by Jack Alden
***
My ears won’t stop ringing. Heat scorches my face. Dust burns in my eyes. I can’t breathe.
“Dagger!”
Reality seeps in in bits and pieces. The wailing alarm. The crying baby. The crumbling structure. A hand suddenly latches onto my arm and jerks me up. The air is dirty and hot in my lungs as I finally take a breath.
“Dagger, look at me.”
I blink, cough. Wave away the smoke in the air. “Temp?”
“Are you okay?” I can barely hear him over the alarm. “Are you hurt?”
“I…what, what happened?”
Dust coats Tempest’s dark hair. It’s messy, hanging around his face and ending just at his chin. His young eyes are wide, terrified. “A bomb.”
***
I wake up with tears on my cheeks and a hand shaking my shoulder. I jolt up, gasping.
“Tempest?”
“No, Dagger.”
I blink. The room slowly comes into focus and I realize where I am. I’m in my bed, in my room in the Dome. The Dome. This isn’t home. I’m not home. I look up and see Calixa leaning over me, brow wrinkled with concern.
“What?” I rub my eyes. I can still feel the dust of rubble and debris coating my skin. “How did you get in here?”
“I had to use a manual override,” she says. “I normally would never do so, and I’m sorry for violating your privacy, but I knocked several times and you didn’t answer the door. I was concerned.”
I startle when the back of her hand suddenly brushes across my cheek. “What are you doing?”
“You’re crying,” she says, quiet as if she doesn’t want to say it out loud.
“O-oh.” I turn away and quickly wipe my eyes, take a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“Dagger….”
“I’m fine,” I say. “But, uh, thanks for checking on me.” I take another breath. I can’t shake the dream. It sits like a stone in my throat. “I just, uh. I’m sorry. I just need a minute to get dressed and then we can go.”
She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t go either. She lingers, and I can tell she’s still concerned. I’m surprised by how much it touches me, how much it means to know that someone here cares about me, or at least, seems to. I didn’t think I’d have that again, someone who I might matter to. Someone who might matter to me.
“Really, I’m fine,” I say, softer this time.
“Okay,” she says, then without another word, she turns and leaves the room.
***
Calixa watches me the entire way to the medical wing. I can feel her eyes on me as she glances over every few seconds as if she’s afraid I’m going to collapse any minute or disintegrate into dust right in front of her. I feel pressed, lodged under a microscope. I can’t stand it.
“Stop staring at me,” I say, and she jolts. Her eyes jump forward.
“I’m not staring.”
“You were staring.”
She clears her throat. “So, your training begins next week.”
That stops me in my tracks just outside the medical wing. “Next week? No, that can’t be right.”
“It is,” she says. “I checked the schedule this morning.”
“No, I wasn’t supposed to start training until my second month here.”
“Yes, that’s right,” she says. “Next week begins your second month here.”
The words feel like a punch to the gut. They knock the wind out of me. How have I already been here an entire month? It feels like it’s only been a week, maybe two. The realization makes me breathless. There are gaps in my memory, too many. Big, gaping holes where time should be.
“Dagger,” she says, stepping toward me. She places a hand on my shoulder. “Take a breath.”
I do. It stings. I look up at her. My voice hardly works when I whisper, “Something isn’t right, Calixa.”
She frowns, but neither of us can say a thing. She can’t reassure me because she knows something isn’t right, too. I can see it in her eyes. She glances quickly about, eyes flicking up toward the cameras overhead, then she locks on me again. She doesn’t speak, just squeezes my shoulder.
“It’s time for your assessment,” is all she says, but the way her voice croaks around the words makes my stomach hurt.
I feel sick. I feel empty. I don’t feel like myself at all.
***
“Grace Analeigh Odair,” I say on a tired exhale. I thumb the inside of my elbow where a fresh bruise is already beginning to form, a dark shadow beside the yellowing marks from earlier blood draws.
“Thank you,” Dr. Quorn says. “And the first names of your living siblings now, please.”
“Tempest and Beckham.”
“Excellent.” He quickly ticks something off on his notepad. “And the name of your deceased sibling?”
My mouth immediately opens to answer but then my voice cracks. It breaks in my throat as I suddenly can’t find the word. I can’t find the name. It doesn’t come. I can’t…I can’t remember my brother’s name.
Dr. Quorn’s head raises. “Dagger,” he says slowly, “can you tell me the name of your deceased brother?”
Panic sets in. My tongue feels thick in my mouth, as if it doesn’t fit. I rack my exhausted brain as my heart begins to pound. I shake my head, tears spilling up into my eyes. “I can’t…I don’t…what, what’s happening to me?”
I can hear his voice. I can hear his voice in my head, but the name won’t come. The name isn’t there. Where is it? Tears scorch down my cheeks. “What’s wrong with me?!”
“Dagger,” he says again, “you need to calm down. Take a deep breath.”
“I can’t,” I say, hyperventilating. “I can’t remember.”
“You can,” he says. “Just take a deep breath and calm down. It will come to you.”
It shouldn’t have to come to me, I want to scream. I shouldn’t have to think about it at all. It should simply be there, like my own name, like a part of me. He’s a part of me, my baby brother, and I can’t remember his name. I can’t remember his name. “I can’t remember,” I shout, unable to hold the fear in any longer. It rips out of me just as I feel a hand come down hard on my shoulder. A second later, a sharp pain stabs into my neck.
The last thing I see is Dr. Quorn’s shaking head, and the last thing I hear is my own voice ringing in my ears as the room darkens around me.
“Juden.” My voice slurs. My head lolls. “Juden.”
Juden. Tempest. Beckham.
Dagger.
I remember! I’m Dagger. The world topples into black. Everything fades into nothing. I’m Dagger. I’m Dagger.
I’m still me.
Other Works by Jack Alden