Medical Pod Nightmare
In agony and trapped in a medical pod, Grace has a nightmare. She's had horrible dreams before, but nothing like this...
Grace had walked this road before. The twisted, leafless trees stabbed the dark clouds above with their pale, naked limbs. A gale shrieked agony from the sky.
She stumbled forward, her knees and hands bleeding. The last sip of water had come from a little girl, long since gone. Grace had forgotten to say thank you. Her tongue stuck to the back of her teeth and she wished it would rain.
The crossroads lay ahead, splaying its spiky choices. She stood to walk again when suddenly, she was standing there, looking up at the sign. Angry that she had to make another choice. Feeling like she’d forgotten something.
Forgotten? The guns!
She looked down at her hips and they were gone. Holsters and all. She was naked.
“Where are my guns?” she asked, her voice rasping in the wind. It had been too long since her last drink. The girl with the ptenda had brought it. Grace hadn’t thanked her. She wished she had. Maybe the girl would have come back.
“Where are my babies?” she screamed, trapped as the heat clawed her wrists.
The gale quieted. Grace felt an odd wave of joy pass like a ghost through her soul.
“My babies are safe.” Her own voice. Softer now. She turned and saw Flora dressed in her academy blue-and-whites.
“The babies are safe, Flora,” said Grace. Beside her was a mirror like the one in her dorm room at Red Fox. In the mirror, Grace saw only Flora in her academy jumper, guns on her hips, red hair coiling like snakes.
“You’re not safe,” Flora’s reflection said.
“I’m not safe,” Grace repeated. “I’m not safe?”
“You are not safe, Donner,” another voice said. A cold voice.
Maud now stood in Flora’s place. Black armor, coifed red hair. Smiling.
“You’re not safe, Maud!” Grace roared as Maud began to fade. Her palms slapped her thighs in search of weapons, but Ronnie and Jonnie were no longer there. She hadn’t been without a weapon for over a decade.
Powerless, she realized.