I've always been hypersensitive to staring, and that fluttering uneasy feeling was what woke me up from deep sleep, my eyes blearing open to see that it wasn't even total sunrise yet. Confused, I unfurled from the tight curl I'd pulled into during the few hours of sleep, and rubbed rough fingers over my sensitive and puffy eyelids.

I blinked, turned, and fucking jumped as I saw someone standing against the wall next to the bed.

Scrambling back and upright, I barely registered the fact that the figure was male and relatively young; what I could not mistake was a nearly tangible radiating anger being directed towards myself.

Managing to sit up further, my fingers clenched tightly within my blanket, and my eyes grew wide and round; words failed me in ways they never have before.

As the seconds passed and neither of us spoke, I finally forced my lips to part to spill out the burning question in my head, "Who are you?"

His mouth tightened, and I saw his clenched fists grow white with added tension; he was really only about nineteen or twenty, and the black hair as dark as his eyes and expression was in utter disarray over his scalp, looking as if it'd not seen a comb or brush in days.

He was also extremely thin, almost emaciated even, and his clothes were old and vaguely dirty with dust and several days' worth of wear.

"I hate you."

The words were mere whispers, but they sent fear shuttling throughout my body, my nervous system pinging with the sudden chill of impending death. The man looked furious enough to kill me, and I was hit with the mental images of my being found chopped into little pieces, or my throat slit, or my head bashed into a bloody pulp, or the thousands of other gruesome deaths I've ever seen in movies.

"W-who are you? What have I ever--?"

With ferocious suddenness, he rushed the bed, pressing me down to the mattress beneath his weight in the time I had to give a swallowed shriek of terror.

His face lowered down within inches of mine as his fingers fisted up in my t-shirt, his breath heavy and oppressive against my skin; "Shut the fuck up, I'm going to kill you!"

Fear still snapped with icy clarity in my body and mind, but anger began to swell up, my eyes hardening as I ground out, "Why?"

"Don't recognize me, David? Don't remember the image in your own head?"

His words slid out, oily and slick, but he only read confusion on my face, and his colorless lips pressed together; "What if I said my name is William? I'm William, David, the one you replaced with that fucking crapshit fucker, Billy."

"No…."

My whisper was one of sheer horror, my mind flashing sudden possibilities that couldn't have been right, it didn't make any sense! William, Billy….it didn't make sense!!!

"No, that can't be…."

He snarled, his acne-scarred face twisting up in murderous rage as his hands pressed down against my chest, choking the air from me even as his face lowered down even more, his breath mildly unpleasant as it invaded my senses.

"You made me; you breathed life into me only to dump me for another character!!!"

Tears stung my eyes as I squirmed against his hold, experiencing an unconscious instinct to save myself but failing to free myself from his grip.

"No, you're not real, none of you are real, I didn't even…."

He jerked me up and slammed me back down, his voice growling, "You made my life shit and then decided that I was fucking psycho, so you replaced me with him, that fucking pansy ass Billy! And he didn't have a mom shoot him up with heroin, she didn't beat him and send him next door to be raped by an old man when he was fucking six! He just had a mom who drank and hit him and told him he was worthless, he never had to stay with her because she kept him full of dope so he wouldn't leave!

"You replaced me with the diet cola version of me!!!"

I must be dreaming, it's all a dream.

Therefore, I managed to calmly state, "Readers don't want to read a cliché character like you. Someone so abused as to become hard and pathetic and unable to fall in love. They want someone only slightly emo, not some hardcore sociopath. You aren't capable of loving or being loved. Your story was pointless!"

The anger swept clear from his face, only to be replaced by coldness harsh enough to make me flinch away; there had been an emptiness in his eyes that stabbed at my heart. The hold on my shirt slid away and he pulled up, moving from my body and removing himself from the bed altogether, staring at me with that same cold emptiness. It was almost unbelievable to connect this new person with the murderous fellow just seconds earlier.

Shaky, I sat back up and rubbed at my chest, wincing at the angry bruises already beginning to form beneath the skin. A blush began to flare up on my face beneath that stare, and I turned from it and stumbled from bed, consciously tugging my boxers into order.

"I'm going to kill you."

I started backwards at the levelly-stated words, but he only turned and left the room, as if none of the morning's events had occurred. My legs gave out and I had to sink back down onto the bed, my hands coming up to my mouth, unsteady and frail.

I'm not dreaming.