I'm falling through water, bone-chilling water. Blood pours from my stomach, attracting predators and there's nothing I can do. I'm barely conscious, unable to breathe, but wanting so desperately to scream. Paralyzing fear courses through my veins which are quickly losing blood.
Now I'm standing at the top of a building, hidden in the shade of a neighboring building, watching the people walking obliviously in the streets below me. I cannot make out their faces or their attire. Everything is a blur except for a bird, perched next to my right foot. The sight of the black eagle turns my stomach: a bad omen. I hear the twang! of a bowstring and pain rips through my gut. I fall from the building, a scream lost in my throat, drowned by shock.
Something warm wraps around my shoulders from behind, closing across my throat, but playfully. "Coby?" I ask groggily.
The scene changes and I'm standing in a thick wood. I make no noise as I stand in a small clearing. I seem to be taking in my surroundings much slower than I ought to be. Weird, I think. The tree branches make no noise as I brush past them. Something is wrong. Something warm trickles down the back of my neck. The forest around me is impossibly quiet, but suddenly I am surrounded by ten men. I brandish my weapons, which are strangely invisible in my hands, and ready myself for a fight. The first man, a huge, faceless man, rushes toward me and I swing my blade toward his jaw. Suddenly his unrecognizable face clears in the greenish light.
The man barreling toward me, teeth bared and arms outstretched, is dead.
*
I wake up in a panic, constricted by my bedroll, but caught halfway in a crouch. My body temperature is unusually high, as are my senses. I immediately note the figure standing beside the small patch of ground I call my own.
I look up slowly to find Kyra half-kneeling, half-standing, confusion and a bit of fear in her face.
"You were tossing," she says quietly. I can tell she hasn't been sleeping well herself, tired bags under her eyes.
I nod and finish dislodging myself from the strangling bedroll. I remake the roll and stand, passing my hand over my belt to reassure myself of the presence of my only weapon, a small knife with a wooden handle. Pointing toward the edge of the women's sleeping quarters, Kyra and I begin to carefully navigate the other women. I notice several pairs of eyes following us.
Once out of earshot, I ask Kyra, "Did I wake them?"
She nods slowly. "You were moaning."
"Strange, I don't recall having ever done that." However, I haven't got much of a memory to draw from. Beyond this past year on the Island, I remember nothing. "You have not been sleeping well?"
Kyra shakes her head as we continue across the courtyard hemmed in by three tall walls. We walk toward the foremost wall, which looks out into the great expanse of the ocean. "No, I haven't."
We've nearly reached the ladder leading to the top of the wall when I note movement over the top of Kyra's head, as she stands nearly four inches shorter than I. Apparently, we aren't the only ones struggling to sleep. Ian stands in the shadow of a walkway along the right adjacent wall which I was near to mounting. There is a gleam in his eyes that sets me off. A knot forms in my stomach at the sight of him.
Kyra, following my gaze, suddenly stiffens, but not in an angry way. She turns back to me, flustered and blushing so deeply that even in the moonlight, I can see the color in her cheeks.
I motion with my head toward the top of the wall, my frequent perch on sleepless nights like these. Kyra mounts the ladder first, and I am near to following, when I see that Ian's strapping form has come much nearer, seeking interaction.
