"Mmm, smells good," she said, standing in front of the barbecue, the beautiful ocean a backdrop.

"Me or the steak?" Mikaal's green eyes had their usual teasing glint in them.

Dalia rolled her eyes. "You just can't help yourself, can you?"

He laughed before flipping each piece with his tongs. "I'm addicted to that expression of yours," he said with a lazy smile.

Dalia shook her head, but she came around to his side, put her arm around his waist and pulled him into a small embrace. "Thank you," she said.

Mikaal shrugged but his face beamed.

Dalia peered at the four chunks of meat on the stainless steel barbecue tray. Abruptly, her face darkened and she clutched her stomach. She clamped her mouth shut and fought the urge to vomit.

The pieces of beef had turned bloody and black, but it was the maggots crawling out from underneath that made her want to throw up.

"Ugh!" Dalia jerked upright in her bed, panting, her body shaken. She gagged and shook her head in an attempt to erase the last image from her mind.

It was the second night in a row that she had had the same dream.

Since her visit to Silk Road, the dream that had plagued her for over six months had suddenly stopped—only to be replaced with this one.

In spite of how the dream had ended, Dalia immediately reached under her pillow for her notebook. Putting pen to paper, she scribbled all the new details she could remember onto the page. When she was done, she dropped the black pen and allowed it to roll to the fold where the lined pages met.

Creases formed across her forehead before she let out a long sigh. Writing in her new diary had the unwelcome effect of reminding her of her elusive old one.

For days, she had turned her room upside down in search of that old journal, but to no avail. She had always kept her diary under her bed in a box of keepsakes—away from the prying eyes of her brother, who would tease her to no end. But she had checked under her bed, in all her bags new and old, even on her desk, unstacking the neat pile of books lined up against the wall. But her efforts produced zip.

That diary had her whole history with Blake, from first crushing on him through to the weeks after he broke her heart. So what it might say about Mikaal...

Dalia threw herself back down on her bed and squeezed her eyes shut. She inhaled long and slow, held her breath for three counts, then exhaled. She repeated this two more times before opening her eyes.

Her head now lighter, she wondered aloud what she should do next.

"Ardelle!"

She fished for her phone between her pillows and located Ardelle's number in her contacts.

The phone rang for a few seconds before the call cut off and she felt the vibration pattern of a text coming through. She swiped down from the top of her screen to read the message in its grey rectangle with rounded corners.

"Can I call you later?"

Dalia promptly typed her reply. "Absolutely. Sorry if you were with patients! Take your time. No hurry..."

Dalia dropped her phone back on her bed before picking it back up to check the time.

"Oh, man." It was 11:00 am. Nearly half the day was gone and it was already Friday, the end of the first week of her last semester.

After her adventures the first half of the week, she was behind in uni, so she had been focussing on catching up on her missed lectures at the library. Her routine for the last couple of days had been leaving the house early to study, then coming home late just in time for her obligatory dinner with her family.

"I still have time," she consoled herself before quickly brushing her teeth and throwing on a baby blue woollen jumper and a pair of skinny jeans.

When Dalia arrived at her local library, she held her breath as she looked around the room for the popular tables near a powerpoint. She continued her search and headed to the edges of the building that had study tables lined up against floor-to-ceiling windows. She especially loved this part of the library because of the view—the lush, well-kept lawns, a brighter hue of green today thanks to the recent rain, and the water feature a foreground to a small bridge.

Dalia set up her gear next to a brightly painted pillar, ready to tackle the lectures she had missed. She propped up her iPad, folding its case into 'video watching' mode, plugged in her headphones then navigated to the student website. She selected the first subject she needed to tackle, maths, before making some room on the wooden table for her notebook where she wrote down the lecture heading.

The lecturer droned in a monotone voice, slide after slide, which caused Dalia's mind to wonder—where would Mikaal be right now? Had he been going to the lectures—had he looked for her?

Dalia shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut to block out the pang of longing she had battled with more recently. She tapped on her iPad display and dragged the little black dot travelling along its path a few steps from where it came to repeat the last couple of minutes. She needed to concentrate on what she had control over.

Just a couple of days... She would soon know—about the accident and how she should feel about Mikaal.

Dalia drew in a deep breath and hit play.

