Le Dormeur S'éveille

• Alana Guez, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

At first it was black. The darkest, most unforgiving black there could be. It held down my entire body as if there was a cast of it somehow keeping me down. I didn't fight it, I couldn't. Then, as I lay there in the dark, some words were muttered. "Ed. 'aeud 'iilaa alhaya". They tore at the corners of my mind, almost ripping it apart. My mouth tried to open, to scream, but the darkness held it shut. Then the world swam into view.
It wasn't much of a world, mostly dirt. I opened my eyes wide and the dirt rushed in, scratching at my eyes, threatening to tear them open. My arms pushed at the dirt frantically- and clumsily. My arms seemed new, or maybe unused. Finally, they pushed their way to the surface. Slowly, my legs started to move, pushing me up. My lungs began to burn, and every second that passed by was agonising. And then, just as I began to give in to the darkness once more, I felt the sun on my skin. I pushed through the last few seconds of it, and finally, I reached the surface. Gasping for air, I noticed a strangely dressed man staring down at me. I couldn't quite pinpoint why he was strangely dressed, my mind just came to the conclusion that he was.
"well aren't you just beautiful.." he said with a sly grin. I couldn't imagine why he thought so, for as I looked down at my hands I saw that they were rotting away, barely hands anymore. The man led me through the endless sandy desert, to the outskirts of a town that was nestled between two sandbanks. Then he told me to sit. I sat. "what do you remember?" he asked eagerly.
"Nothing." But even as I said it, the thought tugged at my mind. "Ed 'aeud 'iilaa alhaya". I brushed the thought away as if it were nothing but a bad dream. The man seemed disappointed, so I added, "darkness.... who am I?". His look didn't waver. He scowled.
"that's what I'm trying to figure out." He looked at me again, as if expecting me to say something. But I had nothing more to say. After a while, the man understood, and turned away. But the anger never left his face. I looked up at the sky. It was strange, I felt like I had seen it before. But I hadn't, not until today. But the familiar feeling didn't go away. Soon, I began to recognise more things- the feeling of the sand between my toes, the scorching heat, the desert. But how..? I had never seen these things before today. Before today was just darkness. Nothing more. It was as if I had come back from the dead… I watched as a piece of paper fluttered out of the man's pocket, towards me.. I turned it over and read- "ed 'aeud 'iilaa alhaya".