The smell of burning electrical systems came sharp and acidic and the air was full of smoke of various colors. The war had been waging for years and the final push had come at last. The Komtasi, who had started the war, believed they had been chosen to cleanse the world of all sentient life. They viewed it as an evil, an evolutionary mistake, and they wanted to fix that. As Cambri stood there on the blasted outcropping of rock, overlooking the advancing force, she couldn’t help but wish she had been on the other side of the conflict. She figured most people might feel that way when facing such utter defeat. Although, the Komtasi had no intentions of allowing themselves to survive this war either. Tens of thousands of their ranks had already been killed in accordance with their own edicts. As forces were no longer needed, they were eliminated.

No one was getting out of this war alive, she thought.

“They’re coming!” someone shouted out needlessly.

Everyone knew, they’d heard the reports of the advance and the time of their arrival had been calculated. However, as Cambri watched the first ranks come into view she felt a cold shiver run down her body. Her stomach clenched and she wanted to run away and find someplace to hide.

The problem was, there was nowhere to run to, no hiding place sufficient to keep her from discovery. A few soldiers thought to take their chances anyway and she watched as a few dozen others turned away and ran. Nobody tried to stop them. What would be the point? Why waste your strength, your ammunition, on those few?

Throughout history there had been countless wars, each one devastating in its own right, but the current conflict was something else. This was no expansionist attempt or resource grab. The aggressors in this conflict even had somewhat honorable beginnings.

“We are not without mercy,” a voice carried easily across the distance between the two armies. It was a calm yet firm voice, one that people had become all too familiar with over the years. “Lay down your arms and you will be given the death of sleep. It is painless, swift, and efficient. If you resist, you will be given the death of fire.”

Everyone around Cambri shuffled uneasily where they stood, waiting. The terrible weapons wielded by the Komtasi were almost alien, and they were the source of the smoke and stench in the air. As if on cue, a greenish-blue orb of crackling energy streaked across the empty space between the armies and collided with the earthen bulwark to Cambri’s left. The energy spat and crawled and spilled over the ground, almost like water, until the writhing tendrils found those people it was nearest to. Some burned to ashes where they stood. Others collapsed, unconscious, muttering and twitching as though dreaming.

Another flash of light and another such blast struck to Cambri’s right and more soldiers fell.

A cry, instinctual and unbidden, rose up inside her as she leveled her own weapon towards the Komtasi lines. Others joined in her shout of defiance, of terror, of desperation. Rockets, mortars, and every other weapon they had at their disposal was let loose. No longer did anyone bother themselves with thoughts or concerns for conserving ammunition. There was no point in leaving anything for tomorrow.

Another flash of energy and Cambri watched as the blast drew nearer and her stomach knotted into an iron lump as she realized the blast was headed straight for her.

                                                                                         *

Cambri awoke with a start. Her heart was racing and sweat beaded on her brow. Her dog, Samson, lay beside her, wide awake and looking at her with expectant concern.

“I’m alright, buddy,” Cambri said and gave him a comforting pat on his flank.

Samson’s tail wagged a couple times and he gave her hand a slow and thoughtful lick.

She had those nightmares from time to time and Samson always seemed to know when they were happening since he was always there by her side whenever she awoke. It had been years since the war had ended but still she found herself reliving those last few days, those last few moments, over and over again in her dreams.

She shook herself over, driving the memories and dreams from her mind and set about to get ready for the day. As always, Samson bounded around eagerly as soon as he saw her moving to get up.

“Come on,” she said eagerly to him. “You want some breakfast?

Samson leapt up at that question and almost bowled her over in his excitement.

“Okay, you,” she laughed. “Quiet down or you’ll wake the neighbors.”

She reached the kitchen and pulled down the bin that held Samson’s food. She scooped some out and then poured it into his dish. Samson sunk his muzzle down into it and spent the next couple minutes chomping down on the kibble.

