- A few days later -
They're dead... all dead... What did you do- Why did you leave me- all dead!
Help help help help help help... do something... RUN! You have to run!
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no-
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO-
"GAH!" Kasper awoke with a sudden jolt.
His body was covered in a cold sweat. "HAH-" he grasped at his wet shirt. "Hah-"
"You're awake—you're awake! It was only a dream—just a dream. Hey- come back to me. It was a dream-"
As the surroundings became clearer, Kasper rubbed his eyes with a trembling hand, letting the knife fall from his grip. He brushed something as he did, a hand, an arm. Something living. "Dream-" He moved backward. "Dream." Creating an ounce of space between himself and the other person, digging his legs free of the sleeping bag.
"You had another nightmare." Zak let go of Kasper's shoulder. "-you were talking. Again." He rubbed his eyes.
With a huff, Kasper let himself fall backwards. His head meeting the pillow with a muffled thump. "I was?" My heart is pounding. "Again-" He let his eyes close, one hand still gripping his chest.
Zak sighed, the sound of cloth scratching came from his direction. He was rubbing at a bandage on his arm. "You scared me."
It had been a few days since that night.
The night Kasper woke up with no bearing on who or where he was.
Only a day since they had taken that bullet out and his body still remembered the burn.
Some things, the big things, had come back. Foundational memories of home, his family, and a haunting hopelessness that seemed to make up his foundations had returned. But the others. The small and most significant portions that were the nuances of himself all remained a blur. One thing was abundantly clear. He knew now that Zak was in fact there, through most things, Zak was a constant something. He mattered.
So his head told his heart...
Zak sighed. "God this itches." Blood had already seeped through the first layers and had begun eating away at the exterior wrapping. "It's weird but I think I'm beginning to understand. It's like your brain remembers stuff when you sleep, but when you wake up, it's all gone. Maybe it's not an injury... You're just locked up somehow."
"Locked up huh..." His focus waned. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for waking you up again." Kasper used the edge of his sleeping bag to wipe away the sweat from his face. "Yours eyes look like shit." For once someone had bags as dark as his. His vision swam, tiny black tendrils slithered across the darkness and squirmed along his peripheral. Then, as quickly as they had appeared, were gone again. "What time is it?" He whispered gravelly, his morning voice catching hoarse in his throat.
YOU ARE READING
The Eden Projects (EDITING)
General Fiction"This story has no hero." Set in the distant future, where the government has been overthrown, and a new world power has risen, known only by the Moniker "ARK Corporation." We follow Kasper as he fights to survive in a nightmare where wrong is made...
