Slow, languid footsteps approached from the door, the old woman's aged frame moving with a familiar, tired weariness as she made her way towards the trembling boy who lay drenched, once again, in his own cold sweat.
"Boy."
Her voice, low and hoarse, called out into the darkness that Executos had long since grown to hate, the same darkness that had stolen everything from him and yet still, cruelly, refused to let him go.
"...it happened again..."
His voice came out broken, pitiful, hoarse from the screaming that had torn its way out of his raw throat, his blind eyes wide and unseeing as they darted about frantically as though searching for something, anything, that could ground him back into the present.
The old woman settled herself atop the edge of his bed, her weathered hands finding his trembling shoulders, gripping them with a strength that betrayed her frail, aged appearance.
"The same dream?"
"...the same... always the same..."
He muttered weakly, his body still shuddering with the aftershocks of terror, cold sweat continuing to pour from his gaunt frame as though his very body wept in places his eyes no longer could.
"How many times now, boy? How many nights has this same nightmare plagued you?"
Her voice carried within it a strange mixture of pity and something far more troubled, something that Executos, blind and broken as he was, could not begin to comprehend.
"I've... I've lost count..."
He answered weakly, his voice trailing off into nothingness as fresh tears began to stream down his gaunt, hollowed cheeks, tears that carried within them all the terror, all the pain and all the unspeakable horror that his soul had been forced to endure that dreadful, cursed night.
"Sigh..."
A heavy, exhausted sigh escaped the old woman's cracked lips as she gently pulled the trembling boy into her arms, his bony frame practically swallowed by her larger, more weathered form.
"You poor, poor child. To think fate would deal you such a wretched hand..."
Her voice, though aged and hoarse, carried within it genuine sorrow, genuine grief for the boy who had already suffered far more than any child his age should ever have to endure.
"Why... why won't it stop? Why does it keep coming back?"
Executos sobbed weakly into her shoulder, his small, trembling hands gripping desperately at the rough fabric of her wolf-hide cloak as though it alone could anchor him to a world that had already taken so much from him.
"...I wish I knew, boy. I truly wish I knew."
She spoke softly, her aged voice barely above a whisper, her gaze drifting towards the small, barred window that let in nothing but the faint, silver light of the moon.
"But know this, whatever plagues your dreams, whatever horrors continue to haunt you... they cannot take what you've already lost. Not again."
Her words, though meant to comfort, brought little solace to the broken, blind boy who continued to tremble weakly within her embrace, his soul still raw from reliving that fateful night for what felt like the hundredth, the thousandth time.
"...my eyes... they took my eyes..."
He whispered brokenly, his voice cracking with the weight of that singular, devastating loss.
"I know, child. I know."
The old woman's grip tightened around him, her weathered hands rubbing soothing circles along his trembling back as she rocked him gently, the way a mother might rock a frightened, weeping infant.
"But you're alive. Despite everything, despite all that darkness sought to take from you, you are still here."
A long, heavy silence stretched between them, filled only by Executos' ragged, uneven breathing and the old woman's slow, patient rocking.
"...am I though? Truly?"
His question, soft and broken, hung heavily in the air, unanswered, for even the old woman, wise and aged as she was, found herself at a loss for how best to respond to such a haunting, unanswerable question.
"Rest now, boy. The sun shall rise soon, and with its rising, so too must you."
Gently, she laid him back down upon his bed, pulling the thin blanket up over his frail, trembling form, her weathered hand lingering upon his forehead a moment longer than necessary.
"...will you stay? Just... just until I fall back asleep?"
His voice, small and pleading, betrayed the deep loneliness and fear that had settled so completely into his broken soul.
"...yes, child. I shall stay."
And so she remained, seated quietly beside his bed as his ragged breathing slowly began to even out, his small, trembling body finally succumbing once more to the exhaustion that had plagued him ever since that cursed, fateful night.
But even as sleep claimed him once more, the old woman's weathered gaze remained fixed upon the darkness outside the small barred window, her expression troubled, heavy with thoughts she dared not speak aloud.
'...that dream... it's getting worse, isn't it. Whatever lingers within that darkness, whatever curse plagues this poor child's soul... it's not finished with him yet.'
She thought grimly, her weathered hands clutching tightly at the edge of his blanket as outside, the pale moonlight continued its silent, indifferent watch over the sleeping world.