Half the Power

The Discussion

When I went to bed that night, I expected a normal sleep. The same old routine of go to bed at nine thirty, wake up at seven, to to school, and repeat. I never expected that the sleep, for most of the town, would last not ten hours, but days.

While I went to bed, I almost immediately fell asleep. The first sign a Slumber was starting. Then, I got faint feelings throughout that day, which I slept through, that I should wake up. That was my first sign that I was Chosen. When it finally got to about seven in the morning, a day and a half since I went to bed, that I had been sleeping, I made myself wake up because I was used to doing this, on days that I didn't want to wake up early. The rest of the town always sleeps in, but I get up early to check on the horses.

While the rest of the people all around slept, I noticed that the sun was higher in the sky than it normally is. The horses also seemed hungrier, so I assumed I had slept in a few extra minutes. No matter, though, because today should be Saturday. No school.

I filled the trough with oats for my family's three horses, Lacy, Poppy, and Luke. When they finally finished eating, I tacked up Lacy, a light brown quarter horse, and rode down to look at the store today. As I passed it, I spotted a sign hung above the door: Open 24 hours a day! Inside, I could see a friend from school, Olivia, sleeping behind the counter. Strange, I thought. She normally takes the night shift on the second half of the week. Right now, she should be sleeping, or caring for the family's pigs. I shrugged, knowing this was none of my business. However, as I left, I could here stirring behind me. She had woken, just by my presents.

I passed the school, and I could see my teacher, Ms. Long, slumped over our class's test papers. Now she was waking, too, and I felt oddly... drained, like I had just done something that took all of my energy. All I'd been doing was riding casually, though. Hm.

In a few minutes, after I passed a house of a big family, I finally felt like I couldn't go on. I turned Lacy around and took the fastest way home; a path through the town, where everyone was still inside. Okay, now I was getting worried. It was nearly nine o'clock, and still nobody was outside. But by the time I got back to the stable outside my house, I was too tired to do anything more than guide Lacy into the barn and drag myself into my house. Something about riding past all of those people had completely exhausted me. I just couldn't place it.

I could hear footsteps upstairs, but then they stopped, amd headed back towards where they came from, like whoever they belonged to had decided against waking up today. A few seconds later, I heard snoring.

Just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard something in the back of my mind, telling me to stay awake, and it was so real, I sat bolt upright, knowing somehow that I should listen to it.

I walked to the bathroom and splashed cold water from the sink on my face, now determined to stay awake. I thought for a second, and decided that a ride would wake me up, as long as I didn't ride past too many people.

I ran down to the stable again, and lifted a saddle pad, then a saddle onto Luke, my biggest horse (about fourteen hands) and used a stool to get up on the saddle.

We took off down a rarely used path through the woods, where nobody lived. I sped up to a trot, and willed myself not to get tired. I couldn't fall asleep now.

I sped up to faster than I've ever tried, urging Luke to go faster, wanting more speed, more energy. Even at this speed, I began to nod off, the quiet of the woods relaxing me. All around me, birds chirped gently, the trees swayed in a gentle way, and warm breeze flowed over my hair.

I jerked back awake when Luke took a huge jump over a log, and I nearly fell out of the saddle. I slowed him down, and stopped when I spotted a stream flowing a few feet ahead. I dismounted and ran to the stream, splashing more water on my face.