Nada's Escape

0- Seven.

I don't know why my dreams are more vivid here, or why they are always of the past. Perhaps it's because I can't remember my family during the day. It's too dangerous; a weakness.

But I miss them so much it aches in the morning, when the strands of dreams still cling to me, drawing my head back to the lumpy pillow. Remembering them turns my insides to water and everything inside of me threatens to bubble over, spilling from my eyes and mouth until I'm sobbing like a child.

But I'm a fighter, not a weeper and so I swallow back the tears.

I rise from my pallet in the cold air of my cell. It is always cold at night, even under the burred red blanket. I hold the blanket around my shoulders now as I peer through the window, hearing the gentle sigh of the girls sleeping in the large hall outside.

The closest, out of my sight, mumbles and rustles on her sleeping mat. They are all so little, not one of them sixteen yet, but the weight of incarceration hangs like an ugly shadow around every neck. We were stolen from our families and no one has come to save us. I don't think there's anyone who can, for the Huntsmen who hold us are no ordinary men.

Recycled light glitters in the depths of the eyes of the Huntsman now lounging by the grate. He shifts, as if sensing my attention, and scans the girls for wakefulness. Malice or delight dances across that face and I edge further back from my window, remaining out of sight. As he settles, the patchwork of light from the warden room beyond the grate hides those eyes from me, as if it knows the dangers that lurk within. Instead it illuminates slices of pale forearm, mousy hair and slightly yellowed teeth. Despite these human details he is the enemy.

I know it is probably a futile effort to watch at all. Soon enough I'll be drawn back into sleep and dreams of the past. I can still taste the oregano from the last dream, of cooking spag bol with Dad on the old induction cooktop. The taste, the smell, the feel of those large hands over mine, stirring up the pot sends my whole mind reeling with recollection, the tangled strings of sleep drawing me close again.

I fight it. Not the sleep, but the wetness pinching at my eyelids, glaring at the light and that Huntsman. He opens up a little book and begins to read in a stray beam of light. Remember the Huntsmen. Remember, not what they took from you, but what you are going to do about it. Remember the future.

I cling to this litany as I ease back onto the aged mattress. Remember tomorrow's escape. My head swims with tiredness and I know I will dream of home again. But I sharpen knives in my mind anyway, even as they become paper thin in the small hours of the morning. Anything to get me through.