It was a beautiful day.

The sky was blue, the breeze was gentle, and over at Windian Park the birds were singing.

And the birds are gonna get their fucking asses scorched if they don't fucking shut the hell up. Jason was rubbing his thumb over the tips of his fingers as he lay sprawled out on one of the benches that littered the park. Friday, after school, the windian had stumbled across something that had begun to allow him a couple hours of sleep each day. He had found out that the Presence, as he now was refering mentally to the feelings that kept him awake at night, the Presence didn't like the daytime. Whereas lying awake in the dark with only a lamp light on and trying to get some sleep, the Presence had been everywhere. It moved in the shadows, its voice was on the wind, and using the power of the night the Presence was able to overcome the lamp light that Jason had on and leave the windian in entire darkness. Or atleast that's what it felt like each night.

During the day, however, it was different. The Presence was shunned away by the light from the sun. Sure, it was still around, and the windian was reminded of that fact as he closed his eyes and began to feel the Presence watching him. However, in the daytime the Presence didn't have the ability to surrounded Jason in shadows and close in for its attacks, and because of this Jason was finally able to get a few hours of sleep.

The only problem was that whenever Jason fell asleep, the Presence could just attack him in his dreams.

The nightmares were there everytime the windian drifted off into dreams. Although the Presence had no power in the world during the day, in Jason's mind it was a different story. There the Presence could easily manifest itself into images and pull Jason into a world of terror for the windian. His dreams consisted only of the night, out in the woods. Often Jason was surrouned by the shadows that had hunted him and the rest of his group around the time that Brandon died. Infact, it was the same shadows that had killed Brandon that haunted Jason. Over and over again in his dreams the windian was actually forced to watch as Brandon Conwing was shredded to nothing by the shadows, and over and over again in his dreams Jason had wanted to do something but had found himself unable. He had wanted to move, to rush up and help Brandon, or to run off and not have to watch the sight again, but always the windian was held in place by the unseen Presence that surrounded him in the darkness, and always Jason had to watch as Brandon died before his eyes. It wasn't until there was nothing left of the black-winged windian that Jason was finally able to do something more then just stand there. Everytime Jason had felt himself regain control of his own motions, he had always turned and ran, because that was the time that the shadows then came after him.

From that point on in his dreams the outcome could be one of two things. As Jason ran through the forest with the shadows after him, he would hear Brandon's voice calling out his name. Once before, Jason had turned to chase after the voice, and running blindly through the woods the windian had headed straight off a small bank and landed on the ground roughly. As he had struggled to pull himself back to a standing position, he had glanced up to see Brandon standing before him. Only, it wasn't Brandon. It had looked like Brandon, it sounded like Brandon when it spoke, and it had Brandon's skills, but it wasn't Brandon. Jason was never sure what it was, all he knew is that it was another manifestation of the Presence, and through that form of Brandon the Presence had more power over Jason then ever before. The first time Jason's dreams had ended like that, the windian had awoken with such a start that he had fallen off the couch where he had been sleeping, and nearly hit is head on the corner of the small table that he kept his lamp on. Ray later told him that while Jason was sleeping, the windian kept muttering and was shaking and sweating horribly, but when the dragon had gone to rouse him, the feel of Jason's skin was like a mixture of fire and ice, a feeling so cold that it burned.

After that, Jason never chased after the voice in his dreams.

By now the windian's dreams had become easily predictable. He would run off into the woods, he would hear Brandon's voice calling him, and he'd run away from the voice. Eventually, the shadows would stop following him, and Jason would suddenly find himself in a place that looked like the ruins of Springton. There he would meet Menolly, riding on a large black horse. The girl would turn and watch Jason for a moment before motioning to the horse she was riding on and would simply state, "there's room for another." Jason would just stand and stare at her with a mixture of fear, confusion, and wonder in his eyes before the girl would kick the horse lightly and the two would gallop off into the night, leaving the windian alone in the ruins of the dead town. And then the dream ended.

Those are some pretty fucked up dreams, Burnhart. What the fuck is wrong with you anyway? And why the fuck am I always talking to myself? Jason muttered and rubbed his eyes. His thoughts seemed to be just as frightening as his dreams whenever Jason would suddenly realize that he was talking to himself mentally. It was a strange thing, the windian would be sitting there, then he'd hear his own voice in his head saying something, often using the name Burnhart or the second person 'you' to refer to himself. Jason would continue to listen to the train of thought flow by until suddenly he began to think of something else, and usually that thought was 'why am I talking to myself?' And the fucked up part is, sometimes I answer back. It was like there was a second voice inside of his head, and Jason had no way of controlling it, he was simply forced to listen everytime it started up. That's fucking great, Burnhart, now you're hearing voices in your head. What the fuck is wrong with me? Or maybe, what the fuck isn't wrong with me? Shit, I've got this fucking voice inside my head, I've got a fucking demon inside my hand, there's this fucking presence that won't leave me alone, I can't sleep, I can't stand the night, and every fucking thing seems to make me think of demons. Shit, Burnhart, you really are fucking screwed up aren't you? Jason sighed and attempted to shut off all trains of thought that were currently running through his head. He was hoping that if he managed to do that, he'd stop talking to himself. Unfortunatily, every time he tried to concentrate on not thinking about it, that only made it worse, and soon the windian was just praying for any distraction that would turn his mind to a new subject. Fortunatily, he didn't have to wait long.

"Jason!" The windian opened his eyes and looked over to where he had heard Ray calling his name. The dragon was walking with Lucy, and Britney was darting back and forth around the couple, skipping around them a few times before rushing ahead to go look at something, and then would run back to Ray and Lucy again, skip around them a few more times, and the process would repeat. Ray was currently doing his best not to trip over his sister as he called out to the red-haired windian. "I haven't seen you all day, have you just been out here?"

"Kinda." Jason sat up and stretched. "I left really early this morning and went for a walk, headed all the way up to the beach and stayed there for a while before I came back down to Windia. Stopped by the house to grab a bite to eat and didn't see you, then came over here to just hang out for a bit."

Ray nodded. "I was just wondering where you were. Anyway, Lucy, Brat and I are all headed over to the lake. Want to come along?" Jason shook his head and the dragon rubbed the back of his neck before shrugging. "Alright... but we'll be down there if you change your mind, okay?"

The windian nodded and watched the three start down one of the paths that would take them to the lake that was located far back in the more wooded section of Windian Park. Jason then layed back down on the bench, resting his hands behind his head as he stared up at the sky and listened to the birds singing. It was hard to sleep with the noises of the birds going, they sounded too much like the shadows sounded out in the woods with their chirping. Jason muttered to himself as he began to rub his thumb over his fingertips in irritation. He closed his eyes again, but this time instead of waiting for sleep to overcome him, the windian simply began to whistle, doing his best to imitate the birds that he heard. Fuck, if there's too many of them to throw fireballs at, maybe I'll just learn to speak bird so that I can tell them all to shut the fuck up.

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