The End of Eden

VII

The first thing I feel is my brain bashing itself against my skull. I can feel the sunlight assaulting my eyes even through my squeezed eyelids. I can feel my eyes watering already, and my stomach roiling inside me. I cant even remember what Three gave to me, but I know it did not react well with me.

I'm contemplating how I'm going to find my way back home, my face pressed into the grass as I groan every few seconds, when a shadow falls over me.

"Did the little bird lose her way and break her wing?" This new voice is silky smooth, lower than Three and Two, and so I know it has to be Four.

I turn my face up to him, my hair streaking across my eyes, as I blink weakly up at him. "Leave me to die," I croak out. He stares down at me, then lowers himself into a crouch.

"There's no fun in death, though" he says, brushing my hair out of my face. "Only the eternal rest. Can you stand?"

I want to shove his hand away from my face, and jump up to my feet while hollering I'm fine! But turning over onto my back makes my body scream. I can see Four staring down at me through my squinted eyes, and I mumble a sound at him. He understands it as a no, I can't sit up.

"Am I poisoned?" I mumble as he helps me, one hand clasped around my wrist, his other warm on my back.

"Not likely," he replies, as he turns his back to me, and then pulls me up onto his back. He stands with me plastered to his back, effortlessly, and I shut my eyes to the sun and the dizziness rolling in my head.

"Was I drugged?" I mumble, locking my arms around his sternum as he drags my thighs around his waist, his hands tucked under my knees. My ankles barely are able to twist together to hold me in place.

"Yes," he answers as we take off up the slope, and away from the Fields of Elation. "Three gave you Salvia, and while it induces hallucinations and feelings of euphoria, the after effects are not as fun."

I lean my head against his sturdy shoulder, breathing into him. "Great, my first experiment with drugs, and I wake up feeling like death in a flower field," I sigh. "Why are there so many flowers here? Poppies aren't they?"

I can feel Four turn his head to the side, where my own head rests against him. "It's not for you to know," he says simply.

Fair enough. I can only guess what the poppies are used for, but I change the subject anyways. "Do... you see Sleep too?"

Four is quiet for a while and I can only hear the sound of his breathing through his stupid mask and the crunch of rocks and earth below us. I fear I have stumbled into something personal because it takes him a while to reply, but finally, he replies. "I do. He led me here to join Eden, and he chose me to become a vessel."

"What does it mean to be a vessel?"

I can feel him sigh under my body as we make our way back home. "It means that I am no longer just me, but a piece of Sleep here on earth. One speaks for him, and we are the hands that act out his orders."

I don't think I have ever heard Vessel be called just One, but I suppose it would make sense, since they all hold the title of vessel, and go by numbers instead. I change the subject again, as fast as every pound in my head.

"Why were you sent to rescue me?"

"Lots of questions for a sick, little bird," he says, then chuckles. I scoff. "While you are slight, neither Three nor Two can carry you. So Three told me where you were and said you would need assistance when he returned very early this morning."

"Why'd he even leave me to begin with?"

I hoped I disguised the hurt in my voice, but Four must have noticed it, because he paused in his walk. "You scared him. We never, ever, remove our masks in front of anyone, and you were on a mission to do just that so, it frightened him away. But he didn't go far. While there isn't much in Eden that can hurt you, he still sat up the slope from the Fields of Elation, and watched as you rested."

I tuck my head against his back again, feeling bad for what I had done to Three...and ashamed of what we had done, though I would do it again. Four started his walk up again, letting the silence stretch out between us, the sound of birds chirping and the breeze our only other companion.

When we got to the edge of the compound, I whispered, "Thank you for collecting me."

We angled through the complex until we got to my door. "It's my pleasure," he said, not letting me slip from his body until my bottom hit my soft bed.

I groaned, laying back onto it, as Four stretched his arms above his head. A patch of white skin appeared as his tunic shifted upward, and I averted my eyes, then immediately glanced back down at the flat swath of skin exposed.

"One more question," I say as I kick off one shoe, and Four slips off the other. He ushers me into my bed, though I'm fully clothed still.

"Hmm?"

"Why do you and the other vessels talk to me, but no one else here in Eden?"

Four sits on the edge of my bed after I'm tucked in, and he looks down at me. He plucks my hand from under my head, and runs a finger from my wrist down to the tip of my middle finger.

"Because, little bird," he whispers, his eyes roving over my hand, "you have been chosen by Sleep, for a greater purpose of which it has not been revealed to any of the vessels. We just know that you are here with us now, and we wait for the answer from Sleep."

I'm not satisfied with the answer, but I don't know what else to ask him, besides if Three told him what we did under the peach tree, but I decide against it. He sets my hand down on my pillow, and leans over me. His mouth brushes my temple for just a moment, or at least where it is under his mask.

"Rest now," Four says, brushing my hair along behind my ear. He stands and let's himself out of my room, and I'm asleep before I even hear the front door close behind him.

Unfortunately, I dream. Even my agonized, pounding head can't keep him from appearing to me, and I can feel myself whimper in my dream, or maybe out loud, in the waking world.

I'm clad in a gauzy, flimsy white dress, and the god I've come to know as Sleep stands beside me, his eyes blinking strangely. We stand on a cliff, the drop long at my feet, down to a blue-grey churning ocean, the sky matching. The wind whips my hair around my face, and I have no fear in my body, only trepidation as I look at Sleep.

My hands, so small and delicate, are clasped in his, and I watch as he slides a silver bangle onto my wrist, flowers and vines etched into each shining surface, to rest with three others.

You  ... will  ... be  ... mine  ...

You  ... will  ... be  ... mine  ...

You  ... will  ... be  ... mine  ...

You  ... will  ... be  ... mine  ...