"Blue, Purple & Scarlet" (excerpt)

She dreamed of Aaron standing outside her window. In the dream Aaron looked up at her, but when she had called to him he merely turned his back and walked away in the direction of the castle.

Scarlet began to toss and turn, as if she were and alligator in the midst of a death roll. She began to call to him, "Aaron, no don't..." she whimpered in her sleep. With one final death-like roll her blanket slid off of her and sunk down onto the cold stone floor...and her dream continued on as she settled again only momentarily.

Scarlet began to run down the street towards the castle, as her dream continued onward from where she had left off. She ran and ran, feeling that her legs were weakening by the second, she pressed onward determined to find her dearest friend in the darkness of night.

Scarlet finally reached the castle, she had never stopped to notice how empty the cold grey stone walls of the castle looked before. As she entered through the stone columns, her eyes adjusting to the dark, she saw Aaron standing there alone in the inner courtyard of moss covered stone. She thought she had begun to speak, but no such word had been uttered from her lips. Aaron had vanished and in his stead was the King with his arms held out wide, as if he were beckoning her to himself.

The King spoke her name aloud gently, with the utmost kindness and care. Scarlet took one step back, in the confusion of it all, and then the king, as well as everything in the inner courtyard raced away in front of her as she began sailing backwards through the stone columns.

Scarlet jolted upright in her bed, her eyes full of tears she began to speak. "It was all a dream...nothing more...only my own wild imaginative thoughts" she said aloud to comfort herself. Scarlet leaned over the wooden frame of her bed and felt around on the stone for her missing blanket. She finally grabbed hold of her blanket and threw it back over herself, and once again she fell back to sleep.

No more dreams invaded her mind as she slept...only the rythmic sound of her steady breathing could be heard aloud.