[h1][center][color=8882be]Ashley Gallagher[/color][/center][/h1]

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[h2][center][color=8882be]2:30 AM - Gilded Heights Apartment Complex, Room #67[/color][/center][/h2]

	The ceiling fan made its rounds, each swing making a hideous squeak and obscuring the small crack in the plaster from view. Ashley Gallagher of two years ago would be sleeping soundly, sans the set up of whiskey at his bedside table. Ashley Gallagher of today, however was watching a damn ceiling fan, his bedsheets strewn haphazardly about him and his mind still reeling with the last grasps of the nightmare that plagued him not twenty minutes prior.

	He blamed it on the heat. The thick, clinging heat that stuck in beads of sweat to the back of his neck. Even with the window open, the soothing noise of general city nightlife filtering in, the lights painting his ceiling in a collection of golds and blues, peace would not find him. Ashley held his breath, releasing it only after a few beats in a strong puff, the only thing that might settle his nerves enough to let him drift into sleep once more.

	It was always her. The face in his dreams. Her cool, rainy-sky eyes that perceived him with a warmth he couldn't understand or share. Her soft smile or her upturned palms, invitations. The tall grass swaying around their hips in a steady dance that even the strongest of hearts couldn't deny. It was always the blood that pooled between her fingers, spilling between them even as he tried to catch it in his own. "Hold on." He'd beg, but it wouldn't be enough. It was never enough that the world could bring a strong man to his knees in despair-- it always wanted more. He'd cradle her head in his lap, running his calloused fingers through her blood caked, thin strands of hair. It was too much.

	And with that thought he sat up, reaching instinctively for the glass next to him and pouring himself some of the amber liquid he so heavily depended on. The dreams? They were a lot, but he could drink more, and within the hour he felt himself dozing into something of a rest, his mind slowing from its mile-a-minute pace to an inching sort of crawl.