"That's who you would call a nightmare," Kesi repeated, her voice trailing off.
She closed her eyes, but as soon as she did, they sprang back open. For a second, all of the memories she had desperately tried to forgot surfaced.
Their severed heads.
Their mutilated bodies.
Their silent screams of horror choked out by the blood bubbling up their throats.
And her own crimson-tinted hands. No matter how hard she had scrubbed them, until the point that her skin began to peel off, she could always see a few spots of red on them.
For so long, she thought she had managed to delete these memories from her mind. For so long, she had convinced that she enjoyed the moment that her blades dug into flesh. For so long, she took mission after mission, not letting her mind rest for a single moment in case that it would wander off.
But now, she simply felt sick. Absolutely sick.
"That's who you would call a nightmare." It seemed as if those were the only words she could say over and over at the moment.
A little hand wrapped around her arms.
"But even those condemned to forever burn in the fires of hell want to believe that the crimson flames are rays of light."
There were so many words that she never dared to say before, words that would mark her as weak, as a target ripe for picking.
Yet now, instead of the crowds of hungry eyes staring at her in silent judgment, there was only the soft gaze of Mu Luming.
Somehow, the more pure his look, the more she doubted herself.
How could someone with so much blood debt on her hands ever use the same hands to save someone?
How could someone who only knew how to hold knives know how to use the tools for salvation?
"You set out to scare me, but I think you only scared yourself!" A little voice forced her back to reality. "These are simply fairytales! Not proper horror stories at all!"
Looking around, there were no mirrors, only the lone piece that Death had left behind. And the room was dark, save for the natural glow of moonlight peeking in from the windowsills.
"Kesi, those horrible visions are just nightmares from a past lifetime."
A bright smile.
A subtle pat on the back.
A little edge closer.
"Unless you want to burn a house down with so many candles to light up the whole place, it's impossible for a place to be lit that well! And even the Emperor surely cannot afford to find a room full of mirrors of that quality!"
Before she could respond, he dragged her out from bed.
"No more nightmares! I want sweet dreams for the night!"
For a kid of his size, he had a strong grasp. Or perhaps, Kesi simply let herself be led away, without any attempts or thoughts to fight back. Deep down, she knew that if she really didn't want to be moved, even the strongest man in the world couldn't force her to relocate.
Outside, the night air was crisp.
"Breath."
The air was different from that of the modern times. There was no irritable sense of pollutants, and it carried with it a faint scent of foliage.
"Look up!"
Letting her vision be guided by his voice, she saw a river of stars. Of all shapes and brightnesses, they seemed to be little pebbles lining the banks of a creek. Some were pearly in luster, and others rivaled the brightest of diamonds.
There was not a single cloud in sight, and the speckles of light stood out against their dark backdrop, almost as if a painter had accidentally splashed drops of white paint on a midnight canvas.
"What do you think that one looks like?"
Mu Luming pointed to a little patch of stars that formed two straight lines in the sky.
"A pair of knives?"
"No! Can't you see that they're bunny ears?"
Squinting, Kesi tried to make out the shape, but Mu Luming barely gave her any time to think.
"How about that one?"
Gesturing to a little ball of stars, his eyes sparkled as brightly as the stars themselves.
"A head?"
"But where would the body be?"
"It's severed!"
Mu Luming noticeably let out a small groan.
"That's in your past lifetime! The one giving you nightmares! This is the present!"
If only he knew that this life was actually a dream and that the present was no more than her past.
"Ok, how about this one? Remember, it can't be anything from your past lifetime!"
Pointing to some stars in the distance, he dashed back inside the room.
For the longest time, Kesi stared at the jumble of stars, none of them forming any understandable traits.
She stared. She stared. And she stared some more.
The clitter-clatter of footsteps sounded behind her, accompanied by a little face inching closer to her neck. She felt a little spark of warmth, and looking up, Mu Luming had draped a fur robe over her.
Before the fur touched her skin, she hadn't even realized that she had been shivering in the cold.
"That's the constellation of the cow herder and the weaver girl!" Pointing to the constellation, there was an unidentifiable expression on his face. "Sometimes, I really wonder what life will be like in the distant skyline, in a place completely different from the mundane."
"We're all so small in the scope of things." Kesi added, philosophical. "Compared to those stars twinkling up there, we are merely dust in comparison.
"So what makes you a more sinful piece of dust than all others?"
She didn't know how to respond.