CHAPTER TWENTY
“Brooke. Brooke, wake up.”
My eyelids flutter open. I’m flat on my back on the parched earth. I can’t feel any pain at all; my whole body is comfortably numb.
There’s a blanket of stars above me. I squint, trying to work out who it is standing before me. But it’s impossible. The person is nothing more than a silhouette.
“Who are you?” I manage to say.
My voice is no longer parched. My tongue isn’t swollen, nor are my lips dry and cracked. But it’s still hard to get my words out. It’s like I can’t move, like I’m more than just numb, but paralyzed.
“It’s me,” the voice replies.
But I can’t place it. It sounds like a hundred different voices in one. I can’t even tell whether it’s a man or a woman.
I don’t know whether I’m dead or alive, awake or dreaming. All I know is
