The nightmares had been nightly for few weeks when they stopped being only nightmares.
He was running combat drills with Tank on a Tuesday morning—the 0600 session, shield pressure work, Tank applying force from the left while Zeph managed position and counter-angle—when the first waking intrusion arrived. Four seconds. No warning.
Not darkness. Not the vast absence of the nightmare space. A fragment. Sensory. The specific quality of a consciousness that was not his occupying the frame of his awareness briefly and completely—the way a large object passed close enough to block the light without touching you.
He stepped wrong. Tank's shield connected with his shoulder and drove him sideways.
"Focus," Tank said.
"I'm focused," Zeph said, which was not true, and Tank's expression communicated that Tank knew it was not true but was choosing to accept it for now.
The fragment had lasted four seconds. He had experienced it as longer.
He filed it. Continued the drill.
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