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Their screams are very much evident through the thick walls of her home. A hand is clasped around her wrist and another clamped around her mouth, urging silence. You talk, you die. You talk, you die. You talk, you die. She repeats it over and over in her head.
Footsteps echo above them, crashing onto the worn wooden planks of their home. Her small frame tenses as her mothers does. The cellar door slams open, revealing her lover. Her mother has disappeared and suddenly she is no longer Ash, but herself now.
His hands are reaching for her neck, clutching it tightly as she struggles to breath. A sense of deja-vu hits her smack in the chest as she realises he had tried to suffocate her before. Years ago on a very different earth.
Her vision starts to black and the scene changes, his hands are gone but the hard pressed wire digs painfully into the skin of her back and ribs. The constant humming of the tek gives her no relief as it had eventually on the Ring, instead bringing up fear from the darkest depths of her being.
A fear she had though had been suppressed to the point of no return. However this doesn't seem to be the case,
The following explosion brings her dream to a halt, right in the making of a panic attack. Praimfaya burns in her sight line as she is trapped in the cage, acidic rain pounding rhythmically onto the wire and burning her, causing her to cry out in pain…
Echo wakes with a gasp, tears crawling down her face and her throat feeling hoarse. For a moment she thinks she can feel Bellamy’s long fingers at her throat but instead she finds him tossing and turning.
The blankets are on the floor and Echo finds herself on the very edge of the bed, about ready to fall off, about as far away from Bellamy as the mattress permitted. A particularly loud clap of thunder makes her flinch violently, sending herself back into Bellamy, her elbow colliding with his chest,
He grunts and Echo worries she may have woken him. It takes a flash of lightning and another loud thunderclap for her to notice how badly she’s shaking. The former spy almost wishes she had woken him.
The silence seems to drag on forever, the rain pounding on top of the ruined building. She sits against Bellamy and the wall,calming herself as best she could. The lightning and thunder strike again and Bellamy moves against her stomach. Echo lets out a yelp, both from the moment and the fact that the thunder has startled her again.
Bellamy lays his head against her chest, wrapping his arms around her. Echo clings to him, her nerves on edge. She feels bad he isn't sleeping but it also makes her feel better. He must feel her trembling because he sits up fully and pulls her close to his chest.
At first fight or flight kicks in and she tries to fight it. She calms herself down once he starts petting her hair to try and reverse trigger the attack.
“Sorry for waking you,” she murmured against his chest, trying to drown out the memories of cages, rain, being choked, and her mother.
“Don’t be,” he responds. “Why are you up anyways?” The question isn’t mean but Echo tenses at the sound of the thunder again, the painful radiation stinging resurfacing. Bellamy runs his fingertips up and down her arm, making a bunch of soothing noises for her. “You’re okay. You’re here with me, remember?”
She can’t help but feel stupid. Thunder shouldn't be feared. It’s simply a noise.
He seems to read her mind for her. “Do you want to talk about it?” The question catches her slightly off guard, and she has to think it over a moment.
“No, mochof,” she responds, mixing her natural language and gonasleng together. As painful as it is, the past is still the past. She doesn't wish to bring it up again. Bellamy seems to respect her decision, not saying anything more about it.
He presses his lips to her forehead and lays them back down, not bothering to pull the blankets off the floor. She sighs contently, finally seeming to settle herself down. Echo is no longer shaking and her cheeks are dry.