Stone 2 Stone (ONC 2024)

Her (4)

Stella snores softly in her bed, light purrs that keep a tempo like a metronome, and I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here now or I'll...

My head lulls involuntarily and I snap awake. I can't sleep. I can't...

I never told her this. But I can't sleep. Not here. Not at home. Not anywhere. Not anymore.

I can't...

My head lulls again, too heavy for my neck.

"I can't." I slurp, wiping the drool dribbling down the corner of my mouth, and sit up straighter on my bed on the floor. It's an old mattress of Stella's she keeps under her bed for this purpose, whenever I crash over or her little brother comes to town, needing a break from their dairy farm inland.

"Itsnotyourfaultokay...dontthinkaboutit..." Stella mumbles in her sleep. "Welltalkinthemorning..."

Not my fault?

How is she sleeping so soundly? I shake the drowsiness setting in. How is she able to sleep with me in her home, after what I told her? She should be scared. She should be scared and calling for help; calling my dad, calling someone.

"Gotosleep." Stella lifts her head a little from her pillow and peeks at me through a sleep shrouded squint. "Why are you still up?"

But she doesn't wait for the answer. She turns around again and snuggles her pillow, and within seconds, is down again.

A lashing of jealousy strikes my heart. I can't recall the last time I slept that peacefully.

Without meaning to, my head dips again.

I can't sleep. Don't sleep... I bite my cheek to keep from nodding off.

I have barely slept in the past few weeks and months. I fear sleep. I fear the dark, the dark of the night, the dark of the mind. When I was little, the darkness I feared was different, filled with boogeymen and monsters I couldn't see, monsters a child's mind conjured. These days, the moment the sun dips below the horizon, I fear the monster I'm becoming, peering at me from my reflection. She's in there, somewhere, laying dormant, lurking. For what, I'm not sure, but the moment I sleep, the moment I resign to that deep dead-to-the-world slumber...

I fight hard against my heavy eyelids. Stay awake, Keya! Must stay awake...

The mattress below Stella squeaks as she moves, mumbling more incoherent encouragement that I'm not the monster I fear in the dark. What does she know?

Don't sleep. Don't sleep.

I chant away, despite my eyelids dragging heavily downwards.

I can't sleep.

I can't.

I.

***

Finally! Thought she'd never let go.

I rise from the makeshift peasant bed and stretch those tired, knitted limbs. Limbs she's been so afraid to use!

The one called Stella turns her head, speaking in her sleep. "Whatchudoin?"

I stare at the woman before me, whose appearance has a semblance of Athena. Lean arms and body, with a golden glow of her skin, and the sun glinting faintly from the strands of her hair. Like I need a chaperone. Like I could ever be hurt again.

Though I am yet to warm to her appearance, I admire this woman for caring in her own way about the child, Keya, but where was she when she truly needed help?