Sentilia
Chapter 17

I opened my eyes to an emergency corridor. I knew exactly where I was even if I had never seen this place before. I was lying on a bed; on the sides were metal poles. I looked up and saw three people running alongside my bed, throwing anxious glances at me. I could hear a beeping sound near me, and as I looked up to the ceiling, to the flashing lights going by, the beeping sound became an ear-piercing, continuous sound.

I woke up.

At first, surrounded by covers, I wasn’t quite sure where I was. I lifted all the bedding, and found myself in my room. I had finally, really woken up.

The dreams were so vivid that every time I woke up, I felt displaced. Like it had been years ago that I hadn’t been in my room and seen my family. I was exhausted, and because this dream had been so long, it took me a few minutes to truly have crystal clear thoughts again. And though I was still tired, I fought to keep my eyes open, to stay awake, because I did not want to fall asleep again. I was certainly a little troubled about the last part of my dream, but all I could think about, rather than the hospital, was the kiss.

When I looked around my room, it was still its ugly pale grey; it actually looked worst than it usually did. I tried to push the thoughts of my dreams aside for a while, live in the reality of my world, even if I knew I wouldn’t succeed longer than a few minutes.

It was morning outside. I got up, got dressed and fetched breakfast. It almost didn’t seem natural. Maybe I was expecting a handsome man to appear and serve me the breakfast he had just cooked.

Now that I was awake, I seemed to prefer Kleio considerably, long for him, more than I did for Elis. Maybe it was because Elis had hurt me. Maybe it was because Kleio was safe; he was someone I could count on. Plus he made me laugh, and feel good about myself. To me, it was clear that K would be the best choice.

My perspective awake was very different than when I was dreaming.

I ate my breakfast alone, pondering my feelings, and my parents weren’t up when I left either. I had put on some light clothes—and the only coloured t-shirt I owned—just because they felt better now.

I headed to the library offices to work, because I didn’t want to stay in the apartment today. As usual, I met no one on the way there.

When I came back home, I was walking along the corridor to our apartment, but instead of stopping in front of our door, I stopped in front of the Clipperd’s’.

I hesitated before I pressed the screen that would notify them of my desire to enter. A second passed and it was long enough for me to regret having stopped here at all.

“Hi Maxine.” To my relief, it was Robyn who was at the door. Her parents seemed to be out; perhaps it was their job that had required them to be on location for the day. Robyn wore a curious expression and didn’t seem to make an effort to hide the shock on her face.

“Hi, um, can I come in?” I asked, hesitantly.

“Sure,” she stepped aside and I walked in. She didn’t close the door behind us. Suddenly, I noticed she was clasping her shirt, and glancing towards the corridor.

“Is everything alright Robyn?”

“Yes, yes, everything is fine. Why don’t we sit down?” She sat down at their dinning table and I followed. Their apartment looked different in the light of day. It seemed brighter than ours, although it was similar. The chairs we were sitting on were bright red, and that wasn’t something you saw everyday.

Robyn interrupted my scan of the kitchen: “So what brings you here, Maxine? I must say I’m surprised. You don’t come over very often.” She smiled politely, but I still felt guilty somehow.

“Well, I’m just going to get right into it,” I looked back at the front door that was wide open, then lowered my voice a notch, “the other night, when I came back to get my shoes, I couldn’t help but overhear you talking with your parents.” She tensed up.

“Yes, well, we were talking about my grandparents.” Her voice was loud and it made me feel uncomfortable. “It’s my grandmother’s birthday and we wanted to surprise her with a family dinner. I know it sounds a little unorthodox, but it’s been a tradition in our family for years. We’re trying to keep the whole thing a secret until next week.” She seemed confident with her story, and even though at first her explanation seemed quite unrelated, I completely believed it. It made perfect sense and I didn’t question it further. I almost felt guilty for suspecting them and my mother of hiding something from me.

