In sleep we see many images that don�t make sense to us in waking, and are often ignored. But maybe they�re trying to tell you something about ourselves�

Jayce sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing his eyes. Fatigue set in too quickly now. He didn�t want to sleep, he needed to. He hadn�t had any real sleep in close to a week, and the last thing he needed was to nod off in the middle of a fight. He pulled back the blankets and crawled underneath. He lay for a moment, thinking. His head hurt, hurt enough to kill his appetite at dinner. He ran a hand through his striped hair, tangling it slightly while intending to bush his bangs out of his face. He needed to trim them, they were beginning to flop over his eyelids. His eyelids. They felt so heavy�

A hand, a cold hand, brushed his face. He raised his own hand to push it away. Silk, now, gently caressed his skin. His clear blue eyes fluttered open and he sat up slowly, allowing the satin sheets to crumple into his lap. Jayce found himself both calm and panicked. He looked around at the black velvet curtains surrounding the bed. The bed, a huge four posted thing, was draped in burgundy and he found himself between black sheets.

"Did you sleep well?" Jayce�s head snapped around. At the foot of the bed was a young man with long ebon hair. His large golden eyes glittered with an unnatural, animalistic light.

"Who are you? Where am I?" Jayce�s own eyes sparked with a rarely seen aggression. The other boy�s thin, pale lips parted, reveling two rows of perfectly white teeth. Jayce couldn�t tell if it was a grimace or a smile, but it was unsettling all the same.

"Who I am is unimportant. Who you are is. Or, rather, who you want to be." He smiled broader, his grin almost impossibly wide.

"This is a dream�" Jayce closed his eyes and willed himself awake.

"What are dreams but manifestations of our deepest, DARKEST desires?"

"No. I�m not� I�m going to wake up now." Jayce felt cold fingers on his chin, forcing his head up. He opened his eyes and stared into fiery gold. The eyes of a cat. Soft music filtered into his ears.

"That song� I know�"

"From where?" The grin seemed to cut the boy�s face in two. Jayce could feel his hot breath on his face, pouring down his throat.

"I�" Jayce closed his eyes, remembering the last time he had heard those words.

"To dream all alone�" Jayce felt the boy�s forked tongue brush his throat, his veins.

"I can taste you�re blood. I can smell it. Hear it thunder in your veins. I know what it wants."

"What?"

"You know the song?"

"My mother. It was her favorite song. She played it so often�"

"You remember your mother?"

"Yes�"

"She loved you. She still loves you and your father."

"She left me."

"She had to." Lips now, and sharp teeth nipped his flesh.

"Why?" The boy drew back, scraping black claws down Jayce�s face and neck without breaking the skin. His eyes seemed thinner, now, not the luminous orbs they had been, a darker hazel.

"You know. You know deep down why she did what she did. You know who�s fault it is."

Jayce�s eyes glassed over then took on a cold sheen. He nodded slowly.

"Do you remember? Do you remember how you felt that day? The day she left a child motherless? And the day SHE was born?" Jayce nodded again. The boy stood and opened one side of the curtain, revealing Flora sitting in her room, arranging her flowers in a bed, talking to them softly. "How do you feel about her?"

"I love her. She�s my sister. I�" A low growl shook the room. The boy�s sable hair swirled around his head like a dark flame.

"Remember! It�s HER fault! HER FAULT!"

"Her fault�" The boy�s now green eyes twinkled brightly. He held out his fist and uncurled it. A long silver dagger appeared in it. It looked just like the one� "Take it." Jayce�s reached out tentatively, his hand shaking, "TAKE IT!" He grabbed the blade clumsily, holding it with some difficulty, as if it were a living snake ready to strike him.

"Now what? Why did you give me�?"

"Because you wanted it." The boy turned back to stare into the room. "Look at her. Your �sister.� Everyone loves her. She�s the baby, the sweet one. Remember how you felt!"

"I thought father loved her more than me�" The boy backed away as Jayce crawled forward on the bed�

Flora looked up as Jayce entered the room.

"Hello, Ja�" Her eyes went round when she saw the look in his. Blue looked almost white and was engulfed by his pupils.

"I�m sorry, Flora, but this is the way it has to be."

Her flesh was so soft, so easy to cut. He made sure it was a clean kill. He didn�t want her to suffer more than necessary. He made sure he cut both the jugular and the carteroid. He heard a soft clapping and turned to face the boy. Ice blue met dark blue. The boy tossed his sorrel hair our of his face.

"Bravo, Jayce, bravo. See what you�ve done?"

Jayce looked down at the limp body he held by one arm. His dagger clattered to the floor, landing with a metallic splash in a puddle of reddish-green blood. Flora�s eyes, the color of spring leaves, stared straight down the path her soul had taken as it was ripped from her mortal shell.

Jayce opened his fist, allowing her hurt body to slump to the floor. He turned her over, looking at her pale, stained face. He felt something, but he knew it wasn�t remorse. He turned to the boy, who had turned his back. He swung around to face Jayce, and Jayce found himself looking in a mirror.

"Are you coming?" Gillian wiped away a tear as Herc lay the little girl�s remains in her hammock, covering her with a blanket the best he could. The old wizard knelt down and gingerly picked up the blade.

"It can�t be� Oh, by the gods, no�"

"What, what old man?" Herc stared in disgust at the weapon.

"This dagger� It� it used to belong to�" Gillian was out of the room in a second, running down the hall faster than Herc had ever seen the old man move. Gillian nearly flew and Herc had to push himself to keep pace. Herc caught up with him just as he was coming out of Jayce�s room. "He�s not there." He looked down at the blade again, "I thought we got rid of it�" Herc stared at Gillian, confused, and heard soft singing through the closed door.

"What is it? And what is that music?"

"Her favorite song� This dagger� Jayce�s mother wanted another child, but after him� she was normally so happy� we didn�t learn until afterwards that severe dementia ran in her blood�"

"What? After what?"

"She became so depressed. She killed herself with this dagger. She slit both of her wrists and slowly bled to death." Gillian looked over at Flora�s exposed arm. Her little hands had nearly been sliced off, so deep were the cuts, "Jayce saw the whole thing. He was a small child, but he watched his mother bleed to death in a tub of water. She wanted him with her in her final moments. We were thankful she didn�t take him with her. I thought Audric disposed of the blade, but�"

"Jayce took it."

"We were worried after we found out� that he might� be like her� but he grew up so normally� we put it to the back of our minds� hoping for the best� We have to find him NOW."

Herc stood on the bridge, trying to configure the controls to search within the ship. He heard the door hiss open.

"Gillian, did you�" He met frighteningly cold blue eyes. Jayce smiled ear to ear, his hair spiky and clotted with gore, white stripe stained red.

"I�m sorry, Herc, Gillian�s resting." A second too late Herc saw the knife.

"Well, Oon, I guess It�s just you and me, now." Jayce threw the dented orb into the air and caught it. He fiddled with the torn feather sticking out of the top, "I think I like you better this way. Your whining was quite annoying, don�t you agree, Herc? Jayce looked over at the skull that sat on the edge of the control panel. He smiled to himself and punched in some coordinates.

"I�m sorry, father. I know how hard you worked on Flora, but if mother had been able to have her herself, she wouldn�t have died. Don�t worry. You still have me." He engaged the engines and leaned back, running his fingers up and down the blade of his mother�s dagger until blood slowly trickled down it, and humming in tune with the audio disc playing softly in the background, set to play in an eternal loop.

"I�m coming, Father."

It is said that dreams are a window to the soul, an glimpse into who we are. Maybe sometimes we shouldn�t look