Not A Dream Who: Analiese and Adnan When: morning Where: near the rock waterfall, then camp What: discovering a newcomer Rating: PG
Analiese was mostly in a daze as she wandered over in the direction of the rock pool and waterfall near which she and Bazzer had swam the previous day. That had probably been a mistake, she'd realized as soon as she'd awakened bundled up in her sweater and her blankets still absolutely freezing. Her feet still hurt, sore from the long walk to get to this camp from the sweetgrind fields, and she was sniffly and her eyes kept watering. She had the bad feeling that she was getting sick. While she was cold, she still had an irresistible craving for cold, fresh water, and the little pool where the grazers drank was the best place she'd found to get that.
She rounded the stand of brush and the rock that surrounded the pool, pausing to peer at her reflection in its surface. She'd never imagined looking this horrible. Her hair was an unmanageable mess that she'd finally French-braided and tied with a tough piece of vine as soon as she'd gotten up, and of course she didn't have any makeup; her skin looked pale and blotchy. Well, nobody else had makeup either, she reminded herself, and something like that was the least of her worries. She drank deeply from her cupped hands and then turned around, uttering a little squeak when she saw a man lying on the purple grass a yard or so away.
He didn't seem to have any bedding, she noticed as she crept closer, but he had a backpack and... a guitar case? She was certain he hadn't been in camp before, if for no other reason than she would have noticed somebody with a guitar. She stopped just short of him, wondering if she should try to wake him up.
Adnan was dreaming, and vividly. The humming and gentle rocking of the Greyhound bus had put him right to sleep, and sent him into dreams. They had started out pleasant enough, but at some point had turned a corner. To ... fire. Modest homes burning. The stench of cooked flesh on the black smoke. He frowned in his sleep, the arms that held the guitar case in a deathgrip twitching restlessly. He felt like someone was standing behind him. But there was no one left ... he had to bury his family by himself ...
Dark eyes popped open and his body jerked violently, arms tightening protectively on his guitar. There was somebody, and apparently the bus had stopped, and he had to protect his stuff ... His messy head twisted and he looked at the person looking at him with uncomprehending suspicion. Wait ... he wasn't on the bus. In fact ... Adnan muttered something fuzzy in Kurdish and sat up, looking around more jerkily. "Where the fuck ...?" he asked no one in particular.
So this was really how it worked, Analiese thought. You just woke up here with no clue how you'd gotten here and no way to get back. She picked at the sleeve of the big sweater she wore over her camisole and leggings pajama set, an expression of bafflement on her face as the man spoke in a language she'd never heard. Did he speak English? she wondered. She crept closer, sitting down a couple of feet away from him and wrapping her arms around herself. She was so cold, and as she thought about that fact, the inside of her throat began to itch. "Do you speak English?" she asked, her voice a soft drawl, heavily flavored with the South.
His head jerked around to look at her again, seeming startled that she'd spoken. For a second he almost didn't understand her, what with the reeling brain and all. English was his third language, and iffy at times. If there were any of those times, this was one of them. He looked her over, then the little pool area behind her, and then at the grass. The purple fucking grass. Had somebody slipped him something in his sleep? Unlikely, he'd learned to be a light sleeper out of necessity. Adnan looked at the girl again. "Ah ... ah, yes. Yes I speak English," he said, and it was flavored with what was popularly known as 'Middle Eastern' in the United States. He wet his lips and looked around again. "Where are we?"
Analiese was relieved; she had no idea what she would have done if he hadn't. It had been horrible to wake up here thinking that she was in her bed until she'd opened her eyes, and she imagined he was feeling the same way. Except he probably hadn't been in bed considering all the stuff he had with him. She watched him soberly, quickly patting just beneath her nose to make sure it wasn't running and then winding her arm around herself again. "I don't know," she replied. "I woke up a couple days ago out there--" She nodded in the direction of the lake. "--with a group of people who were walkin' to here." She could feel herself blushing, and she asked abruptly, "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"
Adnan stared at her for a moment, processing her words. It was harder than it should've been. He realized in a much more belated way than he would have otherwise that she looked miserable and kind of ill. " ... if you are, than I am too," he said after a moment's pause, and hoped that was a little reassuring. For one of them, anyway. He stared around again, as though he kept hoping the landscape would change if he just gave it enough time. But no. The grass was still purple, and there still didn't seem to be anything around but it and the water and the girl. He muttered something else in his mother tongue and then looked down to assess what he had around him. Which seemed to be everything he had in the world. His guitar and his pack. He patted them subconsciously and started to pick himself up to get a better look around. "A couple of days ago, you said?" he asked her, frowning.
