I woke up with a start, shaking. More accurately, I was shivering. It wasn't cold. It was light. The surface under me was soft, really soft, not soft because I was too hurt to tell the difference. I was lying in a canopied bed and nothing hurt. But I was shivering and shaking uncontrollably. Fear. It was fear. Not adrenaline fear, but blind blank panicked terror. They were coming to hurt me, I knew it.
For a long time nothing happened. I couldn't recognize the noises coming out of me as human.
I moved. I couldn't stay still. I needed to run. Anywhere. Far from here. Far from me and my memories which were flooding me, filling me up with madness. I jerked the curtains aside and came out of the bed, then froze.
I wasn't alone. There was a girl sitting at a desk, writing. She wore a loose robe, revealing one breast as she leaned forward, pen in hand. She looked up at me, smiling with pleasure.
“You slept a long time,” she said, rising. “I'm glad you are awake.”
I stumbled forward, legs like water, and fell, an explosive noise coming from my mouth that sounded like nothing I'd ever heard before, then spinning darkness.