Intertwined

Chapter Five

I was sure that I was dreaming for two reasons. One, I was back in Maine, sipping on a cup of coffee from my favorite cafe. The lighting was wrong, and the cup in my hand had no flavor, no warmth as I swallowed. Yet that wasn't the cause for my awareness. The only factor that had me questioning reality was Marie. I assumed that she would be smiling wherever she ended up. That she had found peace, but the expression frozen on her thin face had my breath catching. Marie's wide eyes were pointed, watching something with intense horror. At first, I thought that expression was meant for me, that I was scaring her, but the gloss over her eyes made it clear she was looking past me. I strained as I tried to turn my head, but I was stuck. Like the muscles in my neck seized. I wanted to speak up and ask her what was wrong but no words formed. I raised my hands, waving them, trying to catch her attention. My throat strained as I yelled for her. Finally, the fear gave way to confusion as she caught sight of me. It took long seconds for me to realize that she was trying to tell me something. Her lips moved fast and urgently, but I couldn't hear. I focused on her mouth and nothing made sense. She lifted the hand from her throat and tapped one thin finger on the skin of my neck. Sound rushed back in.

"You need to scream," she said, and then my throat was filled with fire.

It was a sensation so fierce and so real, that it had pulled me directly out of my sleep. It cascaded through my dream and had my mind solely focused on the pain alone.

I was awake and burning. The pounding that had my head feeling like it was going to explode was only secondary to the ripping in my throat.

My chest twitched and there was the sensation that I had to throw up, no not throw up, but expel something within me. I fought against it. I couldn't be sure that I was able to move with this intense fear and pain.

I locked my jaw and tried forcefully to swallow back the fire. My hands would have tried to smother the flames from the outside if they weren't clinging so tight to my bedsheets. My knuckles burned from the tension.

It took long minutes until the entire affliction had ended and I was sweating and gasping for air when it was over.

My eyelids were heavy when my head fell back to my pillow. I blinked long and slow. The last thing I caught before I slipped off into sleep, was the clock on my bedside table that informed me it was exactly three o'clock in the morning. Exactly on the dot.

+

The sun was too bright as it filtered through the thin curtains. I was damp, and my eyes were having a hard time focusing. It took several tries before I could finally open them enough to not risk falling back to sleep. I let myself rest for a few more moments before I would inevitably shove myself out of bed. I wasn't able to decipher whether or not that fit of fire in my throat was a part of that jarring dream or not. I remembered the fire that was so real and stroked the skin on my neck. I felt fine. I hummed, testing to see if my voice would start it back up, but no. I didn't feel sick either.

"A dream then," I whispered to myself as I pushed off my bed and shoved the resurfacing image of Marie's horror out of my head.

I tried my hardest to slip through the front office's door with as much ease and discreteness as I could manage. I had woken up late. Hours late. It explained why the light in my room was off this morning. I had slept through all four of my first periods. I assumed that the sun was always that bright here... in Duskfall.

I looked both ways before making my move out of the office. The hallways were empty enough, if not for the two or three students that still found time to stare at me like I was an exhibit while on their way to the bathroom. I had made it in enough time to catch the last fifteen minutes of my English class, and I debated waiting in the lunchroom for the period to end. That would mean sitting alone at the table and waiting on Lyall and his crew, embarrassing.