38.

The next day Dream-eater woke up in a sickly haze,
cast back into the steppe, out of breath after drifting
through a very disturbing dream. She slowly came to,
feeling a hurtful fall into consciousness from on high.

She shuddered, cold with vertigo and a piercing
headache. Her body was both tense and loose.
She opened her eyes and allowed the residual
sense of fear to settle. A powerful premonition.

39.

This was not just another nightmare. Of late she had been
restless and numb, as if a strange electric current had been
switched on by a malicious imp, weakening her nerves.
Slowly, she looked through all the stages of the dream.

In a painful wake through darkness and light, she sought
out the images that had been crowding her dream,
determined as a starved vulture picking scraps of carrion
with voracious hunger through a long summer day.