Tomorrow Will Be Kinder (Watty Awards 2012)

V: Lament

I was cold. 

I was freezing, shivering so violently that it hurt. I couldn’t feel my toes, let alone my fingers. My whole body had gone numb. 

I remember that. 

Which is why what didn’t make sense was the present, right now. 

Because I was warm. 

It wasn’t the hot you felt in the middle of summer, with sweat trickling down your arms and back and a cold water bottle always on hand. It wasn’t the warm you felt when you brushed your hands over your bare shoulders, relishing in that one small moment of heat before the temperature got the better of your skin. 

It was good, proper and solid warm. 

The kind of warm you felt when you first woke up on a winter morning and the air was a biting cold. The warmth of being in your bed, blankets upon blankets draped over your body, the heat trapped in between. 

Warm. 

Licking my dry lips, I curl up even tighter than I was before, reaching out my hand to scratch my nose. Rubbing my eyes, I reluctantly pull my eyelids open. 

It was dark. Not the dark of a night sky, but of an enclosed room, with flecks of light threatening to take over. 

I was lying on my side, facing a sullen blue wall. Lifting my head, I focus on the object closer in range; a bedside table. On it is a stack of books, including some of my favourites: The Hunger Games. Harry Potter. Percy Jackson and the Olympians. A Game Of Thrones. 

A small smile cracks across my face. Books are another outlet of emotions for me. Reading a book, you don’t have to worry about your world; instead, you can slip into someone else’s, a different story, a different life. 

You could escape. 

Pushing out my arms, I slowly roll over onto my other side, pulling the covers up closer to my neck. I look down at them: a deep red colour, as thick as two or three hands, and with a faint black pattern on them. 

Glancing at this other wall, I see the same colour. But something else captures my eye: a torch. 

Not an electric torch that most people use today, but a real, medieval, fire-burning torch. 

I frown at it, unsure of how to react. Who kept old fire torches in their bedroom? It was nice, sure, and pretty, with red and gold flames dancing their way into the air. It also helped to keep the room warm and slightly alight. 

But why? Dimmed lights and electric heaters would work just as fine. Why risk the house going up in flames? 

Unless… 

What if this wasn’t a house? What if this was a dungeon? 

Although it’s nice and warm, my hands begin to shake. Have I died? Was this a sort of waiting room, before I go to meet whoever it is that guards the next realm? 

I’ve never been one for religion. I didn’t discriminate anyone who practiced it, but I personally never saw the point. They were all pretty much just asking me to believe an old story told a thousand years ago. I prefer facts, hard and solid. 

Have I died? 

I push over until I’m lying on my back. Rolling my eyes frantically, I freeze as I look at the wall opposite me. 

This was no dungeon. 

Breathing a sigh of relief, I sit up slightly and study what’s in front of me.