Chương 14: Chapter 13: Dreams of Another World

Before her, in the absolute blackness of deep sleep, there were no shapes, no colors, no sounds. Only the void. A primal instinct drew her eyes downward, toward her own hands. And there they were. She recognized them instantly: large, with prominent knuckles and a light shadow of dark hair on the backs. They were his hands. The hands of the man from Earth, of the erased life. The very moment the certainty struck him, he was transported. There was no transition.

He was sitting at a desk of tempered glass and chrome metal, cold and smooth beneath his forearms. Outside, the monotonous, constant sound of rain hitting a window a familiar, gray drumming. But when he tried to look beyond the edge of the desk, everything was mist. A thick, impenetrable grayish fog that devoured every detail, every landscape, as if his memory could only sustain this tiny cube of reality. His fingers moved with automatic, almost frenetic agility over the tactile keyboard of a slim notebook.

The dull tic-tic-tic of the virtual keys was the only sound alongside the rain. He turned his head toward the screen, illuminated by a cold, bluish light. They were translation exercises. Blocks of Cyrillic text that he had to render into Spanish. Dense, technical phrases:"Russian Formalist theory, in its search for literaturnost, distances itself from Aristotelian mimesis to focus on the device…" A sudden, brutal headache hammered his forehead, as if an ice nail were being driven between his eyes.

A sharp, high-pitched ringing pierced his ears, canceling out the sound of the rain for a second. And then came the epiphany, not as an ordered memory, but as a flash of pure knowledge: he was studying Philology. That day, at that glass desk in the middle of the eternal rain, he needed to learn this. He wanted it. There was a clear, bright goal: to travel to Saint Petersburg. Not as a tourist, but as a scholar.

To read the Russian linguists, the fathers of structural theory, in their original tongue, to immerse himself in dusty archives and drink from the source. It was a desire so vivid, so much his own, that for an instant the headache and the ringing vanished, replaced by a sharp pang of longing. But he was interrupted. A warm, soft sensation brushed against his legs. Something with fur. A familiar, affectionate touch. An animal. His animal.

He looked down, beneath the glass desk, searching for the cat, the dog, the companion he knew should be there. And the dream showed him only emptiness. Nothing. Only the gray mist swirling where his feet and the creature should have been. Panic flooded him. He tried to move, to turn the chair, to stand up and search the fog. But he couldn't. His body in the dream was rigid, anchored to the desk, his hands glued to the keyboard.

He tried to scream, to call out to that nameless animal, but only a muffled sound came out, trapped in his throat. He kept trying, struggling against the dream paralysis. And with every failure, with every fruitless effort to regain control or the lost contact, the dream began to corrupt. At first, they were small. They appeared at the edges of his peripheral vision, moving in the mist. Six-legged turtles the size of a fist, their segmented shells glowing with a sickly green.

Then green, wrinkled anurhys, croaking with guttural sounds that blended with the ringing in his ears. Slinking nimoras, their thick tails moving lazily. They were creatures of Terracanto, intruders in this sanctuary of his past. As he continued to fail in comprehending the document, struggling to return to a memory that slipped through his fingers like water, the creatures grew. They became larger, more defined, more threatening.

The turtles reached the size of dogs, then calves, their heavy feet crushing an invisible floor with a dull, wet thud. The anurhys puffed out their vocal sacs, emitting croaks that sounded like distant thunder. The nimoras watched him with slanted, merciless eyes; their tail-slaps could now snap a bone. Until, gigantic and monstrous, they loomed before him, completely blocking the view of the notebook and the desk, filling the dream universe with their impossible forms and oppressive presences.

The sound of the rain had vanished, drowned out by the chorus of beasts. Then, from deep within, a thought emerged; it was an order, a survival mandate spoken aloud in the dream, in a voice that was a strange hybrid between his old one and Selena's new one: —Stop thinking in your language— The phrase echoed, clear and cold, cutting through the chaos. —Immerse yourself in the new to understand it. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

And, as if a key had turned, something gave way. On the notebook screen, the Cyrillic phrases began to transform with each mentally redirected "exercise," and the monstrous creatures before him shrank. They dwindled, losing size and detail, retreating into the mist at the edges. The ringing in his ears faded. The headache receded to a dull throb. A new sound began to filter in, overlapping the faint croaking and the scuttle of shells. It was a rhythmic, metallic chiming, pleasantly mundane. A bell.

