Tidal Vortex-Book One

Chapter Four

Teal:

I slept like a baby, lulled to sleep by the rocking of the ship. Once again, I find myself floating above my twelve-year-old self's unconscious body on the floor. The smell of gas and blood lingers in the air as the woman I had always known as my mother puts my father's bloody shirt in my still hands. As I floated above her, I could not feel the anger that I knew I should feel or would feel once I returned to my body. She had set me up as she had placed my fingertips on the knife. Maybe that was why I had been having these dreams, to realize what my unconscious mind was trying to tell me. In the vague distance of my mind, I thought I could hear an odd musical feral shriek that should have cooled my blood. But oddly it seems familiar, as if I know the sound somehow. The scene playing out in front of me only left one plausible conclusion. She must have killed my father. I want to scream; I feel like I'm screaming, but no sound is coming out.

Suddenly I find myself being roughly shaken awake.

"Bowen! Teal Bowen wake up! You're dreaming," a voice I vaguely recognize as Officer Hughes yells.

I could hear someone screaming oddly in a loud, high pitched melodic voice. Upon seeing his concerned, shocked face, I realize the sound was coming from me and quickly snap my jaw shut to cut off the sound. My cheeks redden in embarrassment. I am immensely glad for the cloak of darkness in the room.

"I'm sorry I must have been dreaming."

"No worries, you almost gave me a heart attack. I have never heard someone scream like that," he says, clearly shaken from hearing me.

Oh fuck, I thought. What the hell had I said or screamed like to cause this officer to become this shaken? I wonder as I readjust myself, and the arm handcuffed that clinked as I moved. I have one arm cuffed to the bunk bed. I guess I should be thankful they did not make me sleep with both cuffs on my wrists. I vaguely recall the shriek of a scream. Oh, my gosh, had that been me?

"What do you mean, did I say something odd or scream something oddly?"

I bite my lower lip, toying it between my teeth as I wrestle with feeling awkward and not knowing.

"You screamed sort of, I don't know, like a banshee... It echoed oddly and was really high pitched. Look, I was probably just half asleep with feeling seasick, so it sounded weird. Go back to sleep and get some rest. There's only a few hours left until dawn," Officer Hughes says as the outline of his body in the dark room moves back over to his own bunk.

The sound of retching sounds from his bunk's direction. He had agreed last night to take a second watch over me, the prisoner, and must have been keeping guard from his bunk. Poor man was green in the gills and had a severe case of seasickness. A retching sound from the bunk above me made me raise my eyebrows and smirk. Sounds like Mr. Officer Jones, the asshole is not too far behind. I have some level of sympathy for Officer Hughes. While I hold absolutely no sympathy for Officer Jones, who has been heavy-handed and uncaring towards me. As long as he doesn't upchuck over the side of the bunk onto me, I was perfectly fine to smugly listen to the man suffer. I try to go back to sleep, but it was impossible.

As if I could sleep after that dream, let alone the retching and sounds of the officers being sick. Banshee? Echoed and high pitched? What the fuck? I was feeling disturbed by what Officer Hughes had said to me. I know I had been dreaming again, reliving every second of the ten or fifteen minutes that had turned my life upside down. I still struggle to believe that the only mother I have known would have set me up like that. I know I was never her favorite, but she was still my family. It was disturbing to think she would have set me up for my father's murder. But I regardless I have never screamed out when dreaming before. Not that I was aware of anyway, and nobody has ever told me I had. That was completely new, and I was slightly freaked out over losing control like that. Because I never, ever lost control over my ability to mask my emotions. Showing or not showing my emotions has always been one of the few things I have had control over. I must have laid there still and silent on that bunk until the early hours of morning. Sunlight filters through the small porthole, illuminating the space in a soft glow.