Into the Fire

I flitted between images of my life after that. I saw Sage and Adam sitting at their computers chatting with one another. Sage’s screen was flooded with my name. Pictures of me, documents. He and Adam were pointing at things they saw on the screen. Sage looked in my direction. Adam called his attention back to the screen and my mysterious blue-eyed boy ran his fingers through his dark mop of hair as the scene faded into oblivion again. Floating in nothingness. I saw a pink island. A man standing outside the shield running his hand over the bubble around the island.

He was younger. I recognized Dev but this was years before I met him. The bubble had to be Dee. I thought about talking to the younger Dev and in that moment I was standing next to him. He smiled at me. “You’ve never visited my dreams before.”

“You can see me?”

He turned to look at me and smiled that perfect smile. I was going to miss it. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. He ran his thumb under an eye. “Of course I can see you. How could I ever not, pretty boy?”

I grinned. “I think I’m dying.”

Dev laughed. “I’ll kick your ass if you die, Nox.”

“I know, but that doesn’t change the fact at all.”

Dev turned and looked at me and frowned, “You’re serious.”

“Yeah. There was a fire fight. We were caught in the middle. My shield broke. I hit a wall. That’s all I remember.” The tears fell. Fuck. I felt them sliding down my cheeks and I tried to rub them away. Fuck!

Dev wrapped his arms around me and I closed my eyes and pressed my face into the side of his neck. And then it was all gone. I was back in my dream world as if I’d never left. Except now, the tree in the middle of my everything was no longer on fire. It was covered with a vine, it was thin, and delicate. It looked like it could break at the merest touch. I took a step closer and the vines twitched and grew stronger.

I reached out and touched it and it grew thicker as if it had always been that way. It was thicker in places, thinner in others. When I touched it, it hummed with emotion. I felt connected – to everything. I felt Drake, and Fae and Matt. I smiled as I knew Sage and Dev and Dee were there along one of the branches. It grew stronger and deeper the more it grew. I knelt down and touched the earth and felt the hum of magic all around me.

A cool breeze blew past my check and I turned to look and I saw a bonfire burning hot and bright. It beckoned to me. This was prophecy. I stood up and looked up into the stars and sighed. “Fuck you destiny! But I don’t want to die.”

So I walked into the bonfire…

All Scenes