The Awakening

Chapter 13 - Edited

* Edited December 23, 2017. (First published August 28, 2015)

I'm not sure what I was hoping to find within myself when I started walking into my mind, trying to find a way through that mental fog that filled so much of it. Maybe I was hoping to find a way to get to the places I hadn't been able to find before. Perhaps some part of me was hoping I could unlock the memories that had been lost to me, even though another part constantly told myself that I didn't care.

Whatever it was, all I had been able to do was go over the memories I'd built since waking up in that tunnel. Memories and the flashes of dreams and fragmented possible hallucinations that might or might not have been real. But somehow, that had been enough for me to figure out a few things. I'd gone over each and every one of them, over and over again, coming to the realization that I had been doing just what I had thought the people around me were doing. I was letting my fears control me when there was no need to do so.

So what if I wasn't what I had thought I was, it didn't mean I was anything more or less than I was before I knew what I wasn't. I was still me and that wouldn't change. I felt so foolish for having let such an insignificant concern cause me to act like such an idiot.

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Slowly opening my eyes to the soft light of early morning, I could only gaze in shock at the sight I beheld. Resting his head on one of my legs, Daniel was quietly sleeping on the grass beside me, his clothing slightly rumpled and stained from spending the night outside.

Slowly reaching out a hand, I gently brushed his hair out of his face as I felt the smallest of smiles creep across my lips. Running my fingers through his hair for a moment, I sat and simply enjoyed the feeling of having someone beside me. When his own grey eyes opened, I tilted my head to the side and met his curious gaze, my hand once more dropping to my side.

"Thank you, Daniel, for staying here when you didn't have to. It was nice, coming back to myself and not being alone again." The gentle smile he gave in response to my words spoke far more than anything that could be said aloud.

Maybe it really didn't matter what I was or if I ever found out, as long as I had someone I could rely on to stay by my side.

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Standing before Michael the following day, I was waiting for him to tell me how foolish I had been. I was even waiting for him to tell me they didn't need someone who couldn't keep her head on straight and that I had to leave.

What I was not expecting, was for him to tell me that I was to join him and the others he'd selected on a mission. One he'd formed to check out a town in the distance that had once held a small group of looters. Recently, the sightings of them had dwindled until they stopped altogether and Michael wanted to know why.

Looters did not just stop looting, after all, so what had caused them to become silent and was it something we needed to be wary of or even take care of before it became a threat to us as well? Even I couldn't help but think of the Shadow Hound, as everyone in town had taken to calling it, a shiver running up my spine at the memories of what it had done to us.

Hopefully, the looters had simply moved on to a new area, having decided this area was not worth staying in any longer. But somewhere, deep in the back of my mind, I knew better than to expect that to be the reason the scouts hadn't seen them in recent weeks. We all knew better.