Phantom Pains

Week two brought the nightmares.

Silas woke up gasping, sheets soaked in sweat. He had dreamt of red snow. A cabin. A gun in his hand. A woman bleeding out, screaming his name—but it wasn't Lyra.

He walked into the kitchen. Lyra was awake, sitting on the counter in the dark.

"Who is Elena?" she asked.

Silas froze. The glass of water slipped from his hand and shattered.

"I don't know that name," he said.

"You said it in your sleep," Lyra said. "You were begging her to run."

Silas gripped the counter. The migraine spiked, blinding him with white light. A memory flashed—*I was a rebel. I was a medic for the Resistance. They caught me. They gave me a choice. The Cure or the grave.*

He pushed the memory down. Walled it off.

"You are mistaken," Silas rasped.

The next morning, the reality of the Citadel crashed into their fragile domestic war.

Silas was walking Lyra to the exercise yard when they passed Apartment 409. The door was open. Hazmat cleaners were inside.

On the floor lay a body. A man, a Rehabilitation Spouse. His head was gone. It had expanded and burst like an overripe melon. Pink slurry coated the walls.

"Subject rejected the implant," a cleaner grunted. "Neural cascade."

Lyra gagged, turning into Silas’s chest. She buried her face in his coat.

Silas stood rigid. He looked at the gore. He saw a piece of the man's jawbone on the floor. He felt horror. Pure, undiluted horror.

He wrapped his arm around Lyra. It was an instinct.

"Don't look," he whispered into her hair.

He realized what he had done a second too late. He had comforted her.

Lyra pulled back, looking up at him. Her eyes were wide. She saw the crack in the mask.

"You felt that," she whispered.

Silas looked at the cleaner spraying bleach over the blood.

"Yes," Silas admitted, his voice trembling. "I felt that."