Caidoz

Chapter 40

~Cancer

Crash! Drenched in a cold sweat, I bolt upright in bed. Every breath is taken as if it were my last, panting heavily. It takes a moment for me to come to my senses, my hand pressing hard against the right side of my temple. The covers had been strangled in a heap to the floors, my pillow somehow having ending up my feet. It was in that moment that I realized my legs were facing the headboard.

Bewildered, I turned my attention to my dream. It had been horrifying, that much as made clear enough through my clammy skin. As frightened as I was, it had been something shocking from my dream that stayed in my mind, but I felt too intimidated to figure it out alone. A cry for help- no, I told myself. It had not been a despaired exclamation; it had been a plead for death.

Greatly troubled, I could feel my heart throbbing in my hands, the Crab's shell pounding under the force of some unknown pressure. I studied my pale fingers under the light provided by the moon. In my sight, they trembled violently. Did they shake in rage, spawned by my fear? Is this is some sort of developing melancholy homesickness the deprives from sleeping away from home?

But if this had been simply just a nightmare, why did it feel so real? So very tangible? Unable to interpret myself on the warm mattress while feeling soaked to the bone, I took a calming breath before steeping to the floor below.

"Ouch!" I cried out in alarm and pain, pressing back to the mattress in distress. What was that? Bending down for a better visual, I squinted through the darkness before my eyes widened. The beautiful flowers on my nightstand were all scattered on the ground, each one lying beside pieces of shattered pottery which had released the contained water within, allowing it to flood the floor in a small puddle of moisture.

It had then been common sense for me to realize I had accidentally trodden on the shards broken vase, which was probably the sound that awoke me. Gently, I brushed off the pieces that could easily be removed and slowly pried the remaining fragments out of my skin with only a few hissed outbursts of pain. It was simple, then, to use a pinch of my energy to mend the punctured areas on my skin. Moving to the left side of the bed, I slid off the other side, my feet touching the ground, which was, luckily, bare.

I wanted to think, to truly take a moment to consider what had I had just envisioned previously before. I made for the back exit, taking a deep breath of chilly fresh air that brought oxygen back to circulate my blood, calming me. Taking a seat on the wooden platform, I tried hard to think back. Back to the depths of my dream.

Within that moment, a strange sense of forbidding sent an odd sense of dread throughout me. Something was very wrong. The Crab seemed to twitch a whisker, its pincers oddly hesitant. What was it I had heard? What was it that had been said? I forced myself to think. There had been a voice, but the words had not been spoken. It had been as if someone had jammed a being inside my brain, echoing throughout my skull.

Still, I found my pincers tightening their hold on the memory. Straining hard to recall, I sighed as I continued to draw up a blank at the big picture. Alright then, I told myself. If I cannot remember everything, what if I focused on the smaller details instead?

I considered the pitch and tone of the voice. I felt quite sure it had not been feminine, and, through a quick decision, asserted it had been in the lower tones of a male. Yet oddly enough, there had been a sense of roughness that seemed to radiate with intelligence, as if the speaker had been mentally strained.

Simply through remembering the sound of the voice, I then was able to recollect something he, or whatever the gender of the speaker, had said. Had the words "Save me" not been previously spoken? Save him, I thought. The Crab instantly jerked an armored leg, forcing me to shudder. There had been some sort of commotion, that I knew. I placed my head in my hands, trying to bring back more.