#thank u grimm i care him SO much. i did backflips to keep this vague enough for u to actually read w/o too many spoilers BKHB

[quillheel]

04.     entry made after experiencing a nightmare. ( for kim mayhaps? :0 )

DEAR DIARY... // always accepting!!!

poised vertically among a dozen and a half of its brothers on a shelf that is not cramped, but in equal measure begins to lose its space, is a notebook. hands pluck it out by the top ridge along the well-made blue spine, the skin of it covered carefully in a deep navy, the papers a pristine white. inside, the handwriting is dense and thick and fast, bunched together on each line, a code with it's cipher in the language itself. it has not sat here long. the date on the inner cover like the notice of an eviction in black, fluid pen; '50 - '51.

you open it. its pages rustle as though a guarded cage has been opened, rendered vulnerable, almost meek despite the intimidation of straight iron and pressed paper, rustling like a snarl. you sit with it, you learn it, it learns you. it is uncomfortable with what is asked of it. you ask anyway.

you reach back into the memory it holds. it gives way, like sticking your hand in the guts of a soft oily thing, or jello, reaching for a pearl in a clam-shell.

━ I have had more nightmares in the past two weeks than I have in four months. I don't know how much longer I can do this.

Maybe the stress is getting to me. Seeing the recently deceased is never good for your health, but I can't afford to take leave. If I did, all the ground I'd been covering my entire career will be torn out from under me. I'm lucky. I think it's more than just the corpses.

I keep watching him die. There is blood drawn. Kortenaer aims higher. Shoots. The bullet ruptures his liver as a virulent bomb inside of him. he is unconscious after an unimaginably painful half-second. Someone shouts. I panic. I attempt to stop the bleeding. I do not see de Paule. She aims. Shoots. I wake up in the 57th infirmary. I am forced to ask what happened to him instead of being told. I am informed there was nothing they could do, dead within the two days I am unconscious, an excruciating death as the liver and gallbladder poisons his bloodstream even as the bleeding stops. I do not get to see him again. I do not even know if there is a funeral held. The trial never happens. They were gone. We remained. I remain.

The dream changes often, sometimes being so abstract as if only pertaining to the color of his existence or Martinaise itself, but the point remains the same. somewhere in Jamrock, another little light blinks out.

This hasn't happened since Eyes, and never this constant. I wish I could call him.

I don't know. I'm tired. I want to hear his voice. I want to talk to him again. It's late. He'd answer.

The ink is allowed to dry for a long, long time. the pearl is clutched in your right hand. your reaching the end, oblivion, always cut short.

I'm going to work on the Kineema. I can't really, the only thing to do is something to I want to do with him, but an unnecessary tune-up is enough to keep my hands busy.

Maybe then I'll be able to go back to sleep.