The alarm wasn’t supposed to go off yet.

“No, no, no!” Syn tried to ignore it, screwing her eyes shut in an effort to sink back down into the comfortable abyss of her dreams. Sometimes when waking abruptly she was able to enter back into the dream state she had been ripped from…not this morning it seemed.

A deep sigh left her as she raised her arm and swatted at the offending alarm clock. Glaring red digital font showing 07:00AM seeming to mock her as it pushed away the fog blanketed village scene to her distant memories.

“Ugh.” She pushed the covers off, swinging her feet to the cold floor of her rundown apartment. She immediately yearned for the rough hewn planks under her feet and soft supple wolf skins warming her; smooth wood floors and hastily mass produced cotton blankets was disappointing to say the least.

She looked down at her fresh Vegvisir tattoo on her right thigh, smiling softly at the memories of both getting it done and what had occurred immediately following. It was a compass meant to guide those on their journey in life. Her journey…. The body art was meant to be a memorial but it had an all together different effect. The night after she had left the tattoo shop she had been more than a little out of it. She had maybe eaten dinner but she couldn’t quite recall anything from leaving the shop until she had found herself in pristine snow covered woods. The rough woven garments and furs she felt on her body then were a far cry from the tank and shorts she had crawled into bed and cried herself to sleep in.

A sharp crack of a twig breaking echoed in the silence and her head snapped towards the sound as panic coursed through her. As she peered into the trees, she was met with a pair of glowing eyes, and a low growl assailed her ears…a wolf?! Visions of a blade singing through the air, the sound of a yelp…everything was fuzzy now. “I’ll be back.”, she whispered softly.

Her phone chimed loudly, interrupting her escape to her memories yet again. Syn grumbled and pushed her sleeping pills to the side on her nightstand to give room for her hand to grasp the phone. Ah—Sam. She skimmed through the notification bar, seeing all of the 12 recent alerts were from the same person.

Samantha, her best friend and self proclaimed soul sister, thinks the “stress of grandma’s passing on has finally broken your brain” “you should talk to someone” “you need help?” “I’m worried about you” “Did you eat anything yesterday…you are losing too much weight” “should I come over?!” according to the texts. Syn swiftly typed a response, as she rolled her eyes… “I’m ok…see you soon.”

“Maybe I am losing it.” “Maybe there was something in that tattoo ink.” “Did I eat something funny?” These thoughts had raced through her mind like a stampede the first morning. Although…every night to have the same dream, in the same place, meeting the same man…. She could feel the frigid snowflakes hitting her skin and the acrid smell of wood burning in the village filled her nose. Everything felt so real. Her waking hours were dull in comparison, and the more she went back, the more she yearned for the escape of the village. Her waking hours seemed to be the dream now, when she was not asleep everything was off, out of place. She longed for the respite of slumber constantly, longed to feel…right.

She chewed her lip for a minute absent mindedly while she weighed the benefits of leaving the apartment she had shared with her grandmother. After a month long bereavement leave to sort out the elders affairs she was supposed to be back to work in a few short hours.

Maybe I could just not go, not go to work, not go out at all today… I could just go back to sleep? The bed with its disheveled pillow and blanket beckoned to her, and for a brief moment she caught a whiff of cold air and wood smoke; thought she saw the blanket shift from a rough cotton fabric to a plush and soft wolf pelt, the rough shape of a still sleeping male figure greeting her gaze. Her lips stretched into a smile.

The robotic synchronized beeping of her phone alarm once again pulled her from her reverie. “Damn it…. Fine.” She stood on shaky legs and shuffled over to the coffee pot, pulling up her shorts as they seemed to hang too low on her hips now, only to find the appliance and the coffee canister empty. “No coffee.. of course I have to go to the market… ugh” struggling to figure out how to force herself to wake up, much to her dismay. Maybe a shower… no a bath? She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and headed to the bathroom. Feeling a bit out of breath, she sat on the edge of the tub and turned on the water. The scene before her shifted again as the steam rose from the faucet and filled the room. She was standing beside an enormous wooden tub settled in front of a roaring fire.

She blinked and shook her head to clear it, stark white enamel paint and rust stains greeted her vision once again. Ignoring the covered mirror she disrobed and climbed into the warm water. Settling in and trying half-heartedly to keep her eyes open in the comfort of the bath.

After the water had gone cold, she rose, drained the tub and wrapped her self in a towel. Lacking the energy to dress herself again, she shuffled to the inviting bed. Maybe I’ll just lay down for a few minutes and then… she was already asleep.

Since the mirror was covered, Syn hadn’t have been able to see how much weight she had lost, how her eyes had sunken in, she didn’t look in the fridge to see how the food inside had started to spoil.. She had no desire to go to the market, no want to go to work, not an inkling of need to exit this apartment. She only had eyes for her Viking life, the life of her ancestors that her Vegvisir had whisked her to.

____________


Samantha Collings sat bedside in the hospital room, ready to say goodbye. No matter what the doctors had tried over weeks and weeks there was no improvement. She had been there when the police did a wellness check on her friend. She blamed herself for allowing her to end up this way but it was a mystery to everyone involved how someone could go downhill so swiftly.

So she sat, torn at how emaciated Syn had gotten, yet marveling at the look of contentment on her face. She grasped her hand and could swear that it was colder than it should’ve been. She sat in silence.

A sustained beep issued from one of the many machines drew the nurses. Tears slid down her cheek as for a moment she thought she caught a brief aroma of smoke, like a fireplace… “No, No, No...Syn…No... the alarm wasn’t supposed to go off yet.”