Dreams or Reality?

Chapter 36: Cell Mates

CHAPTER 36: Cell Mates

I came to with hazy vision and a hazy memory to match.

As soon as my vision started to come back everything else to in a rush and my head started to pound. At first I thought it was because it was too much to take in at once or something but then I realized that I must have a lump on the back of my head from Val knocking me out with whatever it was she used.

"Damn it!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

"Shut up!" Mel yelled back, as my vision cleared the rest of the way, but it wasn't a harsh scream it was more like 'why are we screaming?' uncertainty shout. Mel, Sam, Jenna, Katrina, Tom, Mick, Chris and I were all in a stone-walled room with a hard dirt floor and a torch in a bracket on  the wall, eight feet up where no one could reach it. There was one door with wrought-iron bars going in a grid form, locking us in, in the hallway another torch illuminated the space outside our cell that looked like the space inside it too. I could see the corridors stretched on but without light I could only assume what was out there. The image was like one out of a movie taken in medieval times, except for our modern clothing. Mel was the only one besides me who was up.

She was rubbing her ear and smiling at me like we were both insane nitwits with no idea how we'd ended up here and no regard for anything in particular. "Sorry," I said, rubbing my own ear because of her scream.

"I've been up for a really long time and no amount of shaking or screaming got anyone up," Mel went on, not looking at me as she traced invisible patterns on the floor.

"That's kinda sad," I said. She turned to look at me.

"Faye, explain, I'm so lost," Mel said, "who are Serquin and Anna and Demetri? And is there magic or have I just been dreaming?"

"The real question is, have I been dreaming and what of?" I muttered to myself. Mel didn't hear or didn't care.

"All I remember is checking Sam's pulse, telling everyone she had one and then it's blurry and then there's nothing and now I'm here. Whatever is going on, I'm still behind you 100% but I'm so lost,"

"I think, I think it'd be better if I explained to everyone at once instead of explaining it a bunch of times,"

"Ok, fine." Mel answered. While waiting for everyone to wake up, I tried to teach Mel a hand game. It didn't work. It took what seemed like hours but I didn't know how long for lack of a watch or view of the sun, before everyone was up. They all wanted the same thing from me.

An explanation.

I told them they couldn't interrupt, but I knew they would anyway. I recounted the history Anna told me the night I'd gotten the phone call. Then, I went into what had happened with me, the nightmares, what I'd thought were hallucinations, I told them about Anna and Demetri trying to teach me magic. The only things I omitted were unimportant things that I knew Sam and Mel and probably Jenna at some point would want to know, like what was happening with Demetri and I. If we made it through this, they'd get to know but right now it was unimportant. I also didn't tell them about Serquin planning on keeping me as a tap

 "Ok guys, now you can ask questions," I said at last, finally finishing my story. They had interrupted at the beginning but the end had been told to a shockingly quiet room of teens.

"I'm glad I'm me and not you," Katrina said at last, going for something light-hearted but it just made my situation feel all the more bleak to me.

"Demetri. What's going on between you two?" Mel demanded and I laughed.

"That's irrelevant and girl talk, I will tell you at a later date,"

"I'd rather not go to my grave not knowing," Mel joked but a seriousness settled over us.