Everything there the desk, the mist, the retreating creatures, the notebook with its texts clouded over, blurred, and dissolved into an even denser fog. And when she opened her eyes, her heart galloping in her chest like a frightened animal, the first thing she saw was Anya. The sister of charity was standing in the center of the communal dormitory, with the first gray light of dawn filtering through the high windows. In her hand, she held a small, simple bronze bell she had just rung. —Welcome to a new day!

— Anya announced, her voice clear and practical, cutting through the last vestiges of the dream. —The blessings of the Flow bring us tidings of a renewed cycle. Up, little ones! The day does not wait. Selena squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing her eyelids with her fingers, trying to dislodge the images.

When she opened them again, the reality of the shelter imposed itself with its reassuring crudeness: the morning cold seeping through the cracks, the smell of straw and sleeping bodies, the first rays of sun painting golden lines on the dirt floor. Following the rules Elara had dictated with military precision, they all stood, dressed clumsily, and formed a silent line to use the cold showers in the courtyard.

Afterward, Anya assigned the morning chores in pairs: Enara and Tessa to sweep the patio; Nyssa and Pira to draw water from the well; Maren and Lyra to clean the bathrooms. Cora, the mute girl, she took under her wing to help in the kitchen, guiding her with gentle gestures. Finally, when the communal dormitory was empty except for the dust dancing in the sunbeams, Anya pointed to the two who remained. — Selena, Kaela. You two have dormitory cleaning.

The brooms are in the corner— She gave them a brief smile and left, leaving them alone in the large, dim room. They took up the heavy brooms made of tied branches with rough wooden handles. The silence that fell over them was vast, almost physical, broken only by the soft, rhythmic swish-swish of sweeping and the slight crackle of straw being dragged. Dust rose in small golden clouds in the morning light. Selena, remembering the strange solidarity of the nighttime whisper, took the initiative.

She broke the silence with a carefully innocuous question safe ground. —Kaela, right? — she said, without stopping her sweeping. —I was wondering… how old you are. The sound of Kaela's broom stopped for a moment, then resumed its rhythm. —Yes, Kaela. You're Selena, if I remember correctly— she replied. Her voice was flat, but not hostile. It was the voice of someone accustomed to giving brief information. —I'm sixteen. A full adult, as you can see...

She paused, and Selena felt her gaze measuring her from head to toe, a quick and expert evaluation. —You… maybe you're nineteen or twenty. It's hard to tell with your face. The answer surprised Selena. Given the soft features and the delicacy of the face in the mirror, she had believed the body was younger. Eighteen, perhaps. But nineteen or twenty… that fit with greater independence, with the possibility of the complex plans the original Selena had laid out.

—Yes, something like that— Selena murmured, avoiding a specific number, and returned her focus to her sweeping, which was clumsy and kicked up more dust than it collected. Kaela watched her for a moment longer, then leaned her broom against the wall. With efficient movements, she went to the first straw mattress, lifted it easily despite its bulk, and shook it hard outside the door, letting a cloud of dust and straw fragments fly.

—Well, yes, you look like a merchant's daughter— Kaela said without looking at her, concentrated on her task. —First you have to lift the mattresses, then shake them well, and finally sweep. If you sweep with them there, you're just moving the dirt from one spot to another. She shook her head, a gesture of practical annoyance rather than anger. —I'm sorry, I don't mean to judge. But… you stand out. Like a fish out of water. Selena stopped, the broom motionless in her hands.

Kaela continued, her voice low but clear in the silence of the dormitory. —Mostly because of your hands— Kaela went on, and now she did look at her, her dark eyes fixing on Selena's hands gripping the handle. —They are soft. Too soft. They don't have calluses from a tanner's needle, or from handling a broom, or digging, or hauling. And you don't know these simple things. She paused, as if weighing the risk of what she was about to say.

—I suppose it's natural, if your father lost everything and kept you away from work. But you shouldn't stay this way. The streets… — her voice hardened —will devour you faster than you think. They see you as weak, ignorant, and around here, that's an invitation. Selena remained silent. She looked down at her own hands the ones that still felt like they belonged to a stranger. Kaela was right. They were soft.

Smooth palms, long, slender fingers without the marks of labor, nails that, while not long, had a well-kept shape. It was another piece of evidence, as tangible as the dream of the glass desk. The original Selena, the one who had meticulously planned her isolation and her end, the one who had blurred her memory, had not been a woman of the common people. She had not worked with her hands. The options, which had been nebulous before, crystallized before her eyes with cold clarity.

This body, this stolen life, belonged to one of these categories: a minor noble with resources; a wealthy commoner, daughter of successful merchants; a high-level thief who lived by deception, not strength; or an outlaw with special skills. But no, never a laborer.