He real­izes he has been scream­ing. A veneer of sweat cov­ers his skin. He finds him­self sit­ting up in his bed, gulp­ing down air.

He isn’t sure if it’s day or night. It’s impos­si­ble to tell, which makes it harder for him to calm down. The torch still flick­ers on the wall out­side his cell.

Gil can only pic­ture her stretch­ing her arms out as she yawns in her tiny cell.

She tells him that she had been sleep­ing against the wall and that his scream­ing woke her up. He must have been scream­ing at the top of his lungs. He knows Kiddu sleeps even heav­ier than the lamashu.

Kiddu yawns again. For a while she doesn’t say any­thing.

Gil hears the rus­tle of her clothes, and then a creak as she drops onto the mat­tress.

After only a minute, he hears her snor­ing. The only other sounds are the crack­ling torch and the sound of pages turn­ing in a book.