While Samson ate, Cambri set about making her own breakfast. She poured a bowl of cereal, grabbed a spoon, and sat down at her table.

The body of an unknown soldier lay across the table, his eyes half closed. He was muttering and twitching as if dreaming.

Cambri shot back from the table in shock. Her chair clattered to the floor and Samson spun around, teeth bared and looking for the source of Cambri’s distress.

The body was gone.

Cambri’s hands were shaking and she was clutching her spoon so tightly she thought it might leave a mark on her palm. Her bowl was now shattered across the floor and cereal covered the tile.

“It’s nothing, Samson,” Cambri said in a shaky voice. “It’s alright. Go back to your food.”

Samson looked unconvinced but returned to his food all the same as Cambri began cleaning up her mess. Fortunately, she hadn’t added the milk yet to her cereal so it would be pretty easy to sweep up. Still a bit shaky, she opened the pantry door and grabbed the broom from the corner. She was just beginning to sweep when she realized it wasn’t a broom. It was a rifle.

Again, she cried out in shock and Samson did another surprised spin as he heard her distress. The rifle clattered to the ground and, unlike the soldier from before, did not go vanish away. It didn’t become her broom again either but instead just lay there on the rocky ground.

No, not rocky ground, on the kitchen tile.

She closed her eyes, opened them, and shut them again when her vision continued to show her things that weren’t real. She pressed her palms tight against her eyes, massaging and focusing on her breathing.

Samson nuzzled her thigh and Cambri immediately knelt down beside him and wrapped her arms around his neck. The soft, warm fur felt good against her face.

“Come on Cambri, you’ve got to wake up,” she said but the voice was not her own. “You’re fighting it, Cambri, don’t stop fighting.”

Samson shifted beneath her and Cambri opened her eyes. Samson licked her face gently and his tongue was warm and wet. It wasn’t an overly pleasant thing to be licked on the face, but it had a calming, centering effect on her.

She let go of Samson and then, without looking at it directly, she picked up her broom and returned it to the pantry. She could finish cleaning up once things had calmed down in her mind. She wasn’t very hungry now anyway. She could eat later.

“Let’s go to the park,” Cambri meant to say but instead it came out as, “Let’s fall back and regroup.”

Again, it wasn’t her voice that she heard speak.

Samson bared his teeth yet again.

“Come on,” Cambri said, and she was relieved to hear her own voice this time. “Let’s get your leash.”

Samson followed her to the entryway and let her clip the leash to his collar. She slipped on her shoes and a light jacket and then unlocked the door. The cool morning air would do her good and calm her mind. There was still a half hour before sunrise but it would be plenty bright to see by so she left her flashlight behind.

Outside was chaos. Samson bolted at once, yanking her forward so hard that she lost her footing. Somehow she managed to land on his back as he ran but couldn’t manage to get herself to roll off. The ground around them burst periodically with energy or explosions and a dozen different voices shouted out in confusion.

“Stop, Samson,” she tried to say but her mouth felt suddenly heavy and sluggish.

How she was staying on his back was a mystery. Someone came up from behind Samson, a Komtasi soldier, and leveled a rifle at them. Cambri cried out in surprise but instinct kicked in and she drew the small pistol from her hip and fired three times into the soldier. He dropped and did not move again.

At the noise of the gunshots, Samson bucked and threw Cambri to the ground whereupon he began to lick her face incessantly.

“Okay,” Cambri declared while she tried to brush him away. “I’m here, I’m okay.”

But Samson would not stop. He just held her down, his paws pressed down on her chest while he kept licking her face. Soon it felt like his drool would drown her and she finally had to bodily shove him away from her so she could catch her breath. Samson eyed her warily as though expecting her to lose her grip on reality again. In truth, Cambri was worried about that as well. For now, the sidewalk, the neighborhood, everything looked as it should be.

