Chapter Text
A kick in the back violently jerked Tora awake. His body twisted to intercept the assailant. As soon as he touched the soft skin, he let go. Poppy was thrashing in her sleep, moaning again. Not the good kind of moaning. She kept having nightmares and refused to talk about it, but he could see it started to take a toll on her. Her bubbly personality was fading away, her smiles didn’t reach her eyes anymore. He tried to talk to her friends and coworkers, tried to know if something was going on that he needed to be aware of, but to no avail.
“NO!” Poppy suddenly yelled. “Don’t go! Don’t forget about me!”
That’s it! I’ve had enough! Tora thought as he shook Poppy awake. “Sweetheart, it’s just a nightmare, I’m here with you.”
Poppy’s eyes opened and sought him out. She was breathing heavily, panic in her gaze.
“Are we real?” was the first thing out of her mouth. She pinched her arm, then his. “Do we truly exist?”
“What are you talking about? “ Tora replied, confused. Of all the things he expected her to say, this was the last thing on the list. In fact, it wasn’t on the list at all. “Of course we are real. Are you talking about that Matrix shit? If we are in a simulation?”
Poppy took a deep breath, calming herself and pointed at her book, on the night table. Dark Destinies. It was a short series she was reading. Tora had seen her read the books over and over again. A time travelling vampire story, if his memory served him right She kept talking about all the books she read but it mostly went in one ear and out the other pretty quickly.
“You dreamed about the book?” he asked, now curious.
“Yes and no. I dreamed about us being like them.”
Now Tora was really confused. “What the hell does that got to do with us? We’re not vampires, we’re not time travellers and we’re not in a book.”
“But what if we are and we don’t know because we are stuck on the same page for the rest of our lives?” Poppy was getting more agitated as she struggled to put her thoughts into words. “ Dark Destinies has been going on for such a long time! There's only one part left to complete it and we have been left hanging for more than a year! What if the author forgets about it and never finishes it?”
Tora looked at Poppy, waiting for the punchline, for surely this was a joke. When none came, he sat in bed and pulled her in his embrace. She was being serious about this. So serious it gave her nightmares. He sighed and caressed her hair, appeasing her.
“If there’s never an ending, then you can move on and forget about it. And if there’s an update in the future, you can read it again. Doesn’t that happen often with series? I’m sure a lot of stories are left to be forgotten.” He still didn’t get why she was so worked up over a freakin’ book!
“THAT’s my point exactly!” she said. “People forget about stories and characters, leaving them forever in limbo. What if we are in a story right now and we are stuck here and now because our author never finishes our story?”
Tora couldn’t help but laugh. Poppy let out an outraged gasp and slapped his arm.
“It’s not funny!” But she laughed as well. “Do you want to be forgotten?”
“If we were characters in a book and the author left us stuck in bed like this forever,” Tora said, reaching inside her pajama pants, “ I would kindly ask to be forgotten and the fucker better not continue this story!”