[THE DAY MY DREAM DIED]

55 - Between Strand

— 55 —

Between Strand

\//\\/

Lise wakes weeping, hands pressed over her eyes. The acute fear of that memory lingers. She quakes from cold or crying or both, trying to pry her hands away.

"Lise!" Pelanea is at her side, gripping her right arm. "Lise, it's alright! He's not moved again. We're safe!"

Her palms come away wet and she sees the girl's pale face in the yet dazzling light. She struggles to draw herself out of the memory, the smell of burnt death pervading. "I... I'm fine. I'm alright... What's happened?" She is shaken but she can't let herself stay shaken. "My chest..."

Pelanea turns to look at something Lise can't see, "She helped me close the wound."

"Eclait?"

"Yes..."

"She helped you?"

"Yes... Something strange happened, I think, and I was able to make things change by thinking. I don't know, Lise. It was strange. I... I feel strange. Is this the undermind?"

"Not exactly. I'm not sure..." She answers, distracted. The scars on her chest are resealed the same silvery-blue, though swollen less than they had been. "...How? How did you know to do this? What did you do?"

"I don't know—I don't really remember it right. Eclait reminded me more than I knew."

Lise rises, dripping mud, looking about for the other woman. "Where is she?"

"Searching out a safer place to make rest."

She nods, and, trying to cast off whatever remains of her memory, looks to Bente's clay incarnation. The earth solidifies at her feet and she steps toward him, regaining her balance with each stride. A thought and the hardened clay cracks and slides away; the still soft melts off after it. In a cradle of mud—his ashen skin colored patchy black by a film of silt—Bente looks small, trembling.

The turning light slows, and stops, and dims. The buildings fade away as breath on glass, cooling. Darkness brings with it silence; followed immediately by a scream.

//\\

Lise staggers, sinking ankle-deep. It pins her still—and she knows an eternity in that suffering. A statue in Pain's name.

"Lise!"

Every muscle clenches. She falls beside Bente. Soft earth's embrace.