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‘She’s safe. Kayra is safe,’ she says quietly.
         The calm tone of her voice unsettles me as I look again at the bodies on the ground and the smoke that’s getting thicker around us.
         ‘Who is Kayra?’ I ask her desperately.
         She looks hurt as she approaches me, showing me the crying baby in her arms.
         ‘Kayra is ours, Kai. The Hunters want her, don’t you remember?’
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    6
    Kai
     
    I wake up screaming. I don’t know why I scream, I know it was only a dream. Arys wakes up with a start; her reflexes making her grab her knife. After realising that we aren’t in danger, she sits back down and hugs me quickly.
         ‘What’s wrong?’ she asks me, concern showing on her face.
         What could I tell her? That I had a nightmare that the entire Tribe died in a fire caused by Hunters, and that the Hunters want to take our non-existent baby? I decide against it.
         ‘Nothing,’ I say, smiling at her. ‘It was just a dream. We’re okay.’
         Arys sighs deeply and rests her head on my chest. She told me once of her earliest memory of the Old World. She remembers being so young and resting her head on her father’s chest, feeling his heartbeat. She admitted to finding comfort in doing the same with Papa and often with me.
         ‘It’s fast,’ she says softly. ‘Your heartbeat, I mean. What’s wrong?’
         It’s times like these when I know she won’t let it rest until she knows what the dream was about.
        ‘Okay,’ I say, as we both sit up against a fallen tree. ‘I had a nightmare. In the dream, we were back at the temporary camp,’ I pause.
         I don’t know how to tell her the dream in a way that won’t terrify her. Noticing the pause, she nudges me playfully.
         ‘Kai, just please tell me.’
         I tell her of the dream, explaining countless times that it was just a dream and nothing is meant by it. She listens intently, gasping slightly when I tell her the name of the baby she was searching for. I chose to leave out the part where she tells me the baby is ours. When I finish telling her of the dream, she begins to cry, so I allow her to lean into my shoulder like she does regularly.
         ‘Her name was Kayra? Are you sure of that?’ Arys asks me, sounding upset.
         ‘Yes, I’m certain. Why?’
         ‘Because I had a twin sister named Kayra,’ she says, hiding her face behind her hands and not looking at me. ‘My parents either ran away with her, leaving me behind, or she died with them. I’ve never told anyone about Kayra, so how did she get into your dream?’
         My face must have shown the shock I was feeling as Arys looks up at me, her eyes swollen. I try to think of how I know of Kayra.
         ‘Maybe you were sleep talking and mentioned her?’ I ask her.
         She looks at me as if I’m being crazy to suggest that.
         ‘No, I didn’t talk in my sleep,’ she says defensively.
         ‘Why not?’ I ask her. ‘You’ve done it before. It’s possible that you were talking about her and I heard it in my sleep and my mind made up who she was!’
         ‘I wasn’t dreaming about her!’
         ‘You,’ I say mockingly, trying to make light of the situation. ‘Are one confusing girl.’
         ‘More than you know,’ she jokes.
         I try to imagine what she means by this, but she just winks at me and begins to rise. I make my mind up quickly, and hold her wrist.
         ‘Arys, there was something else in the dream,’ I tell her hurriedly, before I change my mind. She lowers herself slowly and looks at me, the smile fading from her face.
         ‘About Kayra, you mean?’ she asks.
         She’s calmer than she was earlier.
         ‘In the dream, before I woke up, you brought Kayra up towards me. You told me that the baby was ours,’ I say hesitantly, hoping that she