Analiese smiled when he said if she was, he was too. That made her feel better somehow, here where nothing was really all right. "Maybe all of us're crazy," she said. "That would explain it." She hadn't completely given up the wild idea that maybe she was delirious, that this was a fever dream. She watched him look over his stuff and wondered if anyone had arrived with that many possessions. Maybe the military guy she'd seen around camp, the one who was in such awesome shape. He even had a gun. "Couple days, yeah," she answered him. "I went to sleep in the mountains, in East Tennessee--" Most people had never heard of Pigeon Forge, after all. "--and woke up here. With purple grass and a homeopathic doctor and a pregnant girl as the welcomin' committee." She giggled as she remembered Rowan using the word placenta in their very first conversation. "I'm Analiese," she introduced herself.
If he was perfectly honest, Adnan had only a vague recollection of where Tennessee was. He thought it sounded familiar enough that he'd passed through it, but couldn't place it on a mental map at the moment. Not that she was requiring him to, but at least she came from the U.S. as well. "Homeo ... doctor and a pregnant girl," he murmured, trying to get the gist of what she was saying. Her accent was a bit difficult, but at a lot of them were for him. Her name got through, however, and he nodded to her. Analiese, he thought he could remember that. "I'm Adnan," he told her. He turned in a slow circle, eying the land. Not that there was much to eye. "Where are the others?" he asked, looking to Analiese again. Then, "... are you cold?" She just seemed it, for some reason.
Adnan. It was not a name she'd ever heard before, but she liked it. It had a slightly exotic flair, something she always appreciated considering she was a girl who'd barely ever been out of the hills of Tennessee. "Nice t'meet you," she said. It was amazing how a lot of them tried to conserve the niceties they'd been taught as children even in a place like this. When he asked where the others were, she waved a hand in the direction from whence she'd come. "Not far," she replied. "There's a campfire and they're buildin' shelters, too. There's about... sixteen, eighteen people?" she guessed. She hadn't really counted them. Everything seemed to move so fast here. Without realizing it, she'd been pulling at the cardigan sweater she wore over her pajamas, as if somehow she could make it warm her better that way. "I think I'm getting sick," she explained when he asked her if she was cold. "It was freezin' last night. I have a comforter but it didn't do much for me."
Sixteen to eighteen. People. Here. In this place with the purple grass. He caught sight of a ... very large animal out in the field to their left and froze up for a second. Adnan blinked rapidly and focused on the girl again. Analiese. She looked human, at least, and that was something he could grab a hold of. "Here," he said, slipping out of his army jacket and holding it out for her. It just seemed like the thing to do. "Can you take me to them?" he asked, as if there was another option. He still didn't really know what was going on here, and he really needed ... he didn't know, confirmation or something. From many other faces and mouths.
"It's just a grazer," Analiese said when she saw the direction of Adnan's gaze. "Usually they swim across the lake in the mornings." She'd already discovered that the grazers were dumb but harmless. She beamed at Adnan when he offered his jacket. What a gentlemanly thing to do! "Thank you," she said, finding that it was big enough to fasten even over Luke's sweater, which she was still glad to have despite its unpleasant associations. "Yeah, it'll be warmer by the fire, anyway. D'you want me to help carry anything?" She felt the need to offer even though he was obviously a lot stronger than she was.
The coat seemed to please her, so that put him a little more at ease. It was comforting and normal, somehow. "You're welcome," he said with a tiny little smile. Then chuckled and shook his head. "No, thank you, I have it." He hoisted the duffel bag up and over his shoulder, then picked up his guitar case. Even if he'd been loaded down with four or five more bags, he wouldn't have let her help. She was cold and did look a bit sick. The morning -- at least he assumed it was morning -- was chilly against his bare arms, but that wasn't anything he wasn't used to already.
Analiese led the way in her sock feet, occasionally wincing when she stepped on a rock or a twig; she was still footsore from the unaccustomed walking she'd done the day she'd woken up here. "Where are you from?" she asked him, glancing back behind her as if to check that he was still with her. She then turned her attention back to the path in front of her as she listened, not wanting to fall over anything. She was also trying to ignore the growing throb in her temples that, if it continued unchecked, was going to veer dangerously close to migraine territory.
