"Make Me Not See Anymore..."

"Make me not see anymore." That's what Tony said to me, as he held his ragged, bloody hands out to me. "Make me not see anymore."

I took his hands in mine; his blood was warm & sticky. "It's gonna be alright..." That's what I told him, though I'm not sure if I believed it then, or even now. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. Not if I can help it."

All eyes were on me.

I opened the link between us. I wasn't sure I wanted to, but I did it anyways.

"It's okay. This might hurt a little. Show me. Let me see."

The boy lacks control, & the images flooded my perceptions in a deluge of pain & death.

Monsters falling at the hands of humans. Some I knew. Some I did not.

I watched as Justin's wings were carved from his body, with a jagged shard of glass. No, it was a mirror. A shard of a broken mirror, speckled with flecks of blood; meaty reflections dancing across it's surface. I heard familiar screams...guttural, hopeless shrieks of agony.

Justin's wings were tossed aside in the dust...discarded. Shredded leather. Tattered & torn.

I tried to focus on the bloody hands responsible, the ones that grasped the shard of the mirror so tightly that his own blood mingled with that of his victim.

I foisted my will upon the vision--forcing it's direction. Forcing it upwards, towards the assailant's face.

Tony. Splattered in blood & gore. Smiling. Laughing. But the laughter--it wasn't his voice.

The vision shifted...wisked me to a place of desolation & rubble. Fallen, crumbled buildings. Dust & ash. & Tony stood in the midst of it all. My fallen brethren at his feet. & a jagged, bloody, reflective shard in each hand.

He raised them up & rushed at me, plunging them into my chest, & I heard my own voice screaming...the blood gurgling up in my throat.

Stars above--I could taste it.

I abruptly yanked myself back, away from Tony's mind & back into my own.

I pulled so hard, I fell unceremoniously on my ass in the dirt.

Justin grabbed my hand, to haul me to my feet. "No--don't touch me!" I screamed. "Don't touch me!"

I was free of Tony's mind--but still in the grasp of a vision. A vision of blackness.

Bloody bandages waved before my eyes. Dancing in the wind. Accompanied by a gravelly whisper...

"He was mine before you ever found him. Your hope is futile Dream Weaver. But I assure you, it tastes good...."

This was followed by a bellowing laughter. I forced my will out toward the force grasping at me...pulled it in tight, let it well up, & then released. A flash of brightness. White. & I felt the grasp loosen & give.

Until I was alone in my own head once again.