Day 3

Today was another 1.5 + 4 day. I was sorely tempted to make it 3 + 3, when I had to make the decision at 6:00 am, but considering I really do have to adapt, I forced myself out of bed. (Willpower, I haz it. (sometimes)) This core sleep business can be very aggravating at times; it's twice as difficult to wake up from during adaptation, and presents the temptation of "just one more REM cycle, it's only 6:00". It's way too easy to be tempted at 6:00 am.

I had quite a frightening dream at 11:30 pm. I was on a battlefield, in the thick of the fray, with a long, blood-soaked pike I clearly snatched off the ground; I could barely lift the thing. The field was slick with dew and blood, the mist so thick that no one could see more than a few feet in front of their noses. I could hear the piercing, shrill screams of horses as they were cut down (Was it horse blood on that pike?), the clash and scrape of blades and armor, the groans of dying men, and the shouts of the living. I could only really see the few men immediately next to me, all pikemen from the broken line, gathered in a tight half-circle, a desperate last stand against a mass of cavalry we could not see -- but we could hear them thundering towards us. I brace the pike against the ground as best I can, unwieldy though it is. The head and shoulders of the first horse breaks through the mist. The rider raises a bloody sword, slashing a wide arc into the huddled infantry. I duck -- and slip, and fall into the wet grass -- and a body falls across me. The horse's ironshod hooves descend -- the alarm rings, and I wake up.