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Everything felt... warm. Warm like being enveloped fully by something Nene couldn't see. There was nothing else. Only the feeling of being wrapped in the deep, pure warmth of an unfathomable darkness.
The sensation was familiar in a strange, indescribable way. Though she could not breath beneath it, Nene did not want the dark embrace to stop.
But it stopped.
...
Nene's eyelids lazily slid open. She yawned and sat up in her bed, stretching her arms up to the roof above. Unusually enough, she’d woken up before the familiar chime of her alarm went off. Her pillow beckoned her back to the realm of dreams she had left all too early. The warmth she’d left had been so comfortable.
Cascading sunlight was there to ruin her plan to return to the realm of dreams the moment she crumpled back into her pillow. Eyes not yet prepared squinted as light intruded onto dreams yet woven. Arms reached up to block the surprising new view.
Why? The room she knew had always been covered in thick blackout curtains.
Something was off.
At the hint of unusual surroundings, Nene became aware of the swaddling sensation of the thick wool coverings around her. These were not her usual blankets.
Nene surged up from her now unfamiliar pillow, no longer tired. Her head yanked from side to side in bewildered confusion.
What was going on?
In a desperate attempt to find something familiar from her room to anchor onto, she scanned once more with heavy breath. There was absolutely nothing she knew nearby.
Where in the world was she so suddenly? Last she remembered, she had gone to bed.
"Robonene? Robonene, are you there?" She called out, grasping for something, anything, to ground her before she began to fall into panic.
There was no response from Robonene, or anyone for that matter. Only the soft hum of the ceiling fan filled the now eerie silence. Nene's room had never had a ceiling fan before.
Nene's breathing became more ragged as the unfamiliar reality around her set in. "Anyone...?" Her words came out as a strained and scared whisper. Her hands curled tightly onto the wool which was not hers.
"Nene? Is everything alright?"
The familiar deep resonance of Rui’s morning voice suddenly brought a calming presence to Nene. The grounding, however, could only hold for a brief moment before the shaky reality around her brought unfamiliarity shocking back through her.
Rui’s voice wasn’t supposed to be in her room! Was she imaging things? Wait, but this wasn’t even her room?!
Nene slowly turned toward the voice, dread mixed with curiosity. Her breath stopped at the familiar, yet different, sight of purple hair. The voice wasn’t imagined. Rui himself was laying at her side, relaxed and shirtless, as if him being there were the most normal thing in the world. He looked to be sleeping, or at least trying to, aside from one of his eyes which had cracked open to look with concern.
Nene couldn’t hold in the scream anymore. Her legs wanted to run from the unknown, but the tangle of blankets around her made the sudden movement difficult. Instead, what was supposed to be a run turned into her accidentally hurling herself out of bed in a discordant tumble as the blanket came down with her.
She crashed into the floor below with a yelp. Though nothing else was familiar, the shock of pain against her shoulder was a pain she’d known before.
“Nene?! Are you okay?!” Rui shouted. His voice sounded worried.
Even through her panic, the answer came to Nene naturally. “Yeah...” Rui cared about her still. Even if this was all really weird, she didn’t need to worry him.
She laid stretched out on the floor under half a blanket. Rui stared down at her, deeply concerned. As much as she didn’t want to worry him, her burning question still needed to be released.
“Where am I?” The question came out more shaken than she’d intended.
If not for the situation she was in, Nene would have thought the bewildered look on Rui’s face at her question was a priceless type of humor. If concern was not also evident on his face, Nene would have gladly tossed a nervous smile back at him.
“We’re in our house, Nene,” Rui said as if it were obvious. He extended his hand out to Nene. “Now come back to bed. I’ll be able to keep you safe from whatever nightmares may be plaguing you. In fact, I wonder if I might be able to capture dreams before they reach...”
But Nene was not listening to the rest of his rant. Dreams. This had to be a dream. There was no other explanation for this. Or had she fallen into some kind of deep sleep and phased through life like in that one movie she’d seen? Either way, what did he mean by our house?
Had they started to rent together? That was a good way to save on money, after all, but that still didn’t explain why they were sharing a bed. And Rui had been shirtless in the bed. It was comfortable sleeping without a shirt, sure, but if she were sharing a room with him, that would be out of the question.
Just in case, Nene looked down at herself to see what she was wearing. Maybe this was one of those weird dreams where everyone is naked, like how they’d taught her early in theater to imagine everyone in the crowd is naked to get past your nerves. Maybe her unconscious brain had set up some ridiculous situation like that.
But she was wearing her nightdress. The same kind of nightdress she’d been wearing for years. At least one thing was normal about how she’d woken up. If this was somehow not a dream...
“...ne? Nene?” Rui’s voice broke through Nene’s stream of jumbled thoughts. His hand was still reached out to hers.
“Huh? What?”
“Is the stress getting to you?” Rui’s voice dropped to a low, almost seductive whisper. He crawled down onto the floor next to Nene. “I can take Nina to school while you get some extra sleep if you'd like. I know the past few days have been hard on you."
Nene felt a strong 'no' coming from somewhere within, but her brain pushed it aside to ask a more urgent, existential question. Creeping dread welled up against her throat as if she'd just eatten an entire rock. "Who's Nina?"
"Why, she's our daughter, Nene. Now, let's get you up to bed. You must still be half asleep." He reached over to help lift Nene up off the floor.
But before he could get his hand on her, Nene shot up to her feet. In a panic, she backed away from Rui, into the nearby dresser. Her breath was ragged. Her eyes were wide. Her mouth felt too dry to move.
Daughter? Our daughter??
"Nene?! What's wrong?!" Rui rushed over to help her.
Before Rui could get any closer, Nene finally found her voice. The first thing she did with it was let out all of her pent out fear. This wasn't her reality. This was a nightmare!
The scream she'd been holding in finally came out, and the world went black with it.
…
Nene woke up, once again, this time with a scream. Her heart was still pumping like crazy. A cold sweat dripped down from her brow. She quickly scanned her surroundings, desperate for some kind of normal to grab onto, hoping she didn't wake up in some new scary reality.
The familiar sight of a small crack of light coming from her curtains brought an immense feeling of immediate relief. The homely feeling of her cotton blanket confirmed her comfort: This was her room.
Nene breathed a long sigh of relief. A wave of light filled the room as she swept the curtains open to make absolutely certain this was her room. The light gave a resounding 'yes' as it flashed back with a vengeance, bouncing off of the Switch laying on her desk.
As she turned back to close the curtains, she saw Rui hanging out of his window. He was looking her way with a concerned look on his face. She quickly closed the curtains on him, hoping he hadn't seen her peek out.
The last thing she wanted to do was talk to him right now. Definitely not after her brain had forced her to have such an intense dream about him. It was so… embarrassing to think about.
Nene's phone buzzed at her bedside. Out of habit, she was on it in a heartbeat.
The phone slipped out of her hand the moment she read the notification. There was a message from Rui that struck at exactly what was on her mind in that moment:
Nene? Is everything alright?
Nene dropped her phone instantly. The covers felt cold as she curled herself up in them, but her face was warm enough to heat the entire bed.