DR. RUTH CARSON grew up hearing about Pandora as a kid, hearing of the alien moon that promised beauty and awe.
Coming from the lower class in the States, she fought tooth and nail to provide any opportunity to distance herself from the hard life s...
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EVEN in her dreams, it was as if Ruth could smell the pollution of earth's atmosphere, feel the overcrowding of the streets at any which way one might go. While amid a never ending crowd, the world was closing in on her, the bright lights of the cities and the shuffle of hundreds of thousands of people around her felt suffocating as she tried to get away, tried to push through the crowd.
Yet, as she grabbed the arm of an individual walking by to shove her way past, the woman was horrified to find that the man she grabbed had no face. She stumbled with a yelp as she began spinning, looking at the hoard of people around who also had no faces. Terror deepened into every fiber of her as she realized her hands were blue, and she was suddenly so much taller than the sea of faceless people around her.
"No," she cried out, swirling. "No!" Tears spilled down her face as she felt trapped, wanting to scream and run and curl in a ball all at once. Luckily, her nightmare stopped short as her green eyes shot open at a sudden commotion that ripped her from the terrible place her mind had been harboring her. She leaned up from her cot quickly, panic consuming her.
Jake was at her side, his hand lowering from where it had been shaking at her forearm. She tried to rub away the sleep from her eyes while trying to gain her bearings, pulling away strands of her ash-blonde hair away from her face. She must have been trashing something fierce if Jake had wheeled himself over to wake up her.
His expression was taut, a brow raised as he didn't move his gaze from her. "You okay?"
Dropping her hands into her blanket-covered lap, she sighed. "Nightmares. They come every so often. I can't really do anything about them."
Jake sucked at his teeth. "Well, you were talking loud enough you would've woken the others up. Luckily they're outside working right now. I figured I'd let you sleep a while before we linked in."
Appreciative of his concern, Ruth offered a weak smile. "Thanks for waking me up. It was a particularly shitty dream." Avoiding hitting him or his wheel chair, Ruth swung her legs off of the cot and padded a crossed the cool floor of the unit to prepare some breakfast for them before they began their lives on the outside once more. The thought was calming enough to help her forget her restless sleep. She had another day full of learning from Tsu'tey ahead of her.
Following her to the mini fridge, Jake acquired some of the utensils and dish-ware they had to eat their grovely food from. Rehydrated eggs and what looked to be a poor excuse for sausage was never appetizing to the doctor, but she forced herself to it. If only to preserve her human body to live in her avatar.
"I have nightmares too, sometimes," Jake tells her as he leans up to set the utensils within Ruth's height as she places their food into the microwave-like machine that would heat and rehydrate it. "Nicaragua. Where I lost my legs."
