I'm lying on the ground. All around me the hills are dead. The world is vast but I can barely see any of it. The ground is bone-dry, sandpaper-rough, and hard against me. All around the wind tears and screams and grates and howls, slamming into my body. Woven through the wind, into its very being, are sharp and grating grains of dust, raging and swarming in every direction. They tear into my body like a thousand tiny shards, cloud and burn in my lungs until they feel they might be bleeding. I try to shield my nose with my hand, with my clothes, with anything, but I find that it doesn't help. Everything is pain. And this isn't remotely new. But this is strange. Inside me burns and screams incomprehensible fear. And it paralyzes me, making me unable to do anything but lie on the ground and breathe the pain around me. 

Suddenly I feel something warm and smooth move up my arm. I brave a glance at it, my curiosity strong against the wind. Somehow, there is no dust in my eyes. And I can see the small, green head of a snake peeking through the dust storm. It's beautiful. It's strong. It's so small and I don't know how it's holding its own in the wind. I smile. The snake slithers closer, curling its thin body around my neck. I feel a surge of protectiveness. I know I will have to find shelter or something for the bright green little snake. So I struggle and fight against the wind to stand up. I struggle and fight for every single step that I take in the swirling mass of air and dust that circles and tugs everywhere. And I keep walking, one hand pressed against the cloth on my nose and one hand hovering in front of the head of the snake. 

I walk and walk until I find the eye of the storm. Everything is calm around me. I open my eyes. And I look up. The sky is a sickening, oily deep purple shade, somehow darker than the darkest sky I have ever seen. 

The snake coils around a little closer to me. It's just a tiny little thing. Bright green as a fresh spring bud but with little button eyes and a pink tongue. No longer than my forearm. I feel so very protective of the little guy. I whisper to it in reassurance. 

"Hey little guy. I've got you. I will protect you."

"Will you now?" I startle. The voice is deep and booming. Haughty and contemptuous and patronizing. It sends a shivering song of dread down to my very core. 

I look in front of me. There, is a man. He has midnight-dark hair and hard blue eyes that remind me of dead fish. He is perched on a shining new motorcycle of red and black, accentuated by gold. It's very tall. He makes me want to cower. I step back, the howling dust storm digging into my back. I notice for the first time that I'm not wearing any clothes. Nothing to protect me against the wind and the storm and the heat and the dust and all the other elements. I'm soft. Vulnerable. And I hate it. I can't take my eyes off of the motorcycle rider. I'm too afraid to. But as I back out towards the storm, the snake ducks its head into my shoulder for protection. I can't go back out there with it. I need to protect it. This is the only safe spot. 

I cover myself as best as I can with my arms. And I look the rider in the eyes. 

"You don't scare me." I stand in front of him. As tall as I possibly can. He glares down contemptuously still. Doesn't see me. Not really. Suddenly he raises his palms to the sky, spreads his fingers out and curls them in like strange claws. He raises his arms and when he lowers them he brings the inky mass of dark violet above us down, down. And it descends, twisting and writhing in thick clouds. And it terrifies me. 

I run into the storm. I keep running, and running, shielding the snake as best as I can with my hands. And I don't stop. I breathe hard and it feels like my lungs are burning and bleeding and being scraped away. It feels like my skin is being bitten by thousands of insects. It feels like my soul is being suffocated. But the snake is safe. The snake is still safe. 

I startle up in bed. Well, not bed. The thin, threadbare sleeping roll on the floor that I sleep in. Ocotilla is beside me, her raven black hair shadowing even in the darkness of the night. She has a soft hand over baby January and on the other side of the baby is Delta. Beyond Summer Magni is sleeping. It's all so normal. Not good. Not with the exhaustion and the chemicals in the air and the knowledge that tomorrow will just be more work. But it's dark and slightly damp and too cold. I'm surrounded by my loved ones. By my family made of ties of shared pain and unquantifiable love. This is home. And yet the terror of the dream doesn't fade away into nothing as it should. It stays. Stays stays stays. More real than the silence and darkness around me. 

I do not want to wake anyone. They have a long, hard, gruelling day of work ahead of them. So I lay down. And clutch my arms to my chest. And start shivering. 

"Rain?" Summer's voice is drooping with sleep. Oh shit I woke her up. 

"I'm okay. Just. I had a nightmare."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault though."

"I know I just wish I could do something. I hope you feel better soon, for what it's worth."

"Thanks. You too."

"I wish I could help you."

She holds me. Gently. Tenderly. Almost anxiously. Like I'm baby January. And it makes me feel better somehow. We lay like that until I fall asleep again, thankfully this time to dreamless blackness. 

