Hope

Chapter 7: Coward

"Shhhh," a voice says, it's soft and familiar, yet new and far away. I can't see anything, my head is pounding and my limbs feel numb. I feel a hand on my head as my consciousness starts to come back. I start to feel the hand move just slightly. It was... comforting me. I open my eyes slowly and see a blurry figure above me, and another, and another. As my vision starts to sharpen I see Lucy and Jake kneeling in a panicked state near my feet.
"Don't move" I hear someone say. My eyes shift to the girl sitting next to me.
"M...Mae?" I croak painfully and slightly surprised by the sound of my voice.
"Shush!" She whispers angrily. "That's not my name to these people." Then she says in a normal tone, "Hi! I'm Jess, nice to see that you're awake."
I nod silently. I eye the three of them confused as Lucy offers her hand.
"C'mon," she says "you're okay to get up now." I grab her hand as she hoists me up. My legs are shaky and my back is covered in sweat. I wipe what I figured was spit from my lip to find blood on my arm, right before I start coughing. I fill my water cup to rid my mouth of the taste of iron as my friends explain what happened. "Your knees were tucked in and you we're unconsciou.."
"Asleep" I correct Jake before swishing the water in my mouth.
"Asleep" he murmurs, " anyway and you started shivering, Jess saw you and Lucy heard you mumbling. So we came over and you started shaking a lot. When you started yelling the guards began to stare so we woke you up." I spit out the water as they look at me nervously.
"Hey! It's fine," I say," I'm okay" Lucy looks at me and raises an eyebrow. "You don't always have to act all tough like that. Please, just tell us the truth" she pleads. I look at her sad eyes and sigh, "It was just a bad dream, really I'm okay." I go to turn around as Mae grabs my arm tightly. She looks at me angrily. "Stop trying to be the hero." She mutters in my ear. "Just stop it."
"Hero..." I laugh " I'm no hero." I jerk away from her, "more like coward" I mumble before walking off. I ponder everything that took place as I head to the wooden bunks. We were given blankets by the humans so none of us would get sick from the cold. I take mine from around my waist and tie it to the upper slab of wood where Jake normally sleeps. I enter this fort I just crafted. The darkness feels so nice. In this darkness, I tune out my surroundings and concentrate on the previous conversation. "Why was my voice so coarse when I spoke at first?" I think, "and the shaking was new as well. I have woke up sweaty and shivering before, and the numb feeling in my arms and legs wasn't new. So what was different this time?" I ask myself. Nightmares aren't unnatural to me, and waking up feverish, in pain, or both happens just about every time. I constantly wake up in a cold sweat, it's just my curse. "But the yelling and shaking?" I say in my head. I shiver, still chilled from the nightmare induced fever. I'm not an insomniac by any means, I actually fall asleep quite quickly. After I fall asleep is when the trouble comes. I was terrified of falling asleep when I was young. The monsters I saw in my dreams would have scared off a general with their yellow eyes and black smiles. At least that's what I used to think, I got used to them after a while and then they just went away. I guess I was a coward back then too because they didn't leave completely as they would have had I been braver. I tend to just ignore those flaws, and it makes life a whole lot easier.