Wake up.
The night is cold and oppressive - every breath sending a gust of chilling mist over the arm that is thrown across my face. I wake quickly, but remain still in the darkness, letting my quickened breathing settle into a regular and soothing pattern - in and out. Cool air across my arm. Reality.
In the blackness I can be whoever I want to be. I could really be anyone right now - who's to say I'm anything more than a student getting last minute exam jitters? That might be why I woke up - why I'm having nightmares. Or maybe I'm a normal guy working in a dead end job, I lack the motivation to uproot myself and move on to bigger and better things. The woman next to me is my loving wife, urging me to get myself together because she cares.
But the unease is already starting to settle, agitation at laying so still, blankets half thrown off in the breezy morning air. I can feel goosebumps rising on my skin, the warmth radiating off Jean next to me. I shift. As my arm moves from my face, my skin brushes the soft crosshatched cloth that covers my eyes. I sigh, pulling the blanket over myself. Yes… this is why I can't be anyone else.
Anyone other than damned Scott Summers.
The cloth doesn't just cover my eyes, it holds them closed and now that I'm aware of it again it feels painfully tight against my eyelids. Worse however - the heat beneath them, from the back of my eyes. I'm so aware of it, the contrast between my eyes and the temperature of the world around me that I'm certain I can't fall back asleep.
This is becoming a regular routine and I gently shift every now and then, making sure not to jostle Jean awake. Bitterly for a moment, I think about how nobody will see the dark circles that inevitably are forming beneath my eyes. The visor just about covers that far.
I'm always wrong about sleep though.
I wake again because I notice Jean move.
"Sleep well?" she asks.
"Like a baby," I answer.