“Oh, ok then. I’m sorry for the trouble, I was just curious, I guess.” I said, apologetic.

“So, you believe me?” Robyn asked, with a hesitant tone. Candidness and honesty were both important, as well as common, in our society. I didn’t think much of it.

“Yes, I believe you. Thanks, Robyn. Have a nice day, and I hope we can do this again some time.” I smiled and excused myself. She shut the door behind me as I left.

I crossed the hallway and went home.

I took a long warm shower that night, hoping it would somehow cleanse my thoughts before going to bed. The day had passed so quickly; it barely felt like a couple of hours. I couldn’t concentrate at all, so I had decided to cut my workday short. Every time I had started thinking about anything that had to do with my dreams, I concentrated on objects near me to distract myself. Whatever helped forget about everything else.

In that state of mind, I was finally ready for bed. I was ready to let all my thoughts flow, to sort out my feelings and let them wash through me as I slipped into unconsciousness. Even with all this confusion, I got slightly excited to go to bed. It was my favorite part of the day now, and I would gladly take the feeling of a double life, of not knowing when I’m asleep or when I’m awake, because it allowed me to live the impossible life I wanted to have.

It would all come together as I saw their faces again. I hoped.

Not knowing if it was because of my mental fatigue or if I was physically tired because I had decided to walk home today—I had made a huge effort not to look down—but I fell asleep within minutes of all this brain racking.

And there I was: the waterfall where Elis had taken me. This time, however, I was alone. I started walking back through the beaten pathway. The trees were dripping water on top of my head, and I figured it must have been raining. I could not see anything above my head except for green leaves. On my way, I saw an animal. It was long and it was crawling on the floor in a peculiar way. It was bright green and it had a little rose forked tongue that snapped in and out of its mouth. I wanted to touch its sleek-looking skin.

I reached down, but I stopped mid-way. It had stopped moving, and was turning slowly towards me, forming an S shape with its body. If there’s one thing I had learned on this island, it was to trust my newly discovered instinct: I turned back and walked away. After all, I was alone and Elis wasn’t here to save me this time. No, not Elis: Kleio. K had been the one who had saved me every time. He was the one to catch me when I fell. Literally. Maybe if I wouldn’t be so taken by Elis, I could be with someone like K. He would have been my perfect computer match. I would be happy with him, like my parents were happy with each other. I knew now the difference between my parents’ love, and passionate, irrational love. Kleio and Elis.

Whether Elis felt the same way about me or not was unclear. Either way, which type of love was better to pursue? The passionate and desperate kind of love? The one that could crush your heart in a second? Or the loving friendship that I knew could last forever? It was an obvious choice, if you put things in a rational way, but I still couldn’t convince myself it was the right choice for me.

My memory of the kiss with Elis was clearer now that I was dreaming again, so I continued my walk thinking about it, trying to justify why Elis had ended it, other than it just being because he didn’t like me. I didn’t want to believe it.

At some point I just stopped and wondered: “Where am I going?” Up until now it was clear that I was heading out of the forest, and going to go replace Elis. But could I really go see him after all that happened? I wanted to see him, but what if he didn’t want to see me? Maybe I was better off leaving him alone for now.

In any case, I had to get out of the forest eventually, so I went on, hoping I was heading out of it instead of making my way further into it.

I started thinking about these dreams and their significance. Were these just a fantasy created by my mind, or was it possible that this island really existed, that all of this was a prediction of something that would eventually happen to me. It was a far-fetched idea, but what could explain all of the weird things that were happening in my life? Being conscious in my dreams, inventing a whole lot of stuff I didn’t know about. And what about my psychic lapses that happened in real life, when I knew the phone was about to ring, or when someone was at the door? Should I be living this dream like all of it was eventually going to be real? It sounded ludicrous, but I wasn’t going to rule out that possibility just yet.

I finally got to the edge of the forest, to my relief. The beach was down on my left, and the closest street was on my right. The weather was atrocious; the clouds were overly dark, making the sea look like liquid tar, and without the overhead cover of the forest, rain was pouring down, soaking me head to toe.

