Witch Hunt

I: A World so Low

I gasped hard, sitting up quickly in my bed as I looked around the room. My room. My Room. I had to repeat it to myself to make my brain settle. It was just another nightmare. Just the third on this week, it seems. I reached up to scratch my head from the fogginess that clouded my mind. The week was almost over and hopefully the dreams went with them just as they used to. 

My first Witch Trial wasn't a very pleasant one and I hated remembering it, but apparently I liked it more than I thought. The yearly trials were coming up soon and I wasn't at all prepared to go back through them for the ninth time. I always have nightmares about ones previously before each one and I can say that it's a very difficult time to manage and test-taking does not go well on less sleep. This is why I choose to nap often because of how my body likes to force me awake every night and I'm definitely too scared to go to sleep after those nightmares. 

I turn my head to the side, looking out the nearby window that was planted on the wall across the room. It was still sunrise so I figured it was somewhere around seven in the morning which at least hadn't been too bad. Letting out a defeated sigh, I moved the sheets from over my body, turned to plant my feet on the white carpet below me, and stood. I stretched upwards, linking my fingers together to hold my arms above my head before lowering them back down to my sides. My eyes locked again on the carpet, still questioning the choice of the color because of how easy it was to stain altogether. Just walking barefoot made the carpet look almost tan after so many years. And still, it was the carpet I grew up with and the one that I stayed with. Not willingly, of course.

I could hear footsteps coming from the hallway, outside the room. This made me turn my head, even though I knew who they were coming from. My mom always woke up early for work, just because of what her job had called for. But I didn't really question it myself. I think she was an engineer or something of the sort. There were always a high demand for those and construction workers, just because of how much needed to be rebuilt. The government paid more for these jobs than ever before, since even I don't think I want this run-down continent. It was like someone came into your room and started throwing things around and knocking everything over and just overall trashing the place. Only much, much bigger. So, being that times are tough, they wanted less sales workers and more technical and manual workers to rebuild everything in ample time. And I guess my mom just happened to be one of them. The earlier you rise, the earlier you can get started it seems. Or at least that's their reason for starting work so early in the morning.

I followed the footsteps outside my small room just as usual, heading down the stairs where I heard them go. There had already been a couple lights on in the kitchen and the living room, but since it was "their house", she only cared how many lights I had on. I was never really bothered by it after so many years and so I always disregarded it, instead joining her in the room where she was preparing her things. I walked into the kitchen where I could see her packing her own lunch, taking a seat towards the middle of the room where the circular table was placed. I didn't have much to say, and she already knew what was up. 

"Have another nightmare, dear?" she asked me, and so I gave a small mumble and nod in return. "Well, you should at least try to go back to sleep, hm?" she tried to keep up, doing her own thing as she had our conversation on the side.

"It's hard to go back to sleep when it's still right there on your mind," I mumbled back, my palm pressed against my cheek as I leaned into it. 

"Ann," she began, looking up at me from what she had been doing. I simply looked up in response, my head slightly moving but still resting into my hand. "I know that this whole...thing is hard to go through but you can't keep losing sleep over it. You could get hurt if you aren't giving it your all. So...please, try and get some more sleep before it comes up?" It was quite obvious we were both trying to dodge the words of what it actually was, hating everything about it, just like everyone else in this new world. But, I knew what she was trying to tell me, even if it had been impossible, and so I just nodded my head and looked away, not wanting to lie to her face.