Who are you?

Who are you? Ophelia shouted in her dreams filled with images of a forest she feared she might never see again.

Her feet were bare as she ran across the soil, chasing a figure that disappeared behind tree after tree, until she was alone. Until the cadaver of a deer was at her knees again, gutted and bleeding onto her skin.

She screamed.

There was pressure on her shoulders.

She kicked, and lashed out at whatever was shaking her, peeling her away from the feeling of caring so much, of being so close, of not wanting to rouse. “Let me go!” Ophelia shouted. “Let me go!”

“To where?” A voice asked.

She gasped.

She opened her eyes.

Her hair was splayed out like savage vines across the tiny single bed. Kris was above her. He had removed her shackles and replaced them with his hands, which were now wrapped around her wrists he pinned besides her head. “To where?” He asked Ophelia again. “And to what means?”

Ophelia’s lip quivered. Tears filled her eyes to the brim, until she was unable to see a single detail of the room. When she finally blinked, and accepted to weep even though she did not quite know where her desperation was coming from, she whimpered and told Kris, “I don’t know. I don’t know where I should go.”

Kris did not move. He did not hold her, he did not hit her, nor did he wipe her tears either. He stayed silent, observing every single one of her movements, her words, the way she tried to force the corners of her lips to be stable; even though they would always fall in the end.

When Ophelia finally stopped mourning the loss of a presence invisible to her, Kris released her wrists and rose from the bed. His back was turned to her. He was still wearing his uniform. It reminded Ophelia of the first time they had met, except now, she had taken notice of a scar that had made a dent across the thin skin of his neck.

Kris said, “It is time for you to leave this place.”