what dreams may come | babe

[gamemaker kelsier]

Hi.

It's September 7th, there are clouds in the sky but not that many and it's quiet out. At least it's quieter than it's been in years. It's a heavy quiet, a dominant quiet. I don't know how to explain it good.

It feels like loss I guess. Or maybe like too much.

My name is Babe. I am almost thirteen and I have a hole in my chest an inch from my heart and it gives me bad dreams at night. I know that sounds mental but it's the truth.

Tara gave me this empty book and told me to start writing my dreams down so I can learn to control them but I think she's gone nuts. (Dreams just happen, like... girl.) She showed up on my doorstep last month and made me let her in at gunpoint, with one of the guns from my factory even. She said her dad worked at Adroxis and died in the raid so the least I could do was give her somewhere to sleep.

The house was really empty anyway so I gave her the guest room.

Then she gave me this 'cause I kept waking her up with my screaming. I don't really know how I'm supposed to use it though, I always forget my dreams. I guess I'll try though, I dunno.

Maybe I can regift her this journal at Ratmas, that'd be funny, right?

- babe

[gamemaker kelsier]

Sept 18, 13 yrs old.

3 am rn, I dreamt about mom again but this time we're in the skylight room and she's at the end ofa gun i'm pointing at her, can't point it away, don't know why. She just stares at me and breathes and i stare at her and slowly, slowly, slowly a dark spot blooms behind her on the wall and her eyes widen and she shakes her head and she yells out JOONGIE which is what she calls my dad and then I feel the gun bounce under my hand and the stain widens and the force of the bullet makes her hit the wall and she stares at me with this look of of.... something in her eyes and the room spins and I look at where the door should be but I see another me standing there and this other me is just staring at the dark spot on the wall and then my view flips and there's my dad, weird look on his face and he's holding a gun and he's telling me to go get Cy so I start running because there are explosions outside and I keep running until i wake up.

September 18th, 9 AM

I fell back asleep after writing that down. It's been a week already of keeping track of my dreams, can you believe that? We've already hit page 20. I guess it's because I keep writing my thoughts down too later, I don't know if that's how you're supposed to keep a dream journal. I feel like it doesn't matter maybe, that I can do what I want.

The skylight room is a real place but I think I've been in it more in my nightmares than I ever did before. It's just an old storage room but now I can't go within fifty feet of it without feeling weird. Maybe that's not normal, I don't think anyone else freaks out about this stuff more than me. It makes me feel weak that I can't just get over it.

Another kid came looking for a place to sleep, third one since Tara and I let them stay too. If I turn them away, they'll probably just get themselves killed somehow and I can't have that on my conscious. I think these kids maybe look up to me and I don't know how to deal with that. Everyone's angry, no one's got parents left, I'm not the only one alone.

We all wake up screaming.

- babe

[gamemaker kelsier]

A lake, so black that it didn't even reflect stars and I was in the middle of it, floating on my back. When I looked up at the sky I didn't even see a sky, just more black and I just lay there, floating. Nothing was even happening but i was terrified and I was even more scared because I couldn't figure out why I was even there and I think I just laid there for one hundred years, waiting for something to happen in the dark but there was nothing, nothing and then I thought maybe it was just a calm dream and I was wrong but then I realized something-

I was getting tired? In my dream I was getting tired of floating, I couldn't stay up and was starting to sink and I opened my mouth to scream and water filled up my mouth and it tasted like metal, rusted. It tasted like blood?

Wait.

When dad shot me, I fell down beside Cy with my mouth open. It wasn't a dream, just a sleeping memory again, fuck this, going back to bed.

- babe

[gamemaker kelsier]

Cool, so Tara says that my distorted memory-dream hybrids count and I do have to write them down. I don't remember the drowning one well enough now to know if there was anything else to it. I guess that's the point of writing down a dream right after waking up.

I got the idea of it down I think anyway.

Today is November 18th. I turned fourteen a couple of weeks ago and didn't even notice. There's just more important things to worry about, I don't know. A birthday just seems so trivial during all this, like so what, I came out of my mom fourteen years ago. She's dead now, so it doesn't even matter.

A group of us kids trashed the District Square yesterday, we brought cans of spray paint and toilet paper and tagged the shit out of the place. We hung tp off of shop awnings and the fountain in the middle of the square and I don't think I've ever laughed so hard.

We've been laying real low since the factory raid but about a week ago, something in us collectively snapped. Burma, kid who came last month, says that we can still change shit, that we can keep fighting but I don't know about that.

The war feels like it's over and we lost.

None of us want to admit it though.

I guess I still know how to smuggle guns out, that I can just continue with what my family was doing before and maybe we'll get another chance against the Capitol, maybe it's not the end.

I think the other kids are getting to me, they still have so much hope and I don't know what I have. Maybe it's not what I have but the absence of it. I don't feel afraid, I don't really feel anything.

The bullet wound is long healed, the scar will never go away but it doesn't really hurt anymore, I just get a weird cold pain every now and then but I can't help having this wild thought that maybe my dad did get my heart.

Maybe there's nothing in there.

I lie awake at night, listening hard for the sound of my own heartbeat but I can't hear anything at all, even if I plug my ears.

Can you keep living with a broken heart?

- babe

[gamemaker kelsier]

Killed someone today.

December 23rd, got his blood on my pants, sloppy work.

I didn't have a choice, he saw Burma break that window and we'd already told each other no witnesses so what was I supposed to do? It was Burma's life or his and I chose Burma.

Worst part is that I don't regret it, I don't even think I feel bad.

I can't sleep though, nearly 3 AM and I haven't even shut my eyes yet and I guess I'm kind of worried that I'm just going to see the guy's face in my dreams. I already have so many people haunting me, I don't know if I have room for another.

I was kind of hoping killing someone would be harder but I guess we're all really that fragile. I didn't want to risk the sound of a gunshot so I used my knife. I just dug it into his neck and dragged it and he fell, easy as that.

Killing for a cause isn't bad. War has casualties, that's all.

Maybe I'm a bad person.

- babe

[gamemaker kelsier]

Weird half-awake dream thing just now, I think I'm starting to gt the hang of controlling my dreams or at least the illusion of control- whatever.

Cy stood over my bed and he was smiling at me but there were two holes in him, one in his forehead, one in his chest and I could see clean through them. I know he said something to me because I remember his mouth moving but I don't know what it was.

I've been dreaming about Cy less lately, guess I got other stuff on my mind. In my dream, I remember wanting to stand up to hug him but I couldn't move at all, my body was heavy. He just stared at me for a long time until I woke up. I feel creeped out now, I can still feel those sad eyes on me.

If Cy was alive still, I may have had a niece or nephew at this point. He was going to propose to his girl before he died and that had been two years ago.

I wonder if the consciousness continues after death and what happens to it. Do dead people still dream? What if Cy's and my dreams are connected somehow?

It's worth thinking about.

Also, just because I have nowhere else to question this, would it be weird if Tara and I kissed? We almost did last night when we were celebrating a finished job, at least I think we did. Our faces got all close for a second there and I felt her breath on my cheek. She took too long to pull away, at least I think she did.

I can't tell if that was a signal or not. Even if it was, maybe shit would get weird between us if things ended badly romantically and technically, I can't afford to lose Tara Seraphim, she's second in command.

Since when did my dream journal become my dumb schoolgirl diary, fuck.

It's 6 AM, I'm not going back to bed now, this stupid exercise has taught me nothing except how to waste time.

Guess I'll go for a run or something.

- babe