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Summary: Nicholas is woken up in the middle of the night by a nightmare, a usual occurrence.
Date: June 21, 2012
Log Title: Late Night Ritual
Rating: R
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
The screams didn’t seem to stop and there was nothing Nicholas could do to stop them. Tied to the support pole in his basement he struggled to save his parents. “Dad! Mom!” He screamed as he struggled against the ropes. Why wasn’t the fire hurting him, why could he breath when they couldn’t? Nick didn’t understand and all he could do was watch as the smoke and flame consumed his parents. He pulled against the ropes as hard as he could, feel them digging into his flesh but it didn’t hurt, just a weird pressure. He couldn’t look anymore, he had to turn away and close his eyes. The screams were replaced by a voice: “This is the fate that mutants deserve.” Nicholas opened his eyes upon hearing the voice to realize he was in bed, tangled in his sheets sweating.
Feeling his chest tightening and the shortness of breath, Nick quickly and quietly as he could, left the room he shared with Ahmed, closing the door behind him. Leaning against the wall he struggled for several moments until he could breathe again. His shirt was stuck to his back from the sweat, his hair damp. Last night it was the same nightmare but instead of his parents it was Jill, almost every night the same nightmare haunted his dreams sometimes it was his parents, sometimes it was his friends – Shane, Ahmed, Cale, Taylor, Quenton, the people he had come to care about, the only people he has in his life.
Sliding down the wall to a sitting position, Nick curled his knees against his chest and cried for the umpteenth time since he came to Xavier’s. Every night the nightmares eventually came, sometimes earlier sometimes later but it almost always came. One those nights when he didn’t have them, the dreams of his life back home in North Dakota haunted him, reminders of a life he could never be a part of again. Either way it kept him from sleeping, fearing what he'd see in his dreams. Looking at his watch, Nichols saw the time was two am in the morning; he had gotten almost four hours of sleep. About what he usually gets per night, if he's lucky he'll get five hours of sleep.
Standing up, the anger started to build inside. Of the loss of his parents, his friends, his life. Thoughts of revenge against the men that tore apart his life filtered through his head, thoughts he knew he’d never act on. It was always like this, first the sorrow, than the anger, then shortly after the depression. It’s not that he hated his life at Xavier’s, he liked the friends he made and then there was Jill, the girl who helped him learn to smile again. Outside of that though, he just wanted to go home. He wanted to be back at the stables, he missed competing, he missed being able to really ride. He even missed his Mom calling him by the nickname he hated, Nicky.
Exiting the dorms, Nicholas glanced over at the stables and stood there staring at them for a while. “It’s gotta get easier.” He muttered to himself, not believing it, before walking into the main building. Double checking his steps, back tracking a few times after finding himself in the library twice, he finally found the recreation room, his room of solace in the middle of the night. Leaving the lights off, he turned on the television and slipped the school’s copy of Pirates of the Caribbean into the Blu-Ray player. Curling up on the couch, Nick found that movies and video games helped him to stop thinking about the past and the nightmares. Hopefully by morning he’d be able to hide the fact that he felt like he was about to break at any moment and act like he’s adjusting better than he actually is.
