Timelines Collide

Chapter 26: Golden Girl (Part 1)

Funny enough, I did indeed get to have that duet dream. The moon shined as it did on that night, echoing like a pair of stage lights. The stage was big, almost feeling endless. I didn't care that there was nothing else in sight. All I wanted was to see and hear her.

The moonlight helped spark her purple and black dress, made of the finest gems that my mind once again mustered. The only thing I would rather stare at is her deep brown eyes that felt like I was sinking into them. As I held her waist, the richness in our voices poured upon the stage.

Once the crowd cheered, she gave me a look any guy would want to see. The purest of love riddled in their eyes, just asking for the feelings to be the same. She has no idea how similar I feel about her. With one kiss, I'll show my heart's earnest desire.

However, I began to lean in, but I couldn't push myself to do it. My lips refused to touch hers even though nothing in me would want that. Then everything went silent as my face remained frozen inches from hers. The crowd then started to scream at what lay in my hands. Her corpse, all bloody, lined to the prim with viny purple veins running across her face and eyes that leak out blood.

"No, no, I didn't do it. I didn't do it," I tried yelling at the crowd.

Luna's corpse then fades into dust. My efforts were futile to try and grab her ashes from the wind. I pan over to the crowd, and they were all now acolytes. All in black armor cheering as they did before, but I don't know why.

That's when I took a punch right in the face by an acolyte whose helmet was painted with thin red streaks along its eyes and right below the helmet's chin, making it look cracked. I'll never forget his helmet. He was the one who took it all away from me on that fateful night. The sickle acolyte girl followed from behind and pinned my arms down to the ground.

"You still think you're a hero?" She whispered to me, rapidly, inhumanly.

"My fellow comrade is correct, is this your guy's hero, a soon-to-be signet warrior?''

The now acolyte crowd cheers were then at their loudest. That's when I realized why they were cheering. He then pulled out the whip and my tuxedo disappeared like it wasn't there.

Smack. The first slash tears through my shoulder. Smack. The second tears through my back. As does the third and the fourth. The louder my screams got, the louder the crowd became. At the fifth, I looked towards the crowd one last time. In the middle of them, all was me.

Dawning black crimson and nodding along to the chaos around him. It all felt so real, the screams, the pain. I woke up to my screams halfway fading into the real world's air.

It was still night; I said to myself going through everything. I then grasp myself making sure to feel the pain in my back. Still there, still real, it was all once real. Deciding not to lay on my back, I roll over onto my shoulder side, and thankfully, I drift right back to sleep.

The second time around, thankfully, it's only the rays of sunlight sneaking through the guest window that wakes me up for good. A part of me thought half that night was just a bad dream pretending it was reality.

That idea blows to the wind once my eyes take the time to appreciate the seaweed of sweat that is my pillow. The clock a few inches away on a nightstand glows a blaring 10:25. Ten seconds more than yesterday. This reality might slowly be getting to me faster than I wish.

Halfway through a daze, I wobble my way through the upstairs hallway and down the stairs. My body stops near the bottom slope to see Loran on the couch, I assume waiting for me.

"Good morning, Joseph." Her words almost shoot the daze right out of me as she takes a sip from a cup of coffee. She has another cup right beside her on the mini wooden table upon a coaster. At least I know where I need to take a seat.