Visions of Fate

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - INTO THE UNKNOWN

"You ready for a new adventure?" Ethan asked beside me in his dad's Toyota Camry and I gave him a stiff nod, feeling drained though it was only 9:00 pm and our adventure hadn't even began.

I looked down at granny's box on my laps and traced the carvings on the body. "Let's just get this over with," I said, and Ethan pulled out of our driveway and into the main street. Unlike Mom he drove in the opposite direction, the direction behind us as Mom drove me to school. The direction that leaded to the park.

To be honest, these all sounded so weird, I wouldn't be surprised if I suddenly got a tap on my arm and woke up to an entirely different world. A world in which I was normal, and perhaps granny hadn't passed. A world where I could enjoy the beauty of Ravenswood without feeling excluded or alienated.

Instead there I was, driving late at night with my boyfriend, trying to find something we had no clue about. Trying to find something so anonymous, it could probably become nothing. And even as we sped through the lonely road in the silent car, I couldn't help my heart from drumming. I clenched the box tightly, trying to get a grip of reality.

Once the park came into view, Ethan pulled the car on reverse and turned us around, in the direction we'd just come from. I raised an eyebrow in confusion. "It's called a military parking style," he answered. "So if we get in trouble, we can easily rushed back here and get drive off without much trouble. I read it in a book once." I rolled my eyes at him and stepped out of the car.

The air smelled stale and felt like fear, the full moon in the sky casting eery shadows on the tarred road around us. I pulled Ethan's winter coat tightly around me as he walked around the car to meet me.

"So what now?" He asked, glancing at the moon. "Do we perform a ritual or summon a particular spirit to help us out here?" Even though I knew the purpose of his joke was to release too much tension, I felt a shiver run up my spine, and when I clutched the box in my hand, I felt that the tips of my finger had gotten cold from fear.

Ethan's smile dropped when he noticed my lack of enthusiasm, and I rummaged through the box and pulled out the paper. I handed the box to Ethan and stretched the paper out, aligning it with the stars in the sky. I frowned when I noticed they didn't make any match.

"What is it?" Ethan came up behind me and peered at the paper over my shoulders. "Hold on a minute," he took the paper from me and walked a few steps behind, then cocked his head and readjusted it, turning it upsidedown the position it was before. "Aha!" He said, and I rushed over to peer behind him.

It was an exact match. I didn't understand how that was possible, but I was grateful nonetheless. "Here, hold this," Ethan said, and I slipped the paper from his hands and held it place, watching as he pulled a paper and pen from his pockets. Then he came up behind me and started scribbling down on his paper.

"What are you doing?" I asked, trying to peer at him from over my shoulder.

"Trying to interpret the map," he squinted up at the paper in my hands. "I'm trying to get a proper description with a landscape." He continued squinting and scribbling until the position became too unbearable for him. Ethan switched to placing his piece on my back then, making drawings and amendments with either a hum of incitement or approval.

Though the position was uncomfortable for me and I felt almost every poke and prod of his pen, I held my stance, barely making a movement as Ethan did what only he understood. Eventually, Ethan released his grip and I felt my arms dropping without command, releasing an exasperated sigh.

"What were you able to draw?" I asked when I caught my breath, rolling my shoulders to relax the tension that had been built in them.

Ethan widened his paper to reveal blurry and wavy lines that looked much like an amateur version of a Google map. The lines arched and twisted until they eventually met up with an 'X' mark at the edge of the paper, which I immediately recognized as our final destination.

"This line," Ethan tapped his pen on the thickest line on the paper. "That's the one we'll follow."

"How would we know if it's true, though?"

Ethan replied with a shrug. "Guess we'll just have to find that out."

                                  †

Two minutes later, Ethan and I rounded the final block on our map. Ethan had concluded that leaving the car at the park was the best idea, seeing as there wasn't anyone in the park anyway, and so it would be impossible for it to get stolen.

I felt tiny tingles of fear in my stomach and I tried to swallow hard as we entered this lane. Unlike the rest of town, this part was much darker, hidden by shadows of too much trees and ridded of streetlights. The only guide we had now was the moon, which wasn't doing a very good job.

"E-Ethan," my voice quivered in fear. "I don't think we should be around here."

"Oh come on," Ethan tapped the hand that pressed his arm tightly. "We've already made it this far, babe. I'm not ready to leave without answers." He continued walking, pulling me along with him.

The deeper we got, it seemed like we entered a whole universe entirely. The leaves of the trees increasingly thickened, providing little amount of moonlight. I found myself squinting as Ethan and I shuffled through the lifeless road.

"There," Ethan whispered, finding his voice too loud for this street perhaps. "That's the final turn we have to make." I squinted at the road he pointed at to make out a turn. Waves of nausea heightened in my belly as Ethan and scurried to cross the abandoned street to take the turn that our map had indicated.

As we turned into this new street, the first thing I noticed was that the trees had thinned, providing a good beam of moonlight, I found myself blinking in order to adjust my eyes. This street was just like the rest, except with enough light to get slight details of the buildings surrounding it.

The first thing I noticed about the buildings was how isolated they were, devoid entirely of any living entity. These buildings looked like they were built in the nineties, and were filled with cracked windows and chipped wall paint and I couldn't determine what colour they were.

As I squinted to get a better view of my surroundings, Ethan tapped me, backing in his tracks like he had just seen a ghost. "Uh…Emily, you might want to take a look at this."

I spun in the direction he faced, and found a scream slipping out my my throat as I stared at what once stared back at me.

The building from my vision.