Thankfully, towels abounded in the bathroom.  After drying off and wrapping my hair, I used another towel for my jeans.  I rolled them inside the towel and stomped on the roll.  The towel came away soaked.  I grabbed a new towel and did it again.  The second time the jeans no longer dripped water.  I hung them on the rod and trudged to bed.

The pillows called to me.  I tossed back the bedspread.  Again, a dream wrapped around me as I climbed under the covers.

Glowing embers floated in the air, red stars against the night sky.

A dark haired girl stood before the blazing huts, facing the fire.  The heat curled her hair and burned her skin, but she didn’t back away.  She screamed a name, searching fruitlessly in the shifting orange flames.

Her desperation crowded into me.  My heart stuttered as we merged, her every thought and feeling becoming my own.

Turning I ran into the darkness only to return a second later with a crude clay container filled with water.  I tossed the contents toward the flames, but it fell short.  Frustration and terror tore at me.  I raced away to try again, this time stepping closer.  Water hit the burning grass walls but didn’t slow the consuming progress.  With a hiss and sputter, the moisture evaporated.

Deep, mocking laughter echoed behind me.

“Child!  You are not meant for this.  Step away.”

I spun toward my tormentors.  “Help me!  If you care as you claimed when you set the fires, help me put them out.”

Auburn-hued from the reflection of the flames, a group of men stood watching.  Several wore taunting grins.

The leader tilted his head as he studied me.

“Why?  They are all dead,” he assured me. “There is not one heart left beating, save yours.”

A well of guilt hit me.  My family, gone.  I screamed my anguish and fell to my knees.  The soles of my feet, still so close to the flame started to blister.  My hair curled back from the heat and started to smoke.  I fell silent and looked up with dull eyes.

I knew her choice as it settled in her mind.  I fought her, wanting to wake up.  Falling had been bad; this would be worse.

“You win.  I will choose.”  I stood, embracing the pain in my feet.  It’s what my family had all felt while trying to protect me.  Searing pain.

“You are indeed wise.  Who will it be?” the leader asked.  Several men stood back from the flames waiting eagerly for our choice.

“Not who.  What.”  I smiled as his triumphant grin fell.  “Death.”  I turned and ran into the flames.

At first, I felt nothing.  Then the pain of every blister and crack as I turned into a human candle consumed me.  I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out.  There was only pain, everywhere.

I struggled to escape the pain.  My heart thumped heavily as I shifted in my sleep, crying out.  A hand soothed a tear from my cheek.  Lips pressed against my forehead.  A voice whispered, “I’m here.”  I tried to open my eyes, tried to breathe air that wasn’t smoke-filled.  My fight was in vain.  I sank deeper as the dream shifted.

Hidden in the trees, a mother cradled her child in her arms.  Sweat still shone on the woman’s skin from her recent labor.  Birds sang, and sunlit spots danced on the forest floor.

Still matted and slick from birth, the child suddenly squalled loudly.

The mother smiled at her child.  “I call you Jin, for Strength, as she promised us.  I will keep you as safe as I am able and love you always.  Protect us with your strength.  Keep them at bay.”

She put the child to her breast and lay her head back against the trunk of the tree.

Before her, the taupe gowned woman appeared.  “There can be no rest.  You must run.”

The startled woman opened her eyes and looked down in concern at the infant.  “She’s so fragile,” she murmured.

“If she dies, she will be reborn as often as necessary each cycle.  She will know pain and hardship.”  The gowned woman knelt to stroke the smooth cheek.  She felt compassion and sorrow seeing the fates of the child.  “Balance must be maintained.  The world will burn if they find her.”

*    *    *    *

I lingered on the edge of sleep for several minutes before opening my eyes.  My stomach churned as I remembered the newest death.  I curled into a ball under the covers.

Why wouldn’t the dreams just stop already?  I’d run like the visions showed me.  Maybe too late, though.  The face of the man from the mall surfaced in my mind. His warm eyes looked gentle and amused, not malicious like the others.  But I knew better than to trust them.  I wrapped my arms around my knees.  There was nothing gentle about the things chasing me.  Every memory followed the same pattern. I ran from something that terrified me, the “something” exposed itself as a dog, turned man. The dogs—always a group of them—possessed large sleek heads, intelligent eyes, vicious teeth, and claws, which they put to use.  After changing forms, they always talked about choosing.  Choosing what?  The way they acted and spoke, I guessed they wanted me to choose one of them.  But to what purpose?

If I didn’t kill myself, they tried forcing me to choose.  The methods they used...I shuddered.  I wasn’t sure whose method was worse.  Theirs or mine.  In all my past lives I died horribly.  I thought I understood the messages of the dreams—run.  But if that was it, the dreams should have stopped.  Instead, they’d changed.  Two now had felt like a memory even though I hadn’t merged with anyone.  The two about babies.

Last night’s second dream made my need to run sound like there was more at stake than just my death.  Not that my death wasn’t important enough to keep my feet moving.  That woman made it sound like I didn’t really have a choice.

If I hadn’t connected with any of the women, why would it feel like a memory?  My brows rose as I realized whom I overlooked. The infants in the first unique dream.  Of course.  Six of them just like the six variations of past lives I kept dreaming about.  In the first unique dream, they hadn’t been born; and in the second, the newborn hadn’t yet experienced her gift, the things chasing her, or much of anything, really.  Perhaps that’s why I hadn’t connected.

So, if those two dreams were still memories, then what that woman said scared me. Would the world truly burn if those dog-men caught me?  I shuddered remembering the feeling of the flames consuming my flesh.  Thankfully, the searing pain had been cut short.

I stopped that thought and with wide eyes froze under the covers.  A gentle hand had soothed me.  The kiss.  Had it been real?  I tried to breathe as quietly as possible as I listened for any strange noises in the room.  All I could hear was my own heartbeat.  Scrunching my eyes for a moment, I braced myself for the worst.  I took a deep breath and quickly sat up, looking around the room.

Everything remained as it had when I’d gone to sleep.  The outside door remained securely bolted, and the bathroom door still stood open.  I let out a large shaky sigh.

That touch, like the dreams, had felt real yet it hadn’t been a part of either dream. Rather, it was a fragment of the shift between them.  That was one of the difficulties with sleep deprivation.  The confused haziness between reality and imagination was hard to figure out.  Well, that plus the headaches...

Flopping backwards, I scrubbed my hands over my face.  Maybe my first inclination to question my sanity had been right.  What if all of this was really in my head?  I laughed at myself.  Of course it’s in my head.  But what if it was all just my imagination?  That guy in the mall might have really just wanted the bathroom.  And my physical reaction to him?  Well, he was really good looking, and he had an accent.  Who wouldn’t suffer a little tummy tickle over that?