"DAMON"

  Damon awoke with a start. Breathing heavily from the horrifying nightmare, he took a moment to just stare at the ceiling in hopes of calming himself. Suddenly a small face masked in worry blocked his view of his grey ceiling. Damon let out a groan upon the seeing the perpetrator guilty of waking him up looming over him.

  "Damon" Going by the excited squeaky voice calling out to him once more, Damon knew the perpetrator's face no longer bore the look of worry from a moment ago as he turned to his side fighting back a smile.

  A giggle escaped the little perpetrator after seeing her older brother groan in frustration. A mischievous smile soon followed as she got ready to to complete her morning tradition of waking up her big brother.

  Reaching for her hair that was styled in a bun, she released it from the band that held it together and lowered her head to allow her blonde hair to brush against her brother's face, which usually did the trick. And as usual it worked seeing as Damon sat up to glare at her.

  "Do you always have to wake me up like that Riles?" Damon questioned his little sister

  "You always wake up from that." Riley replied innocently with her round blue eyes that were of similar color to the oceans he saw in illustrations. It always roused envy out of him as he was stuck with their father's plain brown eyes.

  "Well have you tried other ways?" Damon asked.

  Riley put a finger to her chin as she took a moment to think about it before answering with a shake of her head causing her unbound hair to flail side to side hitting her face causing a smile to form on Damon's face.

  "I just did your hair sweetie." A voice of frustration came from the doorway.

  Looking towards the doorway, Damon found a slim blonde woman wearing an ankle long blue dress to match her eyes with her fingers massaging her temple hoping to soothe the oncoming headache as she leaned against the doorway. The woman bore a striking resemblance to the little girl currently hiding behind her big brother with a golden stuffed dragon toy clutched to her chest as she peeked out from behind Damon to stare at the woman.

  "Well mom, maybe you should've thought of that before sending her here knowing how she wakes me up." Damon defended his little sister as he turned around to scrunch his nose at Riley who let out a fit of giggles. Turning back to his mother, he was met with a frown she was trying to keep but the smile of fondness could not be held back.

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  "Well son, maybe if you didn't take after your father's sleeping habits where only a dragon's roar could wake the both of you up." Damon could only smile sheepishly in response.

  "Or in your case, an owner of a dragon." Reaching out a hand for her daughter who came out from behind Damon and hopped off the bed making her way to their mother whilst dragging her stuffed toy across the floor.

  " I wouldn't have sent my last resort if you had woken up. I've been calling your name for the last ten minutes before deciding to send the little one." Raising Riley's hand who nodded her head with a smile.

  A groan came from the hallway that grabbed their attention, especially Riley who ran out the door excitedly towards the noise. Shaking her head head at the sight with a smile before turning her attention back to her son. "It seems your father is finally awake. Which means we should be leaving soon, so get your butt up and get ready. I don't want to be stuck in line for hours in this weather." Damon watched his mother tilt her head to look out the window beside him that welcomed in the glaring sunlight of the tail end of the summer season.

  A nod of understanding was all his mother needed as she closed the door behind her allowing Damon some alone time to recall the dream he just had.

  During the entirety of his conversations with his mom and sister, Damon never once revealed his hands that were hidden underneath the warmth of his blanket. He was afraid his mother would smother him like she did when he first got the nightmares.

  Taking a deep breath, Damon pulled his hands out from underneath the blanket and the results were the same as last time: Trembling hands and numbness.

  Damon recalled calling out for his parents the first few times it happened after his tenth birthday. The fear and confusion increased after every nightmare and continued to do so as he had more nightmares, only it felt like more details were being added after every nightmare: First was the ocean of blood. Then the crimson clouds and lastly, it was the mountains of corpses that grew in numbers after every dream until it reached nine and stopped, except they never uttered a noise. After a month of waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweat, the nightmares all of a sudden stopped and never made a reappearance again.

  Until today. After two years, the nightmare came back and this time he was given the full picture in detail. A very gruesome picture. Damon felt chills as recalled the crimson colored eyes that found his before waking up.

  "Its just a dream, its just a dream..." Damon muttered to himself before taking a deep breath to calm himself.

  Hoping to forget the nightmare, Damon turned towards his window to see the sunlight illuminating his room with natural light. Placed right in front of his window was a desk that held his writing materials for school and his favorite books with their spines facing him. Damon took a second to scan his small collection of books with pride: 'Heroes of the Republic', 'The Elements', 'Lords of Elements'...".

  A frown soon found its way onto Damon after noticing a book missing from his collection. Closing his eyes in an attempt to remember where he last put the book, after a few moments, his eyes shot open and he yanked the blankets off of him in search of the book he was reading yesterday. Finding nothing on the bed, Damon shifts his attention to the floor where he finds the book's corner peeking out from underneath his bed.

  Damon pulled the book out from underneath his bed and with a brush of a hand to get rid of the gathered dust, Damon read the title aloud with an excited smile.

  "Awakening"