CHIMERA

Shane jerked in her sleep. She tossed and turned in her king-size bed. The sheets enveloping her were crumpled and wet with a cold sweat. Shane moaned and clenched her fists on the soft fabric, then she gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes.

She was suffering.

Her breath was shaky and uneven and her dark, messed up hair was even more spikey than usual. There was something serious going on, something severely solemn and painful and Shane started growing paler and paler. She shook her head, repeatedly, her sweated neck sticky on the pillow, and chocked a painful moan.

Then she startled one last time, opened her eyes wide and sat up abruptly on the mattress.

At first, she stared at the wall before her, absent-mindedly. An endless instant later, she blinked her eyelids, her long eyelashes flapping silently in the darkness, and tried to regain control. Automatically, unconsciously, she put her hand on her heart and listened to the furious heartbeat that was hammering her chest. It echoed into her throat, into her ears, into her head, it echoed everywhere and it was deafening.

Shane inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, and threw a look to the alarm clock on the nightstand. Red numbers flashing, 2:28 in the morning and she realized how breathless she was, how terrified and upset and confused she felt.

She turned her head and, when she saw the body lying still right next to her, she let go a long, broken sigh that sounded relieved.

She rubbed her forehead, her heavy eyes.

“God… Jesus…”, she whispered, hissed almost.

The body lying next to her moved, slightly, smoothly. She was fluid, always fluid, she was like water, even in her sleep.

Shane exhaled again and her chest rose and fell under the white tank top she was wearing.

When finally Carmen sat up silently and flipped a strand of hair behind her ear, when Carmen watched her and her eyebrows furrowed and her lips parted, when Carmen took that attitude she would always take when she felt concerned, or worried, or perplexed, Shane closed her eyes and waved her hand in the air blindly.

“Shane…”.

Her voice vibrated in the silence of the bedroom and Shane’s body, automatically and in a bizarre Pavlovian way, relaxed. Her shoulders slumped, her head bowed and her chin touched her chest.