Ever since the war she’d been terrified of sleeping and dreaming. She watched so many of her friends, her brothers and sisters in arms, fall to the Komtasi’s strange weapons that made people collapse into a sleep from which they would never awaken. They would simply waste away, slowly dying of dehydration and starvation unless they were lucky enough to have someone there to take care of them.

But the war was long over. It had been a hard-won victory, with terrible losses, but humanity had survived and the Komtasi were driven back.

One of Cambri’s neighbors came jogging over to her, no doubt having witnessed Cambri’s latest episode and wanting to come and check in on her.

“Hi, Matta,” Cambri waved at her with feigned calm.

Matta knelt beside her and rested a hand on Cambri’s shoulder. It was embarrassing enough to be seen in public during one of her episodes, but to be found lying on the ground with Samson standing vigilantly beside her as though calling out for help was even worse.

“Komtasi forces are pushing in from the south,” Matta’s mouth moved but the words were not hers. Her expression was calm and comforting but the voice was weary and panicked. “We can’t afford to carry our casualties.”

“She’s close to waking,” Cambri heard when she tried to tell Matta that she couldn’t understand her.

“No one wakes up,” was the reply.

It was like finding herself in a poorly dubbed movie where she knew the replaced language wasn’t matching up with what she was hearing. Rather than try and fight it, she just waved dismissively to Matta and moved to get up so she could just go home. Obviously, today was not a good day to go out.

However, as she tried to rise, her body felt heavy and she couldn’t get herself to move by more than a few inches. She tried again, concentrating hard, and slowly she was able to get one hand to slide over her chest to begin the process of rolling over.

“You should lie still,” Matta said with gentle concern.

“No, I need to get up,” Cambri insisted as she struggled against her sluggish body.

Slowly, inch by inch, she moved and shifted until she was able to get her hands beneath her. The gravel and dirt beneath her fingers was incongruous with the sidewalk she was on but she ignored it for now. She needed to get up.

“Come on Cambri,” the superimposed voice from before said, excitement in its voice. “Come on, get up!”

“I’m trying,” Cambri muttered through gritted teeth. The effort of even this little movement was incredibly taxing.

She just wanted to go back to sleep. She was so tired. She never got enough sleep, it seemed. Her eyelids drooped and she felt her body twitch as she nearly collapsed back down onto the ground. She bit down on her lip, the pain helping her to focus and some of the weight seemed to lift from her body. She dug her fingers into the dirt and pulled her knees up beneath her.

“I can’t believe it,” another voice said nearby.

Whether her eyes were open or closed anymore she couldn’t tell. The wasteland of the battlefield was all she could see now, with just ghostly wisps hinting at where Samson, Matta, and the rest of her neighborhood were.

She was in a shallow crater with a few other soldiers. All of them were looking at her in shock and amazement as she finally managed to get her feet under her and rise unsteadily into a standing position.

“How?” one of them asked.

“I just want to go home,” Cambri murmured, waving them off and then trying to peer into the mists of her vision to see if she could find where her home was. However, the more she moved and pushed back the tiredness, the less she could see of her reality.

“Where are you going?” another demanded when Cambri began to walk away from them in the direction she guessed was the right one.

“I’m going home,” she told them.

“The Komtasi are that way!”

The three soldiers all grabbed hold of her and pulled her back down just in time as a burst of energy fire flew overhead.

“The Komtasi are defeated!” Cambri was growing more and more frustrated, though she always tried not to lose her temper with her hallucination and flashbacks. “The war ended years ago!”

“What are you talking about?” they demanded.

“Look,” Cambri said in as calm a voice as she could manage and she was rather impressed with how well she managed it considering the situation. “I’m just having some flashbacks, none of this is real, and my house is somewhere over there. Come here Samson!” she added and patted her leg to call him to her.

She might not be able to see where she was going, but Samson would know the way. Sure enough, she felt him lick her hand shortly afterward and felt the tug of the leash in her hand as he began to lead her along.

