Stories of the Woods

Children Dreaming

"Myrnah? Are you awake?"

Her eyes opened immediately, and she looked over at the bed across from hers. "Yes, I'm awake. Do you need something?"

Jannosh smiled at her sheepishly in the dark. "I'm cold."

It was always cold in their little prison. The walls were stone and rough, and did nothing to keep out the cold from Winter. The floor was stone too; it was cold on their bare feet, and sometimes rats brushed by their skin. Myrnah hated the rats. She could always hear them scratching and scratching, and their little squeaks as they talked to each other made her sick.

A little barred window was set in the stone high in the wall, and it pale light shone down above Jannosh's silvery blonde head. The moonlight shone off the metal of the bed frame slunk across the thin, lumpy cot that was his bed. His legs had grown too long for his thin, ratty blanket, and pale feet poked out beneath the faded cloth.

"Come here, then."

His blonde hair flashed as he moved in the moonlight, and Myrnah could hear his feet padding across the stone floor. She moved over in her own bed, and Jannosh climbed in after her, spreading his own blanket on top of hers. The beds the big men provided for them were small, but so were they. At ten years old, Myrnah was as skinny and small as a seven year old. Jannosh was two years older, but although he stretched in height, he was as skinny as his little friend. The two children huddled under their blankets, their cool hands linked.

Myrnah looked into Jannosh's purple eyes. She always thought they were so pretty; even now, in the white moonlight. He looked back at her and blinked; his long silver eyelashes brushed against his cheekbones momentarily and then his eyes were open again.

"Are you warm now?" Myrnah asked.

"I'm starting to be." He pressed his cold feet against her leg and she flinched. "I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be." She snuggled closer to him. The two of them didn't have any temperature; it was one of the only things that the big men established about them. Why though, they had no idea. Right now, sharing no temperature was better than being cold.

"What do you think they'll do to us tomorrow?" Myrnah whispered.

"Don't think about it." Jannosh told her sternly.

The big men always did experiments on Monday. When the experiment eventually failed Jannosh and Myrnah were kept the rest of the week in the little stone room while the big men figured out what to do next week. It had been the same all five years.

"I heard the scary one say something when we were leaving the experiment room." Myrnah whispered. Her breath came out in a silvery puff. The scary man told them his name was Dr. Ambrosia, but Myrnah didn't like calling him that. She thought Ambrosia was a beautiful word, something that rolled off her tongue like honey, but the word didn't suit the scary man. He was very beautiful in a terrible kind of way, and Myrnah always cried whenever he looked at her with those black, empty eyes.

Jannosh didn't reply.

"He said something like 'electroshock therapy'. Do you know what that is?" She asked in a small voice. It sounded scary, but she wanted to know what it was. It was always better to know before they went in.

"No." But Jannosh shivered, and she knew it wasn't from the cold.

They were both quiet for a while, and they both watched the square of moonlight as it moved slowly across the room.

"Do you think we'll ever get to leave?" Myrnah asked. Her red eyes were bright. "Do you think we'll get to see our mamas and das again?"

"Of course." Jannosh said immediately, smiling sunnily at her in the dark. His hands clutched hers tightly. "When they give up on trying to see what's wrong with us, they'll send us back to our mamas. They can't keep us here forever. They would get very bored."