Insomnia

13

The air lock wheezed open and ejected her out onto the hot street. Long ago this avenue would have been covered in flowers. Now it had been claimed by desert.

An old parking structure leaned awkwardly on its side, half submerged in the same sand that blanketed the street in massive dunes. Most of the massive mound possessed the same grey cast as the rest of this world, but the shimmering granules at the top had the appearance of diamonds rising from coal.

The fabric around her neck afforded some protection from the vicious sunlight. Esme was careful not to slip as her boots padded against the falling sand. Silence save for her footsteps.

Pof. Pof. Pof.

She shivered despite the heat. Esme never liked feeling so peaceful, so alone, so quiet. Not out in the waking world at least

Silence was true sleep. Dreamless sleep. Esme had never dreamed outside of Somnus. She remembered falling asleep as a child, the terror of closing her eyes, knowing only oblivion awaited her. Then followed by such sweet relief upon waking and realizing the world had not vanished from her forever.

But even then Esme knew what dreams were supposed to be. Flashes of life made ever brighter by the fleeting memories they left behind. Even in Somnus, she envied those who could sleep easy and dream unaided.

Esme recalled the first time she'd stolen into someone else's dream. Someone else's memories.

She and her brother parted ways after their mother's memorial service. Atticus went with his friends to drink and dance and laugh and mourn. He invited her to come along but she declined. All she wanted in that moment was space to think.

She walked the streets of Somnus, feeling as if a hole had been torn in her chest. It did not hurt so much as it hungered. It sighed with melancholy, wheezed with disillusion. Whined with abandonment.

She was seventeen. Successful, but not yet famous. That would come soon. So she had the luxury of whiling away the hours in quiet contemplation without risking an endless press of fans or an invasive press. There was something unsettling in the anonymity.

She wondered how a woman with a gaping wound in her heart could roam without a single inquiry, a mote of condolence. Esme felt a haze swirl about her body. It was the soft mist of rain. The bubbling pressure of tears. It was storm cloud armor, flashing with the occasional burst of mournful why's.

Without meaning to, her mind ran wild, probing every surface in sight, grasping for safe harbor. Every brush of contact was painfully sensitive, crushing her skull with the pressure.

Her mind touched a rough concrete wall, and she felt the scratchy texture erupt across her body. Its solidity enveloped her, a steady rising sound. A cup of water splashed onto the ground and her vision sloshed. A door slammed and her ribcage rattled with the aftershock. One of her Psionic tendrils glanced against a man in the street.

Faint hunger - anticipation in the living room, the smell of hot simmering spices.

Average weather. Dull like sex.

Slow and plodding gait. Did he/she always walk like that?

Esme surfaced back into herself like a drowning woman in raging seas. She whirled, dazed, and collapsed onto the ground before submerging again.

The city was smaller than usual. Blurry.

The corners of the building were jagged, he thought.

No, she insisted, they were normal.

No, he thought. Jagged like careless hands.

What?

She nearly blacked out as pain and knowledge and knowing coursed through her. Understanding, as her eyes fluttered open. There was something like empathy inside her, feeling and inhabiting anything that came too close. It was like fully inhabiting a dream. Fully inhabiting a perspective? A memory?

A mind.

The man came to offer her a hand up, thinking he had knocked her over. She shut down her Psionic search and smacked the appendage away, climbing to her feet and running. Panic pounded through her chest, pain pulsed in her legs. Anger. Revolting intimacy.

But eventually, rage gave way to tentative curiosity. She concentrated once again on that painful longing - her loss - and felt a well of emotion spring up in her chest. It hummed like a lullaby. She stood still as an aura of memory descended upon that street. Her eyes bore witness to open hearts and exposed minds.

The sound of rotors broke Esme from her reminiscing. Esme looked up through the monochrome lens of her mask. A small delivery drone made its usual rounds from building to building in the distant skies. Most deliveries were done by drone, even before the Disaster.

The whirling robot was her only companion in these streets. Not another soul walked these sands. Few would willingly expose themselves to deadly toxins just to take a stroll. Esme's heart rocketed at the thought of breathing contaminated air. She anxiously pressed a button on the side of her mask and an overhead display flashed onto the glass.

Filtration System: 100%.

Mask Integrity: 100%.

Air Quality: 98%

Her anxiety spiked for a moment. Quality standards above 90% were perfectly safe, but the thought of any kind of unfiltered air making its way into her lungs chilled her to the bone.

Something squeaked on her left. Esme turned to see the self-driving car she'd called to this location. A depot on the other side of the city stored a legion of these little things, although she suspected that few people used them much anymore. Still, they remained the only convenient way to travel long distances.

Esme crawled into the backseat and leaned back as the thick treaded tires rolled across the sands.