She walked, or she tried to. It certainly felt like she was walking, but with every step her body felt heavier, her legs grew weaker, and the overwhelming sensation of sleepiness grew more insistent.

“Don’t go back to sleep!” the soldier nearest her, the one who’s voice she had heard the most, called out to her.

There was something familiar about that voice. Was it someone she had known back during the war? Her mind sometimes did that, filling in her flashbacks and hallucinations with people she had once known. And then, as she thought on it, she remembered.

“Carmichael,” Cambri said to herself.

They had been in the same battalion and fought beside one another during multiple battles. She tried to remember if he had survived that final battle, but no memories came

“Yes, it’s me, Carmichael,” he replied, suddenly looming close in her field of vision. “And Saris just got here too!”

“Saris?” Cambri wondered aloud. “Saris…

“Your bunk-mate,” Carmichael supplied.

“Oh yeah,” Cambri remembered Saris now as well. They hadn’t been able to really get to know one another all that well but the times they had had were fine enough. Mostly sharing memories from before the Komtasi and what they wanted to do once the war was over. The usual stuff most soldiers talked about.

“Is your head okay?” Carmichael asked and Cambri became aware that, yes, her head did hurt quite a bit.

“Feels like I’ve been hit in the head,” Cambri admitted.

“Yeah, I bet,” Carmichael chuckled. “You fell pretty hard there and whacked it on the ground.”

Cambri looked around and was surprised to find herself back in the shallow crater again, though lying on her back and propped up against someone’s pack. She let out a sigh of frustration. She had been so close to being back home and yet, for all she knew, she could be wandering around the neighborhood like a lunatic and talking to nonexistent people.

“Samson!” she called out again. “SAMSON!”

“Shut it!” hissed Carmichael, “The Komtasi aren’t that far away!”

“Stop, I told you the war is long over. None of this is real. I’m just…I’m just arguing with figments of my imagination.” She finished lamely and turned her attention back to trying to find Samson. She couldn’t feel him, which was odd. He was trained to never leave her side while outside.

She waved her hand around, trying to see if she could find him even though she couldn’t see him, but to no success.

“Cambri,” Carmichael said softly, “if the war is over, how did it end?”

The simplicity of his question brought her attention back to him and she met his gaze. He looked at her imploringly, almost begging her to give him a response.

“We won the war,” Cambri stated.

“I know, but how?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re surrounded, the last pocket fighting against the Komtasi. How do – how did we defeat them? What were the tactics? What do you remember?”

Cambri tried to remember. She rarely thought back to that day intentionally. She remembered the fear, the sense of doom, watching the first few salvos from the Komtasi as they struck to either side of her position, and then…and then…

“I was hit,” she murmured, still straining her memory, trying to find what had happened that brought an end to the war. “It was years ago, though,” she went on, seeking to justify her difficulty in remembering.

“How many years ago was it?” Carmichael asked.

Again, as Cambri tried to remember she couldn’t quite find a definitive answer, just that it was ‘years ago’.

Carmichael seemed to be reading her expressions and he nodded understanding.

“They made you fall asleep,” he told her. “You dreamed that all of this was in the past. The Komtasi wanted you to stay asleep. Maybe they gave you that dream. Maybe it’s the same dream for everyone. But it was just a dream.”

Another burst of energy cut through the sky above and everyone in the crater winced as it crashed down not too far from where they sheltered and bits of sparking light showered down around them. A second later and their crater was flooded with the strange energies. She and the other soldiers scrambled to get out of the crater but it was too late. One by one they were seized by it. One of them burned and turned to ash whereas Carmichael writhed and convulsed before dropping to the ground, eyes half closed and muttering.

                                                                                      *

Cambri awoke with a start. Her heart was racing and sweat beaded on her brow. Her dog, Samson, lay beside her, wide awake and looking at her with expectant concern.

“No,” Cambri breathed out and Samson licked her hand comfortingly.