She said, what she should not say. She said something, which made no sense. She said, "Even when I wake up...", but that was an impossibility. He was the one dreaming - she was just a figment of his imagination, a vision of his past, victim of the desperation of a dying man still clinging to life. He was the one who would wake, and through his many dreams - and many of them nothing short of odd - had he never encountered someone who claimed to have a life to wake up to. Again, that streak of bitterness whispered, tell her, tell her she's not real, not here, but he quenched it, shocked into silence - shocked into doing something else, something menial, dipping his muzzle in gold, while his mind spun unhindered, rifling through possibilities before discarding them. It could not be... It was the kind of thing that just didn't happen. She murmured about his eyes, and he turned his head, frowning, looking at her - as if he could somehow reflect himself in her, and see for himself what happened. Foolish.

".. you will exist in my mind..." "Odd," he said, voice distant. "I don't feel any different." No, you're just spacing out. I felt different before I touched it. When the possibility.. what if..? How could he see, if his pupils were covered? How could he see if his eyes were golden? He turned back to the darkness, stared into it, trying not to look at the golden glow cast at them both.

"You said..." he whispered, afraid of speaking, afraid of waking; afraid of breaking this fragile dream. Afraid of everything he had told her. Afraid.. of everything he felt. He clenched his jaws, feeling sick, as if he balanced on the edge of a great chasm, and not only did the wind tug at him, but the thought of leaping down was sickeningly sweet and thrilling. As if he wanted to fall, break every bone and feel whatever it was that lurked on the edges of his mind to the fullest. ".. when I wake up ..." The glow of the pool was dimming, the gold hardening, growing colder, less vibrant; and his eyes, grew only brighter as if his soul drank in all the light which had drawn them here. "Are you dreaming.."

He spoke more to the darkness and less to her, and despite the cacophony of the ghouls outside as they howled and rage, the air within their golden bubble was calm, still; despite the way his whisper was barely more than a breath it carried clearly, a tremble in it as his golden, glowing eyes gazed into the distance. ".. of me..." Brighter by the second as the pool faded into nothing, almost too bright to comfortably watch; through the cracks in his body, the scars and the marks of a harsh life it seeped out, shining from within - a beacon in the darkness, and yet he did not even see it himself, his golden eyes open yet distant, staring at the dark horizon: weighing the possibilities, afraid of the answer, and yet his heart kept thundering with hope. ".. Ophelia?"

( :/ not sure whether or not I like this post, it feels as if it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted but I'm not sure if I can fix it either... )