If I Wake

Kindness

Pompeii 79 AD

My head pounds like a rock band has taken up residence in my skull. My hands tally the extent of my injuries, finding bruising and my dress missing. My underwear is damp under the blanket covering me.

"I think she's awake," a girl's voice pierces my throbbing skull, drowning out the rain drumming on the roof.

I force my eyes open to find myself lying on a bed in a shadowy room. Two people lean over me, but the only one I see is Will. I don't know where I am in time, but it doesn't matter. Will is here beside me.

He is taller and broader in the shoulders than last time we met. His cave boy dreadlocks have been replaced by a short neat trim, but his face is the same, if not slightly older. The pain and noise fade away until all I can hear is my pounding heart.

"Are you alright?" Will asks. Butterflies flutter in my stomach as though something amazing may happen if I can hold onto this moment.

"Of course she is not alright, Villius. She hit her head," the girl says. My world spins.

"Do you not have somewhere else to be, Elisia?" Will says.

"No," she replies.

"Will," I say. The room begins to fade away. I reach out to grab his hand so I don't slip away for good.

Time passes. When I wake again, Will is beside me, still holding my hand. Eventually my nausea passes and I hear voices by the door.

"We don't know where she's come from," says a man.

"She must belong to someone," a woman replies.

"Can we keep her?" Elisia asks. "She can have Aelia's bed."

I focus on Will's face in the dim room. His head is cocked to one side listening to the conversation outside.

"Will they let me stay? I don't have anywhere else to go," I whisper. Will squeezes my hand.

When I next open my eyes, Elisia is sitting on the edge of the bed swinging her feet. Her face is familiar. I blink several times before I can convince myself she is Lee whose life I saved in Africa. She was not around the last time I met Will.

"You should put her in the shrine with the other Gods." Elisia points to my statue when she notices I'm awake.

I sit up slowly and swing my legs to the floor, careful to avoid kicking the girl studying me. The room spins for a few moments before settling in place. Daylight spills through the doorway, illuminating the shadowy paintings on the walls. Either they depict the feats of Hercules, or I hit my head harder than I thought.

"Sure," I tell Elisia.

She bounds to her feet and tosses me the tunic lying across the end of the bed, before hovering at the door impatiently. I pull the cloth over my head and tie it at my shoulders like hers. When I stand, it reaches the floor. Elisia's dress ends at her knees.

Outside the room, I blink in the brightness of the ceilingless courtyard dominating the centre of the house. The day is already warm, although by the angle of light hitting the tiled floor, it's still morning. Elisia tugs on my arm and I follow her through to the front of the house where the timber doors are propped open, letting the breeze blow through.

Inside the entrance, an assortment of Gods perch on the ledge surrounding a dish in which to burn offerings. I add my statue to the collection. My stomach rumbles reminding me I haven't eaten for some time.

"You must be hungry. Villius says I'm always hungry," Elisia says. She skips back through the atrium towards the back of the house.

"Where is your brother?" I follow behind her.