I’m trying to calm my breath. (James pov)

Which is worse? Waking up when you know you died? Or feeling like an imposter in your own body.

I feel dizzy, I've been feeling a little dizzier lately.

I can't sleep! I was told last night by the man in the white suit; that if I keep my eyes wide open for another night I could break down. My grand mom, my lover , Sarah wouldn't have that. She won't allow me to take coffee or tea or anything that might seem like a stimulant. Yesterday I eyeballed a bowl of vegetable soup and she kept staring at me with a stern look spread across her face.

I don't know what is running through her mind, but I'm guessing I could be able to tell if I stare harder. I know she is bothered, she Is telling me a story about her past. I know her past already.Sarah says she was a cheerleader when she was younger .that all the boys wanted her in the past. I know this story from the past.it makes me happy.It makes her happy. She is still smiling at a picture of her and three other girls, dressed in their south side clamp uniform. she has a very beautiful smile; one of those smiles that makes your eyes reflective.

I want to tell her this, I want to call her beautiful. I want to call her mother. But I just can't bring myself to say the words.

I point at the fireplace; there is a small tally indentation on the rock walls. the number of days I have been alive, the number of bad dreams I have had. The number of days that I've had the image of that girl. Who is she?

Who I'm I? Who is Sarah?

Twenty-three days!

Since I was awoken on the brink of death, in another century, another city, another body. all I can remember was falling off my horse and hitting my head pretty bad. I can remember everything that moment: the smell of iron that filled my nose, seeing red as the blood gushed across my face, the way the wind suddenly hit the leaves.it was like at that moment where I knew I was about to die, I felt so alive. I could hear the ocean from across the district, I could sing along to the birds

I knew what note they would hit subsequently... Through the blood, I saw little earthworms latched between the mud ground.

And then darkness!

Pain! Torture!

I was suffering for all my sins, all the bad memories flooded my mind at that instant. everything I did. Every single thing I did.

I screamed. I wanted to look my torturer in the eyes, I wanted to know what I had done but I was alone. Just like I had been the day before, and before then. Till I couldn't count the days again. till my hunger grew, the chains flared deeper into my skin, till I knew the taste and smell of blood.

Then light,

Everything had vanished. I was alive, I was breathing. I was left in a ditch by someone, someone that wanted me gone .all that ran through my mind was;

Who buried me alive? But I couldn't think anymore, thinking needed silence. I could hear cars running past the streets, music from a nearby building, no birds flying past. Just the light blue skies and a big white bird that made a lot of noise. I could smell something; sweet and full of warm butter. I needed to eat something. how long has it been?

Most Importantly how does one climb out of a ditch?

That's how I got here, it seemed everyone had heard the story of the body. because, when I went through town everyone kept looking at me like I had suddenly appeared. As I got to know a few days ago, my suspicions were right. I was the town's mystery, a young boy who had vanished when he went to the creek with his friends and had been thought missing. nobody was found, so everyone assumed he had ran away. The same creek I had woke up in twenty-three days ago.

James! That's what everyone had called me when I walked down the streets. Even the woman who had just rolled into town after the strange incident was also calling his name. My name. And then there was Sarah.