———

I wake up and it's dawn filtering in through the cracks of the windows. Dawn would be beautiful if it didn't mark the start of another goddamn day. But it does. And another goddamn day means more goddamn work at that hot, stuffy, whirring screaming factory dying fabrics until my hands sting and my head goes dizzy. Ocotilla's lucky. She doesn't have to go until January is a bit older. But still. Raising a baby with barely any resources is not even remotely easy and is traumatizing in its own way. I don't know if I envy her or not. 

Before we have to go do our work though we have half an hour to eat breakfast and get ready. And Delta is holding baby January close to his chest and lightly rocking him. And Magni and Ocotilla are preparing breakfast. And Summer is doing a rushed sweep of the room. 

"Rain had a nightmare." Her voice is worried but controlled. "It was really bad. They were shivering. And dead-cold." She's a year younger than me and merely a child but I swear to God she has moments of such maturity. 

Everyone turns to look at me. Thanks Summer. 

"I'll pray for you," Delta promises, his voice more concerned than it ought to be. He's the concerned older brother. 

"It was just a nightmare. But, holy shit it was a weird one. Really weird. I was in a dust storm. And there was a snake. A little green guy. Just small. I had to protect them. I didn't know why. But I had to try. And then ... then there was this man. On a motorcycle. And he brought with him this strange, not-quite darkness."

Ocotilla and Magni stare at me in amazement. 

"Child are you sure that wasn't a prophetic dream?" She asks me. 

"I ... I mean maybe."

"You've heard of the story of Eke Bonne right?"

"Which one? There are so many."

"The story of Eke Bonne becoming Eke Bonne."

Of course I'd heard of that story. Many times. There was a young slave who got captured when her lands were taken over by invaders. She was very young when this happened. Just four years old. She cried and she cried and she cried for her parents and the invaders kept her far away from them. She cried and cried for her freedom and they kept her under their power. She cried and cried for her childhood but they took that as well. She began to lose all hope. As one does. 

Every night she looked up at the stars and she remembered all the stories her community used to tell her. One day she was looking at Sirenna Ele, the great wolf. And she found that there was a strange and mystical force coming over her. All her pain and misery and heartbreak and hopelessness was being transformed into rage. She was made to sleep outside but this land was warm so it wasn't much different from sleeping inside. But still it was cruel. Still it was harsh. And dehumanizing. But it was an opportunity. All the wild beasts came to her, the young, fragile sleeping girl. They taught her their powers. They taught her how to fly, how to climb, how to dive. They taught her how to burrow. How to hide. How to fight. How to slip away unnoticed. How to weave webs. How to build nests. And they taught her how to take hope and store it deep, deep, deep within herself. And they taught her to find small bits if freedom wherever she could. If even just in the depths of her thoughts. They taught her to look up at the sky and see the Lifemaker looking down upon her. And they taught her to see the misery within herself and transform it into power. 

So then, then she wasn't rebellious yet. She was still a child without hope, without fight. But one day she was walking down the cut grass of the hills, carrying the bags of the invaders behind them. They were ignoring her like she was a shadow. But she was feeling angry. Not just downtrodden and ashes, but angry. She tripped, just by accident, and she fell. She felt fear spike thundering in her heart. They would yell at her. They would yell at her so hard. She knew she did not deserve it. All she thought of was escape. Quickly she transformed into a snake. Small and green to hide easily within the Living Earth. And then she slithered away. Gone. 

The invaders turned and began to shout, but saw there was no-one there. Just a pile of bags and baskets on the ground. So then they looked around. And nobody was around the hills. All they saw was a little green snake slithering. 

The Weapon Incarnate, one of the invaders, saw the fragility of the snake, saw the fluid movements. And she decided that she needed to capture it. She ran after it and caught the snake in her hands. But the little snake sprung back to bite her on her arm. The Weapon Incarnate screamed and let the snake go. The little girl-snake fled as fast as she could, quickly climbing a tree. The Weapon Incarnate got out her sword of death. And moved to strike the snake. 

But the tree transformed. Transformed into The Lifemaker Themself and shifted and Their body was made of the Earth itself, shimmering with Life. They opened Their mouth. And out came a pouring of fire that scattered the invaders every which way yet without consuming any of the lands and the grasses. It did however send the invaders running. 

Then the Lifemaker Walked on into the nighttime, the girl still coiled around her. They protected the girl and taught her how to have rebellion. 

Ocotillo told me this story back when I was much younger. She was a mother to me, because she had to be, because we were all losing grasp of stability within the midst of suffering. And she loved me with the force of a thousand supernovas and she made sure I knew it. 

"So do you think this snake was Eke Bonne herself?" Magni's eyes are soft with contemplative wonder. 

"I think so," I state, mind soaring at the thought. Eke Bonne came to me in a dream. What does this mean? What does she want me to do? 

"Well you should tell everyone of this after work," Delta states wisely. He's right. It's a good idea. I should. 

"Thanks Delta."

I'm dreading another day of work but I always am.