Heir of the Forgotten

~Nightmares~

Pale hands that tremble with betrayal reach in front of the other one pull at a time. Slowly, the girl moves her body, one pull, then the next.

She'd escaped him, but the tears still run fresh down her cheeks. Keeping silent is proving difficult, as she leaves trails of blood. Her finger dips into the water, and she makes the rash decision of attempting to save herself in the water. It was a better chance than laying waiting to be killed.

Taking a deep breath, she pulls herself into the river just enough that the roaring force drags her beneath. She keeps her mouth shut and does what she can to get back afloat. She's calm at first until she tries to go for air. She fails to tell what is up and down. The rivers here run deep enough that they should be called trenches. Water grabs hold of her lungs, and something collides with her head.

~

Selene rises with a gasp, sucking air into her lungs as the panic resides. With her breathing slowing and her mind focusing, she looks up toward her two traveling companions. Dorian's face is pale, his eyes wide, and there's a slight tremble to his hands. Vincent stares with a brow raised with curiosity, but lacking genuine interest or concern for her wellbeing. Unlike Dorian, who was stuttering out gibberish, trying to make sense of what he saw.

"Holy- In the name of the gods, the hell was that?" Dorian finally sputters out while he stares at her, recovering from the panic. She had stopped breathing. There were screams in a language he'd thought he'd heard before, but he couldn't place an exact name to it.

They had both started to retreat back to their beds, unsure to wake her when she'd started gasping and coughing, then not breathing.

"Nightmare," she mumbles. It's not uncommon, except she recalls part of it. She recalls dragging herself into the river and drowning.

"Okay, that explains the screaming, but you stopped breathing." Vincent stares her down.

Selene shrugs. "Don't remember why I was screaming. I just remembered how I almost died. I crawled into the river... I was running from someone. It was that or be a sitting duck waiting to die." Her voice is terrifyingly empty and hoarse. She'd been so lively before going to sleep. Now she appears empty and closed again.

Dorian looks at her, trying not to let pity trickle into his eyes. She looks so miserable. He'd comfort her if appropriate, but it's not in this situation. "This is why you didn't want to sleep in the carriage when you lost your parents, and why you didn't want to leave." Dorian looks at Vincent. Neither of them can do anything for stuff like this.

"I don't usually recall them." Selene mumbles twirling strands of hair around her finger as she starts to fidget.

"How often do you get dreams like that?" Vincent is relatively sure there's something odd about that. Having nightmares of forgotten memories is usually how bad memories resurface.

For these nightmares to surface, and for amnesia to take hold after she wakes up; despite the physical symptoms of the nightmare, is worrisome. It's intriguing, something Vincent will find a way to approach later.

Selene fidgets a bit as she shrugs. "Since I woke up? They tapered off for a few years, but a bit ago they returned." She usually just feels bad for waking people up. "Sorry, I woke you up."

Dorian nods, he thinks that's a bit abnormal. So many nightmares, and she couldn't recall even one of them until today? "Let's all try to get more sleep."

No matter how many times Selene closed her eyes or shifted around, sleep would not greet her. Giving up, she got up, folded her sleeping bag, and found somewhere away from the two sleeping males, but still within the circle.