The Dreamscape (Liam Payne)

26.<3

There are two sides to every coin. The good must come with the bad. You can’t have pleasure without pain. For every day of sun there is a rain cloud ready to release its downpour. A rose has its thorns, and dreams have their nightmares.

Liam didn’t just send Stella to the other side of his dreamscape, he sent her to the other side of her own. Their dreams had become so intertwined, one not dreaming without the other. Their connection that originally created this relationship was now the same bond that sent Stella tumbling away from reality. She was indeed dreaming as she lay in that hospital bed, but it wasn’t of Liam, it wasn’t about her coffee shop, or her watching some beautiful sunset.

This place was dark, unsettling. Stella stood shivering in the cold air, her breath rolling past her lips and creating a cloud in front of her face. She looked around at the tall hedges that surrounded her, leading her down a singular path. The ground was cold and hard against her bare feet; it felt nothing like the soft earth Liam had in his garden.  

Her arms wrapped around herself, trying to get warm as she took a few uneasy steps, trying to place her surroundings. Suddenly there was a snap of a branch behind her, startling Stella as a shadowy figure emerged from the dark. Stella’s mismatched eyes grew wide in fear and she began to run through the hedges. She quickly realized that this was no regular dream as the hedges began to grow, blocking her from continuing down her path and creating a maze.

Stella let out a scream as she collided with one of the hedges and as she pulled back she saw thorns covering the hedge, creating small scratches and cuts in her skin. The red blood flowed easily out from Stella’s sun-kissed skin, staining her hospital nightgown. She could feel tears well in her eyes and she turned around and continued to run, the shadowy figure never too far behind.

Stella ran. She ran until her legs burned and her lungs felt weak. She screamed, hoping Liam would hear her. Hoping anyone would hear her. She was too scared to dream up something to fix this nightmare. The fear crippled her from changing the things she hated most. She tried however, hoping that she could be her own hero and save herself from this nightmare. Though she couldn’t get the sun to come up, or the cold wind to stop from biting her skin, she could get the hedges to fall, to die, and to wither away.

What was left was a lone building, a warehouse. It was large and made of metal but it had been sitting there for what seemed like years; rust covered parts of it while the windows that scattered its circumference were broken. It was some kind of refuge, at least that was what Stella thought.

She ran to the warehouse and searched for an entrance. Inside she could’ve sworn she heard Liam’s voice from inside, drifting through the cold air and whistling past her ears. She couldn’t make it out what he was saying but she wanted him, she wanted all of him. She wanted his arms around her; she wanted to say she was sorry. She hurried around the perimeter of the building and found a door but it was covered in locks. She pounded her hands against the door and with each knock her hands throbbed in pain as they were still covered in scratches and cuts.

“Please let me in,” Stella cried as her palms went searching for the locks, pulling on them but sliding from her grip as her blood made each of the metal bolts becoming red and slick.

“Liam!” She cried again, her voice cracking as the shadowy figure grew near.

“Please Liam, it’s coming!” She pounded against the door again, the pain shooting down through her arms before suddenly she was frozen, the shadow upon her.

—

Liam couldn’t tear himself away from the bed as Stella lay bound against her restraints. Her lips were parted and she was crying out for him, her cheeks wet with tears. His hand brushed against her cheek to dry her skin, his eyes watching as Stella suffered in her sleep.