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Emmrich was trapped. Surrounded by wooden panels, he could feel them inching closer and closer. Stretching out his arms in an effort to keep the walls at bay, he could not fully outstretch either arm, and still the panels closed in. The grain of the wood rubbed against him, splinters piercing skin. No matter how many calming breaths he attempted, he could not inhale fully. He was running out of oxygen. Sweat pooled on his brow and his heart beat faster as he tried to hold back the walls, ever closing in, but his strength was not enough.
Bang. His enclosure shook with the sudden familiar, metallic sound. He knew that sound. Bang. With a sudden wave of dread, he recognized it to be the sound of a hammer hitting a nail above him. And another one. Bang.
He was being nailed alive inside a coffin.
BANG!
Emmrich awoke with a start, the bed jostling beneath him. His smallclothes stuck to his sweaty skin, and he placed a hand over his chest to keep his heart from racing.
Lily awoke next to him, bedraggled and sleepy. “Love? Is everything okay?”
He took a moment to collect himself. He was in his bed, not a coffin. His Lily was next to him.
BANG!
With a jolt at the sound, his attention was brought to the window.
“Sounds like a hailstorm,” Lily said, rubbing his back in slow, calming circles. “Another nightmare? You’re safe.”
Emmrich leaned forward and rested his face in the palms of his hands. “Yes,” his voice was muffled between his fingers.
Lily continued rubbing his back in silence for a moment before inching closer until she could reach his shoulders and began massaging in rhythmic motions.
He could not bring himself to speak. A droplet of moisture made its way down his cheek, which he caught in his fingers. A tear? He was truly crying at a nightmare? Drawing his knees into himself, he rested his head on his joints.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Em,” she said, somehow reading his mind. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Emmrich heaved a sigh that carried a lifetime’s worth of worries. “The same terror that has haunted me from beneath my heart all this time. In this particular one, I was being…nailed in a coffin.”
“Oh, honey,” Lily whispered – not in pity, never in pity, but with the pang of a lover’s ache to soothe where she couldn’t quite reach. She positioned herself behind him to get a better reach of his shoulders and kept massaging, leaving small kisses along his spine. “Can you take deep breaths for me?”
Without a word, he obeyed. A deep inhale, a deeper exhale.
“Keep going,” she urged him in a gentle tone. After he took a few more breaths, she rested her cheek on his back. “When I was a child, I thought a lot about the word ‘nightmare.’ It’s a weird word, isn’t it? Night. Mare. Like a horse of midnight. I always imagined nightmares like horses the color of the night sky chasing me. I used to be so scared. Until I remembered that horses can be tamed. After that, I imagined myself standing in the path of the oncoming mare, staring it down as its hooves pounded closer.”
Emmrich stopped his breathing exercises, but she knew he was listening. “And?”
“And nothing! I imagined the horse disappearing. I refused to let it have power over me. Every time I’d wake up scared from a nightmare, I would imagine myself standing in its way. Defiant. Eventually, I started to imagine myself fastening a saddle and riding it into the dawn.”
“What lovely imagery,” Emmrich whispered, his heartbeat calm now, enraptured by her story.
Lily nodded. “That’s what nightmares are to me. Horses running wild in the mind. You have the power to let them trample you…or tame them.”
He considered this. “The closest I’ve come to riding a horse is via carriage,” he muttered with a chuckle.
“Maybe one of these days, we can ride along the Rivaini beach.”
He reached behind him until his hands met hers and gave her fingers a light squeeze. “I should like that very much, darling. And thank you.”
Emmrich could feel Lily’s smile against his back as she laced her fingers through his. “It’s what I’m here for,” she said.
He slowly leaned back into her, and she positioned herself in such a way that her body cradled him. They laid like that, intertwined with each other and listening to the hailstorm outside, and Emmrich, finally calm, slowly found himself falling back to sleep with images of wild horses and sunshine and palm trees.
In the moments before slumber, he realized he couldn’t remember a time when anyone had lulled him with such comforting words. He wrapped his arms around hers just as he drifted back to sleep, ready to tame any oncoming night mares.