Young Woman
Yes.

Her answer comes quickly and with­out pause, as if she were expect­ing him to tell her.

Gil stops and con­sid­ers. He doesn’t like telling peo­ple about his dreams. Not even the priest­esses of the Tem­ple knew about them.

Gil
I don’t tell any­one about this except Kiddu. Not even my room­mates know. A lot of peo­ple, when they hear about my dreams, they think I’m … cursed.
Young Woman
Per­haps you are cursed.
Gil
I don’t know. Maybe I am. I’ve thought about it. I don’t feel cursed, though.

She doesn’t say any­thing. He hears Kiddu mum­ble some­thing unin­tel­li­gi­ble in her sleep and con­tinue snor­ing.

Gil
Alright.

And he tells her, about the bizarre black grass on the rock, the fright­en­ing storms, the upside-down sky and the black hole at the bot­tom. He tells her every­thing.

Young Woman
How often do you have these dreams?
Gil
Not often. It seems like I have them more often when I’m stressed or when I have trou­ble sleep­ing. And some­times I don’t see a storm, or I’ll see a bunch of storms. But they’re all basi­cally the same.
Young Woman
Tell me. You know of the Occulted Sun, do you not?
Gil
Of course I do.
Young Woman
Then you must real­ize that the world in your dream resem­bles Apsuka Mayaka, though in a man­ner I would never have imag­ined.
Gil
Yeah. Except it’s bright. The Under­world is sup­posed to be dark.
Young Woman
So it is said. But per­haps it would be bright there while you are sleep­ing, yes? For it is also said that Asham goes into the Under­world at night.
Gil
I know. That’s one inter­pre­ta­tion, at least.
Young Woman
You have heard other dream inter­pre­ta­tions?
Gil
Just from Kiddu. She says a lot of peo­ple have dreams about falling off of cliffs or build­ings or what­ever.
Young Woman
I think the Gods are try­ing to tell you some­thing.
Gil
If they are, they’re not doing a very good job—
Young Woman
It is not your place to judge the Gods.

She says it with venom in her voice.

Gil
Alright, sorry. But how do you even know the Gods are send­ing me these dreams? I mean, that’s a pretty big assump­tion.

No answer.

Gil shifts in his bed. She gives no indi­ca­tion that she heard him. He knocks lightly on the wall.

Gil
Are you there?
Young Woman
Per­haps it is best if we do not speak to each other after all, Akka­dian.

Gil sighs as loudly as he can and turns over on his side.

He regrets say­ing any­thing to her. Why couldn’t she just make up her mind about whether or not she detested him? He feels anger bub­bling up inside of him, and remem­bers all the bad things he’s heard about the natives—their intol­er­ance, their refusal to make peace, their hatred of all things from other civ­i­liza­tions, their back­ward­ness.

But he reminds him­self that she has been through much more than he ever has.

Who is she, any­way? He bets he’ll have time to fig­ure that out, assum­ing she decides to talk to him again.

He can’t sleep. He tries read­ing the Ency­clo­pe­dia in the dim torch­light, hop­ing that will do the trick.

Back • Next