Salamander

Chapter Twenty Four: The Truth

Chapter Twenty Four

“Alan,” Mariam said, crouched over my cot with her hands on my cheeks. I looked around the room, at first confused where I was, but when I remembered I felt myself breath out the air I had been holding in.

            “I’m fine,” I said, pushing Mariam’s hands away and sitting up.

            She gave me a concerned look. “You were talking in your sleep.”

            I gulped when I saw Lance sitting behind her, giving me a puzzled look.

            She gave Lance a quick glance and leaned in, whispering, “You kept talking about your father . . . and a knife.”

            I wiped the sweat off of my forehead. “I said I’m fine.”

            Mariam, after giving me another intense concerned look, stood up and brushed the dirt off of her pants as if it would somehow make them less filthy. I looked out the window to my left and saw that the sky was a bright red, indicating that I had slept all day. “When did you guys wake up?”

            “When we heard you talking,” Lance said. He looked curious and even a little bit on edge, which led me to wonder whether or not he had figured out what my dream had meant. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything.

            I cracked my neck and arched my back, feeling sore all over. “These cots aren’t that comfortable.” Everything still looked all blurry, and I had to rub my eyes and wipe the sleep out of my eyes before I could see clearly.

            “The scientist isn’t in the house, either,” Mariam said. “We went to go fetch him to wake you up, because nothing we were doing worked.”

            “He said that he wanted to work in the cellar,” I said. “But he told me that he was going to sleep afterwards.”

            “Apparently he got too caught up in his work,” Lance said. He walked towards the doorway and came to a stop. He looked back at Mariam and me. “You two clearly have something you want to say to one another. Alan, the cellar is in the back of the house, right?”

            I nodded and Lance left to go find the scientist.

            Only silence followed as Mariam looked at me, trying to pry information without even saying a single word.

            “It was just a dream,” I muttered.

            “Clearly it was more than that.” Mariam tilted her head, once again looking like Mrs. Falker. I almost expected her to run her fingers through my hair and give me some sort of speech, but then Mariam’s face turned soft again, ruining the effect.

            “You obviously heard what the dream was,” I said.

            “But you saw it.” She scratched her arm but didn’t break eye contact with me. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

            I didn’t answer her immediately. Did I want to talk to her? Did I want her to know exactly what I was going through, what I had been going through ever since I became a killer? “No,” I finally said. “I don’t.”        

            Just then, Lance came into a room, a horrified look on his face.

            I stood up, wondering what had happened.