ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

44: I'm Dreaming

Ella 44

I don't like waking up after being asleep for a long time.

My whole body is stiff, but I peel myself out of bed anyway. I look out the window, and I can see Leo, with Jeff unloading the box of supplies. It must be day 14. We have two weeks left until the new shipment comes.

I don't know why that terrifies me as much as it does.

We were in a hallway.

It is quiet out here. It is lunch, so I expect the Glade to be loud, and full of laughter. Perhaps it is the distance that separates me from the rest of the Glade, but it feels oddly silent. Zart eats in the Garden, as he usually does. Alone. I almost feel bad for leaving him.

I could hear the rubber soles of their shoes shuffling off the ground.

"I thought you were out for good."

The boy in the doorway walks in slowly. Clint is the Keeper of the Med-jacks, and I am surprised by the casual way he sits down on my bed.

"We didn't know what we were going to do, since the seizure happened again. I hadn't thought much about what to do on the off chance you woke up."

I turn away, staring back out the window. Dawn sits on the grass, alone as well. Which surprises me, as there is an empty spot at the table where she normally sits. That girl is never alone. I missed what happened to her while I was out, but I wish I knew.

"I guess we can only quarantine you, and hope that you don't keep having seizures." He continues, "but we will only do that if they don't have anything to prevent your seizures in today's shipment.

"It isn't an illness." I tell him.

He seems to accept is as fact, and doesn't ask more questions.

I wish I could see Michelle. Normally she continues work through lunch and breaks separately later on. She isn't anywhere where she normally is. Which I find to be extremely peculiar.

I never noticed I paid so much attention to them all.

"It's not going to satisfy Jeff or Leo," the bed creaks as Clint lifts himself on it. "They are going to want to know exactly what is wrong with you before they let you back out into the Gardens."

I shrug. He won't understand me if I explain to him expressly what went wrong in my head. Something in that room.

He was going to be angry.

"14 days." When I think of him, it reminds me of the shipment coming. Of more people trapped here beyond the truth. The truth is important of course, but it is nothing compared to the reality of it all. Dream land may be where the answers are, but reality is where I need to be.

Clint only hears my remark, but makes no notice of it.

"Did you ever go in the Maze when no one was looking?"

I shake my head. "You can only undergo the Changing if there was something to change in the first place."

When I look back at him, I realise he has his arms crossed over his chest. His brow is furrowed, but he seems to accept what I say for how it is.

"You're going to be quarantined." He continues on, not waiting for my input. "Tomorrow you are going to rest, and then I am going to examine you the next day. You aren't going to be able to talk to anyone, including Leo and Jeff, until I have finished my examination. Are we clear?"

He isn't going to find anything, which I definitely accept. "What do you think is wrong with me?"

He straightens up, assessing my reaction before he says anything. I may be small, but I am certainly not fragile. Clint is smart though, and he recognises this.

"You are not to tell Leo," he begins, "but I think you have a brain tumour."

I nod, and he cocks his head at me.

"Do you agree?" Clint steps closer to me, until he is close enough to kneel next to me on the ground. "Or do you have some sort of other assessment?"

I shrug, "I was under the assumption that something had gone wrong before I came here. I'm definitely an abnormality-"

"Being here is abnormal-"

"But a brain tumour would make just as much sense." I have to agree with him, and it makes me wonder if anything is really. The memories, the grey world, the Smoke man; they could all be conjured up by a lump in my brain.

Not the violet girl though. Never could I ever create something quite as magnificent as her.

~~~~

This is really short, but I have another chapter coming really soon. Which I'm pretty excited for, and you'll now definitely forgive me for Dawn's latest chapter.

I'll see you soon in Leo and comforting.