The Scent of Lavender

I couldn't believe my eyes. When the night had started, I'd never imagined it would end like this. My leg felt numb and my vision was blurred. Something hurt. Something hurt horribly, but I couldn't tell what. I couldn't focus. I saw my mother, lying in a heap on the floor beside me. I reached out towards her hand as I had so many times before, but found only cold, unresponsive fingers. I wanted to cry or scream, but the tears wouldn't come. My mind felt as numb as my leg.

I heard a voice from somewhere far off in the distance and then someone's foot dug into my ribcage, flipping me over onto my stomach. The numbness swiftly departed then, and pain swept through my leg and up my torso. I screamed then. A long and painful scream, but the voices continued unperturbed.

"Take him away. His face makes me sick." One said. I recognized it as my uncle's but it sounded cold and distant. The opposite of the warm demeanor he had put forth earlier that night. "I have his mother's company now and the operation was a success. He will no longer be a threat to me."

"But, Mr. Constant, he could-" The voices continued, but they were quickly drowned out by the pounding in my head. I closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of my mother's lavender perfume, and when I next opened them I was being jostled up and down. I was being carried, I realized. Someone held me tightly in their arms as they ran. I could hear their heart beating, rhythmically pounding against my head and I closed my eyes again.

Cold rain pelting on my face woke me next. I blinked up at the sky and winced when a sharp flare of pain shot through my head. I was lying on pavement. Someone was shouting, though once again it sounded distant and far away. A small, round face appeared over me, squinting in the rain. She had golden hair and large, innocent blue eyes that probed mine curiously. Her mouth was moving, but even with her being so close, I couldn't hear anything. I tried to move, to say something, but everything felt heavy. My leg sand arms felt like they were weighted down with iron blocks and my eyes drooped. The darkness began to creep in than. I tried to scream, to cry, to twitch a finger! But nothing moved and the darkness took over...

Edward sat up sharply in his bed, breathing hard. Sweat dripped down his back and chest, leaving his pillow and bed soaked. His eyes darted frantically about the room and his hands shook.

"It was just a nightmare...! It was just a nightmare...!" He tried to tell himself, but the frantic pounding of his heart said otherwise. Those memories had been coming back to him frequently as of late. As for why though, he could not say.

The rest of the boys in the small room of the orphanage were all still fast asleep, their soft snores and sometimes not so soft ones were the only things that broke the silence. Edward listened to the soft breathing of the boy in the bunk above him for several minutes before carefully slipping from his bed and tiptoeing across the room. He knew that sleep would not come to him again for some time and the light, or rather the lack thereof, coming from the small window on the ceiling of the room told him that dawn was still a ways off. The door creaked as he swung it open, but no boy stirred from his bunk, save for one who slept closest to the door mumbling something about five more minutes.

Out in the hall, Edward stepped carefully to avoid stepping on the floor boards he knew creaked, until he was standing in front of the door to the girls' room. It was forbidden for boys to enter, but Edward pushed the door open anyway.

"Edward...?" A small voice whispered from a bunk near the door and he tiptoed towards it.

"What are you doing awake, Mary..?" Edward whispered, stopping beside her bunk.