and you were in it, cass.

I think I saw you in a dream last night, my dear, last night. Dancing along the silver clouds, the tuffs of dust splaying around your tiny toe touches - they exploded with vigour and with grief, I think. Last night, you danced to music that only my soft rounded ears could hear, I yearned for music and there it was, appearing in dreams like each of the wishes - flip, the coin, flipping coins through water fountains - all the wishes I made, they came true. Them clouds are nice, I find, I find the clouds are beautiful from up above - how unassuming they are from the ground below, never did I know, no, never did I know that from the ground the clouds are oh so much different than what they are now.

Last night I saw you in my dream, I think I noticed each pore on your face as you passed me by, prancing on clouds as if it was the ground. Trying to chase you, chase you, I tripped and nearly fell through the sky, and what a feat it would be to survive that, after all this time to die by just a little trip. Just a little trip could send me falling through the onyx skies, twinkle past the shining poppy seeds, I wasn't a fan of the night sky until I met you. Her darkened hair seems overcast, they called for rain today but it is still night time, and I wait for the storm clouds beneath my feet to let it all fall down.

Little Girl, you must speak up, Little Girl, I can't hear you when you're whispering so low -

She brushes by my face, skipping, I see her lips pursed and hear the winter winds tickle out her throat - but no sound.

Little Girl, Little Girl, if I'm going to hear you, if I'm going to hear you at all you have to speak up.

Her eyes remind me of night, I think I might have lost the knowledge of what they once looked like. Brown? Blue? Grey? Ivory? A slew of colours, a palette condescended all across the small and tender easel of her irises? There are chunks of her memory that are broken (what did her elbows look like, soft for sure) replaced with pits of black. She is still dressed up in her toga, a small wrapped bundle of the classicism, this was history, strewn across her body, literacy and knowledge, I read her like a book but yet I hear nothing.

Little Girl, please, please tell me what you're trying to say, I want to hear.

Whispers turn sour, I think from her breath comes ice - Death has trapped her, reaped her soul amongst the night sky and left her with just this. A winter snowflake tumbling down, stiff yet graceful, I cannot remember her ever being light on her feet yet amongst the clouds she is effervescent, she is magnificent and yet she is callous, selfish - I think I lost her amongst the clouds.

Storm clouds collect in groups, shattering beauty - I think last night, I saw you in a dream. The dark grey clouds bust through diamond whites and crash with jasper greys, I see the flakes of yellow ready to strike, and yet it is just me that is stuck on a patch of willowing breeze, stuck unmoving, stuck on a cloud wondering where she disappeared to. Little Girl, Little Girl, please come back, please come here, I didn't mean - "Peri!" I hear it, Wes' cackle, the blood dribbling down the corners of her mouth, I know it's there I hear the sounds. "Peri!" She's calling out to me, I feel it in my very bones, it shakes me but I'm trapped in a prison of air.

She comes to me one last time, touches my face. "Goodbye." Goodnight, Little Girl. "Goodbye, Peri." Goodnight. "Goodbye."

Please, please don't Little Girl, please.

"Peri."

I scream her name and it tastes bitter on my tongue. "Aria!"

My mother looks heartbroken at the door, as if she'd seen a ghost, and that I had. I hadn't spoken her name in four months, thirteen days, twelve hours - but she rattled me, shook me down - last night I had a dream and she was in it. My mother, who used to sing of little green finches trembles at the sight of her son, I think I'm paling, when was the last time I had gotten proper sun?

"Mum, I'm going down to the shop."

It's been so long, yet I think of her on the hour, all of them - every single soul that wraps itself around me, twists my aching heart, and I feel her still as I unlock the mahogany doors.

Little Girl.

Aria.