The Ascension (Book One): Toss the Dice

Chapter Eighteen

I woke up screaming and sat straight up in the hold. The people around me jolted upright, everyone woken up by my cry. Some were awake faster than others, staring at me, while others were still groggy, rubbing their eyes and trying to see who had yelled and woken them from their sleep. I gasped a few times and began coughing like I had something stuck in my lungs. I doubled over my stomach as I coughed till my throat cleared out and I no longer felt like there was something stuck in my lungs. I pulled back and then gasped as I realized that I was sitting up. My back was fixed. I could move like I had never been hurt. I reached behind and touched my back to find that everything was in place. My bones were perfect, my spine was in place and I didn't feel any pain. I felt a tickle on my arm and panicked for a moment before realizing that it was only my hair.

"Scurry." Said Carrow from the other side of the room. "What's wrong?" He asked. "Did you have a nightmare about something."

"I don'..." I said, trailing off as I felt my back again. "I don' remember what I dreamt about."

And it was true. I had no memory at all of what I had been dreaming about before I had woken up healed. It was just like the other time I had dreamt. I couldn't remember what my dream was about then either but something strange had happened to me then too. Maybe this dream was similar to the first one. I stood up and the top of my head grazed the ceiling but didn't hit it. I was just short enough that I could stand in the hold and not hit my head on the planking above. I pulled all my hair over the side of my shoulder and then bent down and ripped the hem off my left pant leg off. I bit it between my teeth as I braided my hair. When I was done I used the ripped fabric from my pants and tied it around the ends of my hair to keep the braid from falling apart.

I did this all subconsciously and not once did I look down at my hair as I did it. So I didn't notice anything strange about it until I threw my braid over my shoulder and Carrow cleared his throat to get my attention.

"Um... Scurry?" He said.

I turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"I would love to ask what everyone else is wondering and ask you how your back is suddenly healed but instead I'll ask another good question. Did your hair always look like that?"

"Look like what?" I asked as I pulled my braid back over my shoulder to get a closer look at it. I glanced down at the braided tangles and froze. Hidden in my braid, was a small streak of red. Not the orangey red that I imagined when I saw red headed people from the mainland but the bright fiery red that a few of the girls from the northern islands had. I stared at it not able to comprehend how a small streak of my hair had changed from a bright vibrant white to a scarlet red. "Since when 'as that been there?" I asked, confused.

"Since we've all woken up." Said Carrow. "That's why I was wondering if maybe I had just missed it from when we talked to you yesterday, I mean, then you were laying down and your hair was lying on top of itself in a pile so I would've understood if it hadn't been their before. But if even you didn't know it was there then I have no idea how it got there."

"Maybe it's blood from when she fell from the mast." Said one of the younger boy, maybe fourteen.

"If it was blood from when she fell from the mast around 4 days ago then it would have dried and turned black a long time ago." Said the same girl from the back who had been tracking the time through the crack in the planking. "Besides, even if when it dried it didn't totally turn black it wouldn't spread from the very top of her head, to the very ends of her hair in a perfectly straight line. It would splatter more and wouldn't go all the way from the top and bottom it could start around the bump and only go about halfway down her back."