Killed Killers (NaNoWriMo 2015)

Chapter Twenty Three

    Ere woke the next morning with a horrible headache. She sat up out of bed, surprised to find that Gem was not there.

He must have snuck out while I was asleep. She thought dejectedly, frowning as she rubbed her forehead. She winced as another wave of pain spilled through her head, and promptly lay back down. The pain subsided a little bit, but Ere doubted that she was going to be doing anything today.

She lay in her bed like that, awake, for a few minutes before she heard the sound of her sliding glass patio door opening. She jumped, not sure who would have been on her patio while she was sleeping, but relaxed when she heard Gem's honey toned voice humming as he crossed the room towards her bed.

"She's awake, I see. Finally." He stopped humming for a moment, leaning over her and smiling.

"And with a horrible headache, too." She replied, staring back at him.

"Hm, we'll have to get some drugs to fix that. Did you sleep fine after that whole night mare thing?" He asked, his head disappearing from her view and the humming starting up again.

"Yeah, I slept okay." She sighed, remembering last night's dream. Unlike the first one, the memory of it was not fading away, and she found that she could remember it almost like she were reliving it, up until about the point where she started to drown. After that, everything became hazy and unclear. Everything except for the boy's eyes, she was sure that she had seen them up close sometime while she was in the water, but for the life of her she couldn't remember how she had seen them.

"You were pretty worked up about that dream. Do you remember it?" Gem asked, and suddenly Ere's stomach clenched. She tried to open her mouth to tell Gem what had happened in the dream, but as soon as she began to move, the memory of it disappeared. It wasn't like it faded or became unclear, it disappeared all together. She snapped her mouth closed again, desperate to hold onto the memory, and as soon as she stopped trying to tell Gem about it, it returned. Puzzled, she opened her mouth to tell Gem again, and again, the memory disappeared, leaving her on the verge of panic in its wake.

"Ere?" She turned her head to find that Gem was staring at her, looking confused.

"Uh- no, no I don't. Sorry, but all I can remember that it was scary." She stuttered, feeling just as confused as Gem looked.

"Okay." Gem replied, dragging his word out as though he didn't quite believe what Ere was saying, but that he wasn't going to directly challenge it either.

"What time is it?" She asked, trying desperately to change the subject before he decided to question her further. He pulled his phone out of the back pocket of the jeans that he was now wearing. Sometime last night he must have gone to his room and changed.

"Almost seven thirty. Why?" He tapped out what Ere assumed was a text message before slipping his phone gracefully back into his pocket.

"Just wondering. Is there a certain point in time where you absolutely have to get to breakfast?" She asked, starting to feel like she was annoying him with all of her questions.

"Well, they clean it up at nine and then they get ready for the wave of people who want lunch, but I asked for someone to bring the food up to you. You didn't seem like you wanted to wake up, and after the terror that you displayed last night, I assumed you wouldn't want to really do anything today." He paused, looking thoughtfully at the door before he continued, "Oh, and I just texted Cara and asked her to bring up some ibuprofen for your headache. Will that work?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah. That works just fine. I hope the headache goes away before too long anyways." She smiled, biting her lip as the movement brought on another wave of pain from her head.