Ascension

Lorelei

We got put into the same jeep, thankfully, and then I went to sleep. On Elijah's lap. I'm sure that wasn't ideal for him but I still did it anyway. I could feel Indiana's eyes on me as I fell asleep. He needs to stop being so judgemental.

I felt awful as I opened my eyes. Completely and totally awful. The worst pain was in my shoulder. I hadn't felt this type of pain since I had been shot in my shoulder as Elijah was escaping Headquarters.

Then I recognized the room. It was the room they kept me in when I was still injured with that very bullet wound.

"Oh no." I sighed.

I knew I was dreaming which was weird. I'm never usually this aware in my dreams. The door opened and a petite doctor walked in. You should never be confused by her looks. She is the definition of evil.

She was behind the experimentation on the humans. She was behind my slow recovery. I could have been out of this room in a few weeks but she kept it slow going to see how much pain it would take me to crack.

I wasn't going to give in. They would see me dead before I gave in. I glared her down. Even though this isn't real I still treat her with the respect she deserves. Which is none.

"Mariyan." I acknowledge.

"Specimen 4. So wonderful to see you again." She says with fake emotion in her voice.

"Don't fake Mariyan, I know you don't have a soul." I fake yawn.

"It's doctor Mariyan." She says stiffly.

"I don't think you are a doctor though. A doctor would help people get better from say, a bullet wound, but NOO you just have to shove tweezers into my goddy arm!" I yell.

"Now Lorelei. Take calming breaths. Today's tests will hurt a lot more if you are aggravated." She tells me in a flat voice.

"Shut up!" I yell.

I can't take it anymore.

"Get out of my face!" I rage with new found strength.

"There's my girl." Mariyan smiled.

Her smile wasn't a sweet smile. It was a cold vicious smile.

"Come with me." She said, cold and calculating and usual.

I don't move from the spot I stand on.

"That's not an option." She told me yanking my arms.

I stumble out of the room with her.

I woke up with a start. I shot up and it startled Elijah who was brushing hair out of my face. I was panting and desperately searching for reassurance that I really wasn't back in the hands of the Brights.

"Shh Lorelei it was only a dream." He said to me calmingly.

"No." I whispered.

Because what I had seen wasn't a dream, it was real. Once upon a time. Elijah was searching for some clue of what I was dreaming about in my face.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks me.

"No not particularly." I tell him.

He doesn't look to sure about my decision not to tell him. I'm not even sure I am right about my decision not to tell him. Elijah still stares at me worriedly while I pretend not to notice.

Indiana, who is also sitting in our row is smirking for some odd reason. Out of the corner of my eye I see him lean over to Elijah and whisper something into his ear. Elijah's eyes get wide when he hears what Indiana said.

I don't really want to know what Indiana said because I felt to tired for that. I ended off drifting into another restless sleep. This time I don't have any nightmares. I do dream though.

I dream of a different life than the one I'm living. The air is cool but not cold. The wind is there but barely present. It feels so wonderful, because in this world that my mind has created I'm the only person to inhabit it.

With no people there is no one I can hurt and there is no one to hurt me. I take a deep breath in and I smell pine needles. Such a wonderful smell.

A large gust of wind chills me to the core and I shiver. I sit there cold and shivering until a warmth rushes over me and I feel comfortably warm. With the help of a faceless entity I relax there in the darkness. This relaxing dream helps me forget the horrors I witnessed. I sigh in relief.

When I wake up again Elijah's jacket is strewn across me. I guess that's the warmth I felt in my dream. I look down at the jacket and then at Elijah. I raised an eyebrow.

"You looked cold." He protested.

"I guess I thank you for that." I tell him.

"No problem. What did you dream about this time?" Elijah asks.

"I dreamt about relief." I say without thinking.

I wish I could take those words and shove them back into my mouth.

"Relief?" Elijah asks.

Too late to do anything now. I shrug.

"I just feel tense I guess, during the war." I tell him.

There are other reasons but I don't feel like sharing them at this time. Elijah looks ahead of us for a few minutes. His eyes look haunted and his mouth doesn't smile.

"I understand. Stars, Lorelei, I understand that more than anything else right now." Elijah said still looking haunted.

"What are your nightmares like?" I ask Elijah.

"They aren't scary like gunfire and battlefields scary, but they are scary to me on a deeper level than I would like to admit." Elijah sighs quietly.

"What are they like?" I ask him quietly.

"Usually I wake up in a pure white room and get up and pad softly to the bathroom. Then I look in the stupid mirror and I'm glowing a blue light that is Brighter than any light I had ever seen the Brights glow. If I'm lucky the dream ends there." Elijah sighs.

"What if you aren't lucky?" I push.

"Then the scene changes and I'm walking through a battlefield and everyone is dead. Human and Brights alike. You can clearly smell the gunpowder still hanging in the air. Then I see the only living thing on the battlefield. My mother standing tall dressed in a flowing white dress. One half of her is neat and pretty and the other is drenched in blood and gore and her grey eyes seem haunted by the horrors she commited. If I'm extremely lucky the dream ends there." Elijah tells me shakily.

I don't want to ask Elijah what happens next but for some reason I do. Elijah breathes deeply before he goes into the details of the last parts of the dream.

"I pull out the gun I have in its socket and point it at the glowing figure. I put my finger on the trigger and I'm about to shoot when a hero dressed in black jumps in front of the bullet because they were going to try to assassinate her as well. I watch in horror as my bullet meant for my mother hits the hero in black instead. I feel like I, instead of the hero, had been hit by the bullet. My mother watches the scene unfold around her like she isn't part of it but instead watching from a distant world. I rush to the hero in black and I pull off it's helmet and it reveals, you." Elijah says visibly shaking now.

"Oh my stars, I'm so sorry I made you go through that again." I apologize to him.

"I have to go through it every night." Elijah explains.