» the dream
"We're doing such good work."
She remembers the pain and the needles - the ones that poked into her eyes and elsewhere, everywhere. They were sharp and the hands that held them were ruthless and cold - voices as jarring as the bright lights that were always shining above her. She remembers that the orderlies wore masks, and she remembers them taking something from her - they were always taking. She remembers dreaming of home and having the sun on her face but the memories are tainted, stained with the red of blood and the screams in her ears. It was only afterwards that she realized that it was her voice screaming.
And then she remembers someone. A man with a comforting voice. He took the needles from her face because he needed her to wake up. Because he was taking her somewhere else, somewhere away from here. He was a man who looked down at her with love and she loved him back but his face - his face was a mystery to her. All she knew, beyond the fear and the screaming, was that she trusted this man and he knew her name.
There was also a ship that meant freedom and the people who lived on that ship. She belonged and yet she didn't, being too forced into the mould of a girl.
Freedom and...family. Friends. There's another word on the tip of her tongue but it's gone, lost in the haze that surrounds her as she sleeps.
The last thing she sees is another face, but not a warm one. A scarred and pitted face stitched together at the seams, its mouth stained red with blood. Matted hair and a terrible scream jolts her from her sleep and she awakes with a scream of her own.