Dreaming through the noise.

From this prompt table.

This is actually going to be a cohesive series when I'm done. I'm bouncing around the prompt table like a mad woman, but I should be posting in order of scene occurrence.

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#037 Night of Fire

Deep in the heart of Zion, Joshua Graham dreamed.

He often dreamed of his second baptism, the fire that had seared his soul. He woke up burning, clawing at the bandages on his face, wrapped around his chest. Often, he’d flee to the upper camp through the back of the Angel Cave, take refuge near the edge of the cliff side, against the rocks where the pre-world cache rested, undisturbed by himself or the Dead Horses for the messages of doom the Sorrows left scattered on the rock wall behind it. Not that he believed the messages, but it did seem ill-omened to take from the dead, when one did not have need.

There he would sit or stand, the ever present wind directed through the canyon buffeting him, carrying with it the light spray of water, sleeping between the bandages, temporarily cooling his skin.

But tonight, he dreamed of another fire, his mind casting back years to New Canaan and a girl he’d known there. He’d had a young man’s crush, assumed they would marry when he came back from his two year mission. He would be nearly 18 then. And his father and hers were good friends and they often spoke and she and him being well matched.

She’d given him his first kiss, the evening before he’d left on the journey that would take him thousands of miles from his home, his faith. A sweet thing, that kiss, soft and hesitant. Her lips moved against his like the wings of a moth.

In years to come, he would be reminded of that kiss with each slave woman Caesar paraded through his tent.

It was one reason he’d earned a reputation for harsh lips and stern hands off the battlefield, though his brutality, as he led men into battle, was something he tried to leave behind, in the night, when soft bodies replaced foes in armor and bare hands touched his skin. He wasn’t always successful at tamping down those raging fires.

Even in the dream, he felt it. Remembered that something inside him had wanted to cup her face and hold her still as he took her mouth. To slide his hand inside the blouse of the simple, modest dress she wore and feel the weight of her breast, the heat of her skin.

He didn’t.

But in this dream, she slid her hand beneath his shirt. Only to touch the uneven terrain of fire ravaged skin across his chest. Then came pain, sunburst bright and hot and he opened his eyes—eyes that he had closed to savor that first kiss—to find Edward before him. The hilt of a knife was in his hand. The blade stuck between Joshua’s ribs.

Joshua opened his eyes in the dark of the Angel Cave, in the heart of Zion. He heard the wind and water winding through the cavern and breathed out a sigh. He could feel dawn approaching, his skin twinging as if the meager heat from the rising sun could set him aflame again. In reality, it was only time to change his bandages.

There were visitors to Zion. A scout had returned yesterday to inform Joshua of the caravan’s approach across the Southern Passage. His dreams always turned to his death when new visitors arrived. And there was a courier this time.

He rose from the cot that served as his bed, gathered scissors and fresh bandages, and made his way from the cave to a secluded spot of the river bend to bathe and prepare for what the day would bring.