Weighed down, I struggled to at least lift an arm, after a long time, succeeding in throwing it out. Someone caught my arm and stroked it, eventually sliding their hands down my arm to hold my hand. Hmm. The callouses in these hands were familiar. Who was it that had this particular pattern of callouses again?
I couldn't open my eyes just yet, but knowing I had someone by my side was extremely comforting. Even if the stroking kind of tickled.
Wet raindrops dripped on my arm and I frowned in confusion. It was raining? Indoors? Above my bed? Had I inexplicably returned to my bed in the tribe? But my bed in the tribe wasn't so soft and warm.
I must have somehow returned to my grass bed beneath the big gum tree. All my memories must have just been a long dream. Perhaps I'd been sick with a fever again. That was good. If it was just one long nightmare, at least I'd know what to do when I woke up to avoid getting in some of those situations were. When I woke up, maybe I'd run away to that area where I'd dreamed the Desert Father was hibernating in. I could live there on my own forever and hide from all the rest of the scary humans out there.
Waiting for the breath of wind on my skin to tell me today's weather, my frown deepened. The air was still. It wasn't moist either, like it ought to be during rainy weather. It was dry. Like air conditioned air dry.
Wait. No. I'd forgotten the person sitting beside me, stroking my arm and hand somehow. If they were sitting and holding my hand, perhaps it was that great-great aunt. The old wrinkly one who knew ancient stories and was the only nice tribal elder. The one I had dreamed died of old age years ago. If it was her, I wanted to give her a hug. Tell her how much I'd missed her.
I wanted to prop my eyes open to see. See who was sitting beside me, but I was too tired. I was hovering on the edge just before the drop off into sleep. It was almost like balancing on a knife's edge. Very precarious.
Much as I wanted to reach out, today, I was much too tired. Much too tired. Why was that? I'd been doing so much sleeping and I was still so tired.
"I won't let them use you like that," Shigure's voice whispered. "They want to let others use your body in order to enhance their abilities. I won't let them. Director Worth, Howard, Homeward and I are in the process of making a plan. Be patient, ok? Where we go may not have as many good facilities. You may not be as comfortable and the medical facilities will be lacking, but the most important thing is that you'll be hidden from their eyes, and you'll be safe."
The words he used made my brows wrinkle, while the meaning slowly filtered through to me.
"We can't stay here for very much longer. It's such a pity," Shigure sighed. "We worked so hard and they've turned around and… anyway, the city doesn't want or need us anymore. The war's over, they say. I suspect there are still a few moles we didn't find. If they're not moles, then they must be greedy or bribed or crazy. The enemy complained to the international community that we used a secret weapon on them and demanded that we pay compensation. Of course, we denied it. We were the ones they invaded. We lost almost a third of our population and they want compensation. We had to give them a strike hard enough to stop them from continuing to attack. They want us - the people who were defending our home to be charged with war crimes… and our government is actually considering it. I can't believe it. We made an incisive strike. Barely any of their public were injured. Look how many of our city folk they killed."
All this talk of the city, weapons and invasion stirred something uncomfortable in my memories. Something big. I felt that there was a monster lurking in my memories.
Shigure, stop talking. Please, stop talking. You'll wake the monster up.
"I'm so disappointed in our people," Shigure said in a heavy voice. "We may as well leave. It's about time we resurrected the old home of the Judges. Maybe we can find and recruit more of our veteran City Agents who had been forced into hiding when Snake Eye was hunting us. There's still someone high up the chain trying to hunt us down and I think they have suspicions about me now. It'll be just right for the two of us to disappear together. Homeward, Apricorn and the baby will have to come with us."
I was barely processing what he was saying. I was wrestling with the lurking memory monster that was trying to rear its head.
Stay down. Stay down. Stay down, damn it.
"Uki-chan?" Shigure frowned in surprise, bending over me and trying to tuck my unsettled limbs back into place. "What's wrong?"
Very vaguely I sensed his mental probe. It came up against that big ugly hole in my head and could learn nothing. So he switched to the other channel, but I could send no coherent message through. It was just a mess filled with panic at a looming danger. I was wordlessly clawing and struggling to escape the waking memory monster. I was going to drown in it. It would eat me alive.
I reached out to Shigure for safety. Instead of allowing me to hold onto him, he jumped back. He recoiled and pushed me away in shock and horror from the intensity.
The memory monster was definitely stirring now. It was waking up and shaking itself free.
Save me. Someone save me.
"Uki-chan… Homeward! Homeward, I need your help!" he shouted at the door and I felt Homeward's presence rush over a beat too late. "Uki-chan - Uki-chan is…"
The memory monster broke free, rearing its head with a roar. It opened its giant maws wide to take a bite. As quick as a snake, as nasty as a great white shark, it lunged forwards. And it ate me.