I saw a streak of lightning, and heard the thunder roll in unison. I had never been outside in such weather, so I wasn’t sure where to take cover. The usual safety blanket I felt in my dreams once again collapsed as soon as I’d stepped out of the forest, making the storm a little louder and a little more intimidating.

But something else was off. I remembered seeing a good part of the city, located in the valley, from here. I was standing at the same place where I was when I came back from the beach that day with Maia. With this gloomy sky, the city would have been lit up everywhere: the streets, the houses, every other building too. But the city was completely obscured; I could barely make out the houses through the heavy curtain of rain.

I walked further to my right in order to see the main street better. I crouched underneath a smaller tree that provided a small break from the storm. I was still getting wet though, the wind pushing the rain on either side of my hiding spot.

I got up, and crouched back down again. Something, or someone was behind me, I could feel it. But right before I turned around, something caught my eye in the city. I focused on the main street and noticed that it was alive with people.

They were all wearing dark grey ensembles, and walking in rows.

I realized at that moment that they strangely reminded me of peacekeepers. But they all had guns in their hands. They couldn’t possibly be from my community; violence was illegal. But then I remembered something that Elis had said; that the people from my community would one day force the people from the island to surrender their unique way of living, and join our society. Force them with violence. Could this be what was happening? It didn’t seem right...but what if...the guns were used to...

They were peacekeepers

They were here. Coming to stop this city, to assimilate everyone on the island.

Elis.

That same second, I was up, and I was about to start running towards his house to save him, but as I got up, lightning struck and thunder exploded.

The flash had been so close; I crumbled to the ground.

I had never heard gunshots before, but the sound it made could not be mistaken with anything else.

I panicked for a moment, but the shooting wasn’t happening around me, it was happening in the city. I got up again, still half-hidden behind a tree. People came out from their houses, shooting at the men in the middle of the streets, who were scattering, but shooting back also. It was all so surreal. This could never happen in the real world. Never.

Nevertheless, I came to my senses. I still hadn’t saved Elis, nor Kleio, nor Maia, Cassiopeia and Hayden. Plus, the other people down there had to be saved too: the citizens as well as the peacekeepers. I knew the easiest thing would be to hide here and stay safe, but I couldn’t help myself, going down there to help was stronger than me.

What were they thinking? We had abolished wars just to jump right back into them? Was this really the near future I was predicting? I hoped more than anything at that moment that this was not all a premonition. I’d trade all of it for peace. If I had the choice between having Elis and Kleio and the island be real, plus the war, versus having peace in a boring life, I’d chose peace. That realization made me rethink the negative feelings I’d always had about my life.

Unreal as this dream felt, I had to see Elis, even if it meant crossing through the city.

As I finally got ready to make a run for it, I heard leaves shuffling behind me; I heard branches on the ground crack and it felt like I had already lived this moment, like a déjà vu. Before I had time to turn around to see who or what was there, I felt the same stabbing, sickening pain I had felt in my first dream on the beach. Something was lodged in my arm.

I started having vivid flashes of different moments of my previous dreams. I saw the first beach I had been to. I saw the kiss with Elis. I saw dolphins swimming underwater. And then I started seeing new images. I saw myself with a gun in my hands, shooting towards a peacekeeper. I saw Kleio transporting me to a medical facility. And then I saw Elis’s face, a few inches from mine—I could hear gunshots in the distance, and his ragged breathing in my ear. He took my face in his hands and said: “Come and replace me when you wake up.” And then I was back at the edge of the forest.

The pain in my arm was gone. I managed to turn my face to see five men coming towards me, grabbing me and pulling me back towards the forest. They shuffled to my sides and I saw Elis, left lying at the foot of a tree, his hands and feet tied, his mouth covered with tape, and his eyes wild.

Everything became blurry. I was waking up again.