*Watty's 2021 Shortlist*
Samantha Roberts and Ben Evans have one thing in common - they both attend Sir Robertson's School for the Gifted, an elite boarding school for the children of the world's wealthiest. Both scholarship students, they gravitate...
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Everywhere I look, there's sand. It stretches out to the horizon, broken only by the wrecks of abandoned machines, their rusting insides strewn across the landscape. The sun beats down, stinging my eyes and burning my skin.
I'm searching for something, something so important that it feels as if my whole life has led me here. Now if I could only remember what it was...
Why can't I remember what it was...
I turn to my companion. She's a stocky, dark-skinned girl with tightly braided hair and an assortment of weapons hanging from her belt. I feel like I should know her. She turns to me and smiles.
"Well, Princess? Is the Scrap all you'd thought it would be?"
The scene shifts. I'm lying on my back, my body entangled in wires. Every time I shift, they grow tighter, cutting into my skin. The wires are connected to glowing machines that beep incessantly, drilling into my brain. A wire wraps around my throat, pulling tighter as I breathe.
I struggle, but no matter what I do it just gets worse- the wires pull tighter and tighter until
I
can't
breathe.
I jolt upright, hands clawing at my neck. It takes several seconds and countless panicked breaths before I convince myself—it was just a dream.
My heart is pounding and the last vestiges of the dream tug at my mind. It takes a couple more minutes before I can sit up, the blood rushing to my spinning head. It's been a while since I've had a dream that vivid, and it's shaken me.
I hesitate to call it a nightmare—it seemed too real for that. In my experience, nightmares are shadowy and indistinct, fears that prowl in the dark corners of my mind and never quite see the daylight. My dreams, on the other hand, spill colour and characters, landscapes and languages I've never heard of. But never has one of them ended like that—never have I woken up screaming from a dream before.
Something about the whole thing just feels off to me, but as I catch a glimpse of my alarm clock, I realize I don't have time to contemplate this right now. I'm gonna have to run if I want to make it to my meeting with Ben on time.
I jump out of bed, pausing for a moment to grab my phone from the bedside table and stuff it into the pocket of my jacket, which is hanging neatly on the back of the door. Ben may tease me about my "neat-freak" organizational tendencies, but it makes getting ready that much easier.
I quickly pull on jeans and a light sweater, stuffing some shoes onto my feet and scooping up the pile of research books stacked on my desk and my laptop. It's not cold, but there's a storm brewing, and it's only a matter of time until the rain starts. I'll need the layers, especially because the A.C. is always turned up high in the Student Building. Grabbing my windbreaker, I attempt to juggle the books, my laptop, and my coat while simultaneously opening the door.
