Context: As we roll out of the climax of Book 2 - A.T.X.D. Full Scale - Ashley has recovered from a post-combat surgery (I can't say from what yet because that's a critical plot element). She then has a nightmare in her barrack and is forced awake by it. The below scene is inspired from the 1986 Aliens film where Sigourney Weaver wakes up with a horrified start from one of her character's nightmares, and I wanted to see if the trauma aspect of my scene resonates with the audience. In other words, "Can you feel what Ashley is feeling in this scene?"
“Augh!” Her own frightened cry was loud enough to wake Ashley up from what was already a pretty shallow slumber. Letting out a second “Augh!” as she tried to regain her breath and reassure her mind that she was alive and back on Earth instead of Kronosia, Ashley took a moment to touch her head and briefly squeeze some frightened tears out of her eyes. She then felt her stomach and then touched her throat as she realized she was deadly thirsty.
The LFC could feel the sweat crawling down her face like tiny little bugs, and her breathing had shortened to a series of rapid huffs that she progressively tried to slow down into more manageable, deep breaths. But as her eyes became more adjusted to the darkness of her barrack, Ashley felt something on her feet and noticed that the usual humps at the other end of the bed where her toes would be were a little larger than usual. The covers had apparently been yanked out of place enough that it only took a quick upward pull for Ashley to see one of her Winflo trainers at the other end. The stealthy black and white Nikes were fully laced up, and the shoe on her right foot gently rocked back and forth as she adjusted position; two thirds of the other sneaker was still covered by the sheets. Among the P.T.S.D.-related symptoms which the SIO medic assigned to her case had observed of Ashley post-Kronosian War, Periodic Leg Movement Disorder had resulted in a number of unpleasant midnight awakenings as a result of the Lieutenant rolling and kicking around to the point she would either kick open a rift under the covers, or she would just push the sheets off completely. And lifting the exposed sneaker up a bit, Ashley could see some vague dirt marks in the mattress cover under the heel of her gym baby.
Sliding the right leg out several inches but still holding her shoe in the air for a moment, Ashley was noticeably surprised when she saw her athletic leggings. Putting the one foot down and then sliding the other leg out, Ashley sat up and patted her body a bit before silently confirming that she was oddly half-dressed: wearing only an undershirt for the upper half, but everything from the waist down was clothed in her athletic garments. Groaning with exhaustion, Ashley put a hand to her throbbing and sizzling forehead again as her memory started to come back. Since she had gotten out of surgery however many freaking days ago it had been, the Lieutenant was following the doctors’ advice to rest up and let her body recover. But then Ashley remembered wanting to do some basic exercises in the solitude of her barrack so she wouldn’t get a splitting headache from the commotion out in the Training Center. It therefore stood to reason that Ashley had retrieved her athletic attire from the locker and suited up for said exercises, but then must have gotten so fatigued that she simply took off her shirt and then forgot to remove everything else before collapsing in bed. Given that her head had been a throbbing fishbowl of blood and cerebral fluids since the surgery, plus the fact that her alarm clock now read 20:00 when it had only been 13:30 last time she checked, it was no surprise that Ashley had initially woken up with almost no memory of the exercises.
After lifting her legs and shifting the sneakers in and out briefly, the Lieutenant stood up and walked to the wash basin and countertop in the back of the room. Two steps short of the sink, however, and Ashley had to reach out and stabilize herself against the wall as her legs teetered and her stomach bubbled up with a queasy feeling. Stumbling up against the sink, Ashley took a moment to brace herself against the counter edge and then throw some water on her face to cool down. She was just reaching for the tap water again to quench her thirst when the queasy spell hit her once more, and it hurt real bad this time. There was luckily nobody else in the barrack as she stumbled towards the bathroom door on the left, yanked it open with a slam, and then collapsed on her knees as she hurled the sludge of her nightmares. Two more cycles of deep breaths and throwing up, and the Lieutenant had finally regained a more stable sense of composure as she flushed the mess and then returned to the sink to gulp down the water she meant to consume a few minutes prior.