, exhilarated by the shouts and pointing fingers and footsteps resonating behind her, she saw figures flickering between the sunken structures. A shadow, at first, sinewy and supple and dark as pitch as it weaved in between the walls. And then she saw the mirror of herself, smiling as if she didn't have a care of the world. 

But she only saw these things out of the corner of her eye, so it was easy enough to convince herself that they weren't real. 

Her heel stung with every heavy slap of her thin-soled feet against the roads. Soon enough a pair of Wardens split of from the crowds of people and started to chase her. They were getting closer and closer, but Aubrey pressed onwards and onwards, even as her lungs screamed and her feet throbbed and her head pounded. 

She was fast. She was strong. She was more powerful than she'd ever known.

And so what if they caught her? She'd killed off the other Wardens that had tried to stop her. Surely she could do it again...

Aubrey felt her feet stall beneath her. She shrieked and stumbled forward, sprawling out against the ground. Bits of gravel bit into her arms and cheek, but she paid the pain no mind as she lay there. 

Where had that thought come from? 

Aubrey was no killer—

And yet she'd killed three people, now. 

She could feel rough ropes looping around her wrists. Someone pulled her roughly to her feet. Aubrey swayed unsteadily, black and white spots flecking her vision. 

People were shouting, but their voices sounded like they were underwater. Or like she was underwater. She wasn't sure. But they were muffled and distant and so far away that it didn't feel real. None of this felt real. It couldn't be real. 

"She's losing it," someone called from forever away. "Grab her shoulders."

Hands clamped down on her shoulders. And then a strong arm hooked underneath her knees. And before she knew it, Aubrey had been swept into someone's arms. Her head lolled against their shoulder unsteadily. A drunken giggle bubbled up from her lips. 

"Where'my going?" She mumbled sleepily. Her eyelids fluttered shut. 

"Would be way easier to just kill her." The words echoed, splitting her skull open like she'd split that man's skull open. 

"Oh, don't do that," Aubrey frowned. "Would be bad." 

"She's powerful, like it or not," a disbelieving voice grumbled. "They'd prefer her alive, so." 

"Yeah, but it'd be so easy..." a sharp knife braced up against her throat. 

Aubrey shivered. Dying would not be good. Probably. Or maybe it would be pretty. She didn't quite know. 

The knife was jerked away. "Stop that," the other voice snapped. 

Someone said something else. Aubrey wasn't sure what they were saying. She wasn't sure what much of anything was, anymore. It was all soft and fuzzy and tempting. It would be so easy to just slip away from it all...

Aubrey felt her body go completely limp before she drifted into a blissful slumber. 

"You're back?"

Aubrey whirled around when she heard the voice. Her voice. Her heart leapt when she realized that she'd come face-to-face with her double yet again. 

Her bare toes dug into the multicoloured sand. "You're not repeating everything I say," she pointed out.

Other Aubrey shrugged. "Guess I'm not."

"What happened?" Aubrey asked. 

Other Aubrey's lips curled into a serene smile. "You happened." 

Aubrey frowned and crossed her arms. "Doesn't make sense," she frowned. 

Her mother used to tell her that dreams were the universe's way of sending messages. The memory resurfaced, bittersweet and sharp. Aubrey prayed silently that all of this was the universe and not just her subconscious playing cruel tricks. 

"You like it here," Other Aubrey said. She gestured around. "It's better here."

"I don't..." Aubrey trailed off, glancing at her surroundings. Perhaps Other Aubrey was right. It was a beautiful sort of dream. 

"You could stay here, you know." Other Aubrey plopped down in the sand, a pale white skirt swishing around her. 

Aubrey realized that it wasn't just the skirt that was white—her double's hair had stark silvery-white hair, the same colour as a luminous full moon. She tugged absently on one of her own auburn curls. Her dream self seemed... well, peaceful. Quiet. Comfortable with herself. 

It felt silly to feel jealous of a dream, and yet she was.

"You can't stay in a dream," Aubrey said with a forced laugh, sitting down cross-legged and facing her double. "That's silly."

"Is it, though?" Other Aubrey quirked an eyebrow. "Just think about it. Really think about it. You'd be so much better off." 

"This is a dream," Aubrey said quietly. "Dreams aren't real. They're dreams. You dream them. Then you wake up. That's how it works." 

"That doesn't have to be how it works, though," Other Aubrey replied in an equally soft tone. 

"But it is." 

"No." Other Aubrey shook her head. "You'll figure it out soon. You'll remember. The real world is horrible. We hate it out there. But here..." she smiled softly. "It's perfect here."

It was perfect because it was a dream. Aubrey knew she was just imagining a perfect world. Perfection couldn't really exist. People went mad searching for perfection—she'd heard the stories. Paradise was nothing more than a lie. 

"I'm not staying," Aubrey said firmly. 

"Suit yourself, then," Other Aubrey laughed, seemingly unperturbed. 

And just like that, the dream faded away.