In High Tide | Scissor Seven

Chapter Four

The streets were just as crowded as he remembered.

Footsteps surrounded him as he walked, making his way towards the center of the town. Food vendors called out to likely customers, waving spoons and chopsticks in the air, promising great deals to match great cuisine. The sun beat down on the island from above. After spending days in the darkness of the forest, the bright light was almost too much for his eyes.

Seven blinked, raising a hand to shield his gaze from the sun. He could make out the distinct shape of the large tree that stood in the center of the square, backlit so that it seemed like nothing but an obelisk of darkness towering over the tops of the shops and buildings that lined the road. The people around him buzzed excitedly, their voices swirling and mixing around him as they passed.

"Have you heard? That barber shop on the corner is closing today."

"Oh, truly? But I thought it was better than the last ones! Although, I would've loved for a--- Hey, watch it!"

Seven's attention snapped back in as he took a step backwards, letting a child brush past him on a skateboard, holding a bright red popsicle loosely in one hand, her grin so wide that it seemed to be fighting to break free from her face. Her laughter rang through the air as she swished by.

"Sorry!" the girl called as she made a sharp turn, her body swaying so precariously from her board that she looked moments away from falling off. "Watch your step!"

Angry mutterings broke out all around him, though they soon faded back into the blissful calm that the town seemed so entrenched in. There was always an aura of peace in the land of his dreams that didn't come close to matching the life he truly lived, and it almost didn't seem fair that his mind would be able to procure something that he himself could not. 

Others would argue that that was exactly what the mind was for: an escape from reality, a vacation from the endless routines of life, presented through one's dreams. Seven would've once argued that he wasn't much of a dreamer. Now, as his feet guided him down the neatly paved roads with a well-defined sense of familiarity, he could feel himself losing that argument.

He angled his face upwards, catching the light of the sun as he closed his eyes. He could still sense the luminosity through the skin of his eyelids, like a gentle reminder that stayed even when he tried to block it out. It was warm. Tranquil. Yet he knew that if he chose to truly look, he would be blinded.

A scoff escaped him. Seven lowered his head and opened his eyes, his gaze meeting the road at his feet. It was pointless to stay in one spot and be blindsided by solace that wasn't real.

It was strange to get a reoccurring dream. For the majority of his life, he'd rarely even had dreams during the night. He was accustomed to falling asleep and waking up the next morning in the next second, as if no time had passed at all.

That is, if he even got sleep in the first place. 

Which meant that any dream had meaning, much less a reoccuring one. He wasn't the type to let himself be distracted by pretty little hopes, and his brain knew it. There was something in this dream that he had yet to find.

He followed the road, walking its curved path all the way through the island until he was standing on the outskirts, staring at the waves that lapped at the shore. He couldn't shake the familiarity that clung to him so stubbornly, a feeling he was already beginning to detest. To know something so well was to have done it time and time again, and he'd done exactly that. Yet he was still lost as to why.

"Seven!" a wheeze of a voice called, irritation lacing its tone. Seven's head raised instantly, his eyes narrowing. There it was again, that foreign familiarity in the call. As if they'd known each other for ages.