“Healing hill. That’s what they’re callin’ it.” A voice in her head was telling her. She looked around her and knew this was her first dream ever. This was the hill she happened upon when she landed on Xeno. The woman who was talking looked every bit the housewife she’d seen illustrated in the magazines the humans brought from Earth. But she seemed a part of a herd of humans and other beasts. They just roamed the hillside, eating grass or conversing in little cliques. This particular woman held a hen in her arms and stroked it like it was a kitten. “If you are here, you might be hurt or handicapped in some way. There used to be a hospital for people like us, but the government said it did more harm than good. The fact that the government was harmful enough without trying to kill those of us who had problems.”

“So I’m still on Xeno? What’s your name?”

“Yes, still here. Isn’t it a shame that even in your dreams you can’t leave. Oh, they call me Henrietta, because…” She held up her hen. “She came up to me one night and just stayed. guess life is hard even for her kind here.”

At that moment they heard a horn. “Oh, that’s the gathering horn. We have to gather up and be counted. We used to try and hide during these counts. But those that didn’t show up, when found were treated with a heavy hand. They would be beaten hard. Many didn’t make it out alive. This life isn’t the holiday it appears to be. Our bones pave the highway back to that hell–hole George Goodman created.”

As they gathered, Ora was torn. She wanted to hide but how would being dead help her and this planet or Haven? They heard a buzzing. It looked like a toy helicopter hovering above. Then it flew away.

“That was them counting us. That thing has a camera.” Henrietta explained. Ora was going to ask a question when she heard a noise that didn’t fit the scene. It sounded like someone knocking. That’s when she woke up.

____

That was the first scene I wrote yesterday. I thought the A2Z was a daily thing, but I learned that we get Sundays off. The good of that is I’m a day ahead in the A2zs.

BUT, the problem for me is that CampNaNo takes no days off without getting behind in the count. If you don’t write at least 1,666 words a day you will find it hard to catch up. I know people that seem to be able to do the catching up easily. But for me, it is pure torture. Even today, I’m having trouble with the next part of the story because I’ve forgotten much of what this section is based on in my book, Earth the Final Frontier. I’m making a lot of callbacks to the friends I created. I wrote it five or six years ago. But I forgot who knows and who isn’t there. So I better get back to re-reading and furious writing. Ahead, yet behind. Sounds like a timey-wimey thing to me. By the way, at my latest count, I have 13,691. Today I should end on 14.994 but I will try to push to 15,000. And I need to do my languages on Duolingo. Grabbing my coat and hat, see ya later!