Remember Me

- 4 -

Screaming rang through Ren's ears so deafeningly loud that her brain vibrated with the noise.

She clamped her hands over her head, trying to block out the sound. All she wanted was to close her eyes and escape, but it felt like keeping them open was the only thing preventing her nightmare from coming to life.

This isn't real. This can't be real. He won't let them separate us. He promised!

Unblinking, she watched in horror as her fears came to life. In the middle of their living room, Jude manically thrashed against the swarm of guards trying to subdue him.

His eyes were wild, dark with rage and angst. Another guard, mindless and unfeeling, grabbed and dragged her from the room. In her struggle, she finally realized the screaming was coming from her lips, as she begged for the nightmare to end.

"Jude! NO--JUDE! Let me GO!" Ren shrieked into the soldier's face. He shook her roughly, trying to subdue her. From the other room, her brother called out,

"REN! Ren, it's OKAY!"

In between the sounds of wrestling against the soldiers he called out to her, "Ren! I won't let them take you!" The soldier continued shaking her and she continued to scream bloody murder into his face.

"Ren? Ren!?" It seemed like her brother's voice but the sound was coming out of the soldier's mouth. He stared down at her, menacingly, still strongly gripping her by the shoulders.

"Jude?" she replied slowly, now groggy, as the scene in front of her rapidly faded out.

Is it happening again? Am I having a panic attack?

Her body was being jerked back and forth so violently that it was starting to hurt. Like the feeling of being swept over by a vast wave, she immediately sat up, eyes wide open,

"Jude!" Instead of seeing her brother's warm hazel eyes before her, her eyes shot open to find two great blue orbs staring down at her. The stranger's gaze was unwavering but his eyes flickered with concern as their cobalt color deepened, fervently studying her.

Suddenly brought back to the moment, he released his iron grip on Ren's shoulders, allowing her body to collapse back into the thin cot. Standing stiffly a few feet away from her, his shoulders continued to heavily rise and fall. Moving to sit on the edge of the cot she glanced back up at him and met his fiery gaze with her unwaveringly cool one.

"What's your name?" she demanded, clenching the flimsy mattress in her fists.

"Excuse me?" He all but yelled in response, unable to focus on the words coming out of her tense mouth.

"What is it?! You were going to tell me earlier before you stormed off."

"Just a second ago, you were screaming bloody murder. I thought you were dying! Or having a heart attack. Or something. You just kept screaming and convulsing. What the fuck is wrong with you?" Continuing to shout his words rather than speak them, he visibly struggled with Ren's immediate switch, one moment sounding as if she was being tortured, the next eerily still and commanding.

"It was just a nightmare. It happens," she responded, unwilling to admit to the terror she re-lived in her sleep. His strong reaction to her outburst surprised her. Looking behind him, she noticed that the door to the cell had been left ajar. From his current state, she realized he must've been woken by her screaming.

Is he... worried about me?

"Don't worry about it," she added, speaking lowly, breaking her eyes away from the intense hold of his own. Seeing her unwillingness to discuss the issue he asked a more straightforward question,