Slow to Wake, Quick to Dream

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THE WORLD OF THE ????

          A voice raced through my head. It was hearing it that woke me - at first it seemed like a ringing bell from a distance, but as I regained my senses it became clearly the voice of a young girl. She could not have been older than 12.

          I came to on a cliff overlooking a dark roiling sea.

A large rock, scabrous and rugged, stuck out in the waves like a knife left in a wound, and to its left, a pristine, familiar shore.

          The stench of death seemed to rise up from the sea far below me.

Bizarre, I thought. I have certainly never been here before, and yet I know how I would swim to shore and cling to that knife-like rock.

I stared into the sea, more onyx than sapphire, and for a moment was lost in the rhythm of the waves. The violent shred of the water moved as if to a metronome.

It was hypnotic, and I tore my eyes from the back and forth, now resting them upon the shore, so uncannily spotless, and yet:

          From my view, I could make out two sets of footsteps.

The voice of the young girl came to me again. The sensation I felt at that was as if I was an hourglass that had been turned over, and all the sound in the world at once had rushed to my head.

          Her words were clear now, so clear that they may as well have been my own thoughts.

          “What’s your name?”

“My name?”

          “You must have one.”

I raised my hand in front of my face, and turned it over. I was sure it was my first time seeing these hands.

“I must have one? How can you be so sure?”

          “You’re here because you died. You died because you once lived. If you lived, someone must have called your name once.”

Memories began to fill my body like sand.

“...I’m Kiya Hakizimana.”

          The voice seemed to shimmer in place of a smile. “Kiya. What a nice name.”

“Thanks, my mom gave me it.” I replied, blushing a little. I wasn’t used to compliments.

          “It’s a bit girly.” giggled the voice; an innocent sound.

I frowned. “Mother didn’t want a boy, so she made do.”

The voice was silent for a moment, and I almost thought I’d imagined it for so deep from within me it seemed to call that I had a hard time imagining it was truly separate and belonging to a distant other.

“Where am I?” I asked.

          “But you know where you are.” replied the voice.

I turned to look over the cliff again, at the roiling sea, the craggy rock, at the footprints interrupting the shore… my footprints, and Death’s.

“I’m in the World of the Dead.”

          “That’s right.”

?? ??, ????

THE WORLD OF THE DEAD

“How long have I been…” I trailed off.

          “I don’t know.” The voice sounded worried. “Now that you’re filling back up with your own soul, there isn’t much space for me to speak to you, is there? Though there’s something important I need to ask of you, Kiya. I’m trying to remember, but I think I’ve been here for so long I’ve forgotten why I can’t go back. I know I’m not supposed to be here, floating about, waiting for someone to come along. There’s somewhere I’m supposed to be.”

          “Somewhere you belong…”

I studied the hypnotic rhythm of the waves, but they’d lost their hold over me.

I raised my hand to my face again, and on my palm was a scar that hadn’t been there before.

The ritual, I thought. Heland and Zhou.

The cut he’d made on my palm was now nearly completely healed.

OCTOBER 27TH, 2006

THE WORLD OF THE DEAD

          Weaker than before, the voice resurfaced.

“Kiya, that favor I wanted to ask you…”

          “You can’t remember it, right?”

“I can’t. Though… I get the idea that you can understand. And talking to you, I almost…” The voice began to feel as if it were slipping away.

          “I don’t want to promise you anything, but… Don’t go, we can figure it out, just keep talking, and…”

“At least remember that Phoebe asked something of you… is that alright?”

          “Wait! That’s your name? Phoebe?”

Where the voice once filled my mind, there was now nothing but empty silence.

          A fog I had not noticed was there before was now beginning to clear.

There to my left, lay a blond teenager, sleeping peacefully and clutching a bloodied sword as if it were a teddy bear.

His bangs fell in long wisps over his eyes which barely fluttered, and a light, drowsy smile wandered over his face.

He must have been having a wonderful dream. I wanted desperately to know what he was dreaming of, but the sword… made me hesitate.

          Then, a thought not quite my own incited me to move and surrendering to it, I reached out to wake him up.

I wanted to know if this sleeping dragon would roar.