Sleep that night was riddled with dreams. For any other person this would be a normal night, but I had never knowingly had a dream. The dreams were terrifying, horrible and not normal dreams at all. Nightmares.
Firstly, there were all the stereotypical ones, being followed, being chased. In some there was blood everywhere as I was hacked up and shot at and cut by knives. There were falling nightmares, off cliff, into the path of a train, into deep water with no surface.
In the last of my dreams I was back in the alleyway, the girl lying at my feet and I knew I had to pick her up, but my body was to heavy and once I knelt to the ground I couldn't get up again. I tried to ease my arms under her as I had that day, but there were so heavy and I couldn't make them work.
The blood was seeping out from the wound in her back and I knew if I didn't get her back soon enough, she would bleed out on the cold and gravelly street, and now I was lying next to her, so heavy I couldn't move. It tried to say I was sorry, as her face was so close to mine, but my mouth was slack and I couldn't make it work at all. Her eyes opened.
I heaved upright in my bed, sweat clustering on my forehead. Terror was making my head race and my breathing come in gasps. I'd never been so terrified. I took a drink of water from my bedside table. The image of her face, eyes fixed on my was still in my mind. Her eyes looked like they were accusing me.
After a few minutes, my breathing started to return to normal and my hands had stopped shaking. Familiar sounds were calming me. I could hear Sarah-Jane snore lightly and turn over occasionally in her sleep. I could hear the boiler with its soothing thrumming. Every now and then a car came down the street.
Not everything was right though. From the room next to me I could hear movement. The girl must be tossing and turning.
From the first time I had seen her, I had never seen the girl move. She just lay there, breathing shallowly and not fluttering an eyelid. She may not be concious, but that she was moving meant that she would wake up soon. Probably in the next day.
I remembered what Sarah-Jane wanted me to do. She told me if the girl made any movement in the night to go check she was OK and then go to Sarah-Jane and wake her up. Silently, (I didn't want to wake Sarah-Jane with my noise if it was a false alarm), I got out of made and made my way quietly to the door. My door creaked a little, but when I listened to see if it had roused anybody, there was just the light snoring.
It was only a few steps from my door to hers. This one creaked too, but I reckoned I was safe.
The room was illuminated slightly form a street lamp, enough for me to see the small figure lying under the covers. She was on her side, her back to the wall. She didn't snore like Sarah-Jane, but kind of snuffled. Her thin arms were wrapped around her pillow a bit like a hug and her mouth was slightly open. I walked over, just to make sure she was asleep. There was a frown between her eyes.
One of her hands wandered round to her back unconsciously. I remembered the huge cut she had on it. Could she feel it in her sleep? Her hand crept back up to hug her pillow again, but the small frown didn't leave her forehead.
I snuck another step closer and the floorboards creaked. I held my position, barely daring to breath, not making another sound, wincing and scolding myself internally. Memory of ten thousand people and I couldn't even remember which floorboards creaked and which ones didn't. Stupid!
I stayed like that for half a minute, then risked a look down.
Large, dark eyes were staring at me.
They were opened wide and shocked. We stared at each other for a few seconds. Then I blinked and broke the spell.
"Hello?" I said tentatively. I remembered the first few minutes of when I woke up, when Maria was saying something to me, but for the first few seconds I couldn't work out what she was saying. Then I suddenly knew, and I learnt speech.
"Hello?" she said back, trying to mimic my way of talking.
"I'm Luke." I said slowly. "Luke?"
"Luke." I could feel how hard she was trying to understand. It would all come to her in a second. If she was like me. If.
"This is my house." I informed her.
"This is my house." she tilted her head to the side, as if to ask if she had gotten it right or not. I nodded. She hesitated for a second, then nodded back at me. I smiled and she smiled back. Then her face was sober again. The little frown was back again, deepening.
She said the next words slowly, trying them out. "My... back... hurts." her hand went to her back again and she felt the bandages.
Then I remembered. "I've got to go wake Sarah-Jane." I told her, turning around. A small hand grabbed my pyjamas.
"Noooooooooo." It was almost a moan. "Staaayyy."
"I need to go tell Sarah-Jane you're up though." Blank look. She didn't know who Sarah-Jane was, she only knew me. "I'll be back in a second. I promise."
I tugged myself out of her feeble hold and went into the hallway. Sarah-Jane's snores were still filtering out of her room. I went in and shook her. I felt a bit guilty about waking her, but she did ask me to.
"Sarah-Jane!" I shook her again until she immerged from her duvet, bleary-eyed.
She made a noise, which I translated to a rough approximation of 'what?' and rubbed her face.
"The girl's up!" I told her urgently. "You told me to wake you." I went to her door and unhooked her dressing-gown as she stumbled out of bed. I harried her into the corridor and then into the girls room to find her fast asleep, one hand still trailing on the floor. Sarah-Jane gave me 'The Look of Death' as Clyde would say.
"She was awake!" I managed to say before Sarah-Jane slumped off back to her room for another few hours of sleep.
A/N- Thanks to all the lovely people who have posted reviews!