Ascending

Chapter Sixteen

Everyone gets nightmares. I was always told they came from being confused. Our minds are unable to comprehend something. So when processing it our minds put us through hours of paralyzing hallucinations.

I get four hours of sleep. 

What seems like every five minutes I am slapped awake by terror after terror. My mind is playing out scenarios of gruesome violent deaths. Each time becoming more and more bloody. 

I lose track of how many times I see my grandmother die. 

Each time I am able to force myself back into reality where nothing but cold sweat and desperate lungs await me. Tears dried on my cheeks from the horrors before receive a fresh layer of saltwater and my body quakes with stifled cries. 

But each time my eyes open and a trapped shriek piercing the air, I am met with a cool room and a servant by my side. 

Not just any servant, my servant. Kennedy has a seemingly endless supply of cold towels to press against my forehead, cheeks, and neck. A fresh one meets my feverish skin whilst I blubber drowsy nonsense through a thick layer of tears. 

The nightmares plague me for hours. Until I am finally released into a fitful sleep but an empty mind. 

In the early hours of dawn, the sun comes up over the layer of frost. It shines through the sheer curtain pulled over the windows. My eyelids fight the layer of crusty tears left behind and open a slit.

Blinking hard I force them to become wider. Hardened residue falling to my pillow. I run my dry tongue over my sour-tasting teeth. I'm unable to produce saliva to soothe my cracked throat. 

Looking around my room I see Kennedy slouched in a wooden chair. I sit at the foot of my bed. Kennedy's head is titled back and their uniform looks disheveled. A surge of gratitude rushes through me knowing they stayed the night and even feel asleep making sure I was going to be alright. 

As I move to sit up the skin on my face stretches and feels as if it is bleeding. I raise a dry hand and rub it over my tired skin. Then back to the tangled mess that is my hair. Twisted into brittle knots from tossing and turning. 

Giving up on the futile attempts to smooth my hair out I swing my feet to floor the freezing marble making my toes curls and hissing breath come from between my teeth. 

Kennedy jolts awake, the legs of the chair scraping against the floor. They look around wildly inhaling sharply. 

"Emmalyne," they begin, their voice sounding strained. "What's happened? Do you need anything?"

Leaping to their feet Kenedy makes a weak attempt to smooth out the wrinkles in their shirt. 

Squeezing my eyes shut I shake my head to clear the fog. My thoughts are all jumbled and I need to think. 

"Shower," I murmur. "I need a shower."

"Right away," Kennedy nods rushing off to my bath chamber.

Pushing myself to my feet I pull on one of the silk robes.  The heel of my hand harbors the pieces of dead skin pulled off because of my fall that catch on the fibers of the robe. Making my hand sting and effectively tarnishing the sleeves. 

A list. I need a list. 

"Shower," I repeat creating my mental list. "Brush teeth, eat some food- wait, I need to get dressed after I brush my teeth. Brush my teeth, get dressed, get some food, then I'll probably have to go visit-"

"What was that?" Kennedys's head pokes out from the bathroom doorway.

"Nothing," I mutter waving my hand. "I was just talking to myself."