He never quite knew how to answer that question, and apparently that was still true, even in ... wherever he was. "Ah ... Iraq, originally," he said, and braced himself already for the reaction that usually got him. People either seemed to think he was a terrorist and ready to blow them up, or they reacted with strange sympathy. Which he supposed on some level he deserved, but he didn't want it from strangers who didn't know anything about him. "But I have been traveling the United States for some years now. So ... nowhere and everywhere all at once, I suppose." He reached out for her arm to steady her as she stepped on another rock.
Analiese was certainly not unintelligent, but she wasn't a woman who was into current events or politics, and Adnan saying he was originally from Iraq had no more effect on her than if he'd said he was from Mexico or Germany or any other foreign country. She worked hard to be forward-thinking and unprejudiced, since she'd been raised by parents who thought it was perfectly fine to drop the n-word into conversation. "Travelin's good," she said, gratefully clutching his arm when it was offered. "I always wanted to do that. Not like this, though." She'd thought Florida, California, Maine. Not wherever this was, not without shoes or so much as a fleck of makeup.
He let out a soft little chuckle at that. "No, not like this," he had to agree. He would know, he'd done a lot of traveling. Encouraged by the total lack of reaction about his homeland, he let her hang solidly on to him, dark eyes aimed ahead of them to watch for bigger obstacles than rocks. It was something to do, at least, to keep most of his mind occupied. "Where did you want to go?" he asked, to keep up the conversation as well. For the rest of his mind.
Analiese smiled, her expression slightly wistful as she picked her way along, more easily than she had before with Adnan's help. "Anywhere," she said with a soft laugh. "I was never out of my home state before. I have three brothers and a sister." She said it as if that should explain everything. The Bleues, of course, had never had any spare money to speak of with that large a family. She chewed at her lower lip. "I always wanted to see the beach, somewhere in California."
Adnan couldn't imagine such a stationary life, but he'd run into countless people who'd been living it. Even back home, they'd moved around quite often. But he didn't dwell there, and he wasn't about to start now. "I have been," he said with a nod, not offering up how many sisters he'd had. "In some parts it's beautiful, in other parts it's been ruined. If you are ever to go, I would recommend northern California first. Big Sur, those types of places." The coastline on either side of the country was somewhere he kept going back to.
So far, Analiese was blocking out of her mind the thought that she might not ever get back. Some of these people had been here for nearly a month. Already, she couldn't imagine spending that much time in a place like this. "I hope I get to," she said. It was easier than usual to subdue the little flutter of panic that she might not due to how dreadful she felt. "I've never seen an ocean at all. The lake over there doesn't count." She'd been to the lake back home, had even been to Nashville for a rare family vacation when she'd been about sixteen. They emerged at the very edge of camp, where there was a blazing fire going and people still huddled up in their bedrolls. Something was cooking in a big clay pot, something that smelled almost like beef stew although there was no way it could actually be beef stew. "Here we are," she said.
It looked like a real camp, and that in itself was a relief to Adnan. He hadn't lied when he said if Analiese was crazy, he was too, but that didn't mean he'd discounted that very possibility. But there were other people and a fire and some blankets and everything. He had a brief moment where he had no idea where to start, with talking to people, and it was almost tempting to turn around and go back to the pond. Which was ridiculous, but there it was. "Thank you," he said quietly to the girl from the south. Now what?
Analiese, who was still holding his arm, patted it like the true Southern girl she was. "You're welcome," she murmured. "I think I'm gonna go lay back down for a few minutes." She really, really wasn't feeling great; the longer she spent upright, the more her head hurt. "Thanks for lettin' me borrow your jacket," she added. "Let me know when you want it back." With a faint smile, she was heading for her pillow and sky-blue comforter that she'd left not far from the fire.
"Of course," he said hurriedly, as though he'd been keeping her from resting. Which he supposed he had been. "Go ... feel better." He gave her an unsure sort of nod, and watched her go. Now ... to do something. Introduce himself, secure a spot ... something. Hiking his bag a little higher on his shoulder, Adnan scanned the area and scouted a place to put his stuff down and try to grasp what the bloody hell was going on.