Her focus was better this second time around, the black ink dancing across her page with an upbeat rhythm. She put down her pen and dug in her fluffy pencil case for her highlighter, striking through the headings of each section, the pink fluorescent strokes bringing vibrancy to an otherwise boring topic—statistics.

Dalia grumbled to herself when the bright pink lines faded into a sickly colour. She had used the same highlighter throughout the study break, putting it through its paces—definitely time for a refresh. She checked the time on her watch. It was just past 2:00 pm, so there was still plenty of time to visit the shops to replenish her stationary supplies.

"Hang on..." She knitted her brows at the recollection that she kept extra stock in the bottom drawer of her desk. Stationary shopping wasn't her favourite past-time, so she usually bought what she assumed she'd need to last the semester.

Dalia opened the reminders app on her phone but just as she pulled up the keyboard, her phone vibrated in her hands, the name 'Ardelle' flashing on the display.

"Hello, give me a sec, I'm in the library," Dalia said in a hush before shoving her things in her backpack and taking large strides out the automatic doors. "Oof," Dalia breathed as the cold winter air slapped her in the face. She stole away behind a pillar, using it as a shield against the gusty wind. "Okay, I can talk now."

"Hey, sorry I couldn't take your call earlier."

"Nah, that's fine. I didn't expect you to pick up unless you were free anyway. Plus, I'm still eternally grateful for this..."

"Don't mention it. So what's up? Did you have another flashback?"

"Uh, sort of, maybe?"

Ardelle chuckled into the phone but patiently waited for Dalia to elaborate.

"I've had a new recurring dream the last two nights."

"Ah, I see. Go on."

"I didn't tell you about this last time but, a couple of months ago, I started having weird reactions to steak. As in, feeling nauseous, wanting to throw up. I thought I might be allergic but I went to an allergy specialist. They tested my blood and everything but said I wasn't allergic to any kind of meat." Dalia paused, listening for Ardelle's reaction.

"Uh-huh."

"Well, the new dream I've been having, this morning, I realised it's also set at Scarborough Beach! And guess what happens in it?"

"You're eating steak?"

"Almost. I'm having a barbecue with Mikaal and he's cooking four chunks of beef steak! It turns into a nightmare actually," Dalia added, her face grimacing as she related the details about the maggots.

"Ugh, you're putting me off my beef sandwich."

"Sorry!"

"It's fine. I'm trying to cut down on meat, actually. But anyway, you were saying?"

"Well, I'm not sure if it's just a random dream because of how it ended? It just seems too much of a coincidence again..." Dalia's voice trailed off, her eyes distracted by a willie-wagtail, its small black coat and white breast swinging from side-to-side a metre or so away before flitting back up into the branches of a tree.

"Hmm..." Ardelle mused aloud. "The pieces of the puzzle do add up. It's possible that the barbecue incident was another memory. And the nausea you described from eating steak—steak could be a trigger for whatever trauma you might've experienced at Scarborough Beach. So the maggots could be more a symbolic thing."

'Trauma...' There was that word again. Dalia shook away the discomfort she felt and mulled over Ardelle's deductions.

"Dalia, my dear. I only have a couple of minutes before my lunch is up."

"Oh, no worries. Thanks so much!" Dalia said earnestly. "You're helping a lot."

"It's a pleasure. By the way, the medical records haven't come through yet." Ardelle stopped to let out an exhausted breath. "My days are a blur, so just remember to call the practice in a couple of days to ask about them, okay?"

"Absolutely."

"One other thing."

"Yes?"

Ardelle didn't speak immediately. "How are things at home?" she asked, a note of caution in her voice.

"Well, the same."

"You should try to have some fun with the situation."

"Fun?" Dalia asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Yes, fun... You know Dalia, something I've learnt is, as long as you let others control you, your spirit dies a little more inside."

"But I'm choosing not to speak to them—much..."

"Does that make you happy?"

Dalia didn't answer.

"You can't change people, but you can change how you react to them. So just think about it. Ask yourself, what can you do to make your time with your family more enjoyable for you?"

---

Hey there dear readers

We're getting closer and closer!! Yay! Hope you're feeling excited about more of the mystery unfolding :)

Thanks again for your continued support through votes and reads. Keep the love coming!

Well, back to writing for me :D

-Noelle