Prisoners of Prophecy

Chapter 7

Xantara
For a few scary moments, all was black. My mind was empty. I could not feel my body, or the blankets that I had wrapped tightly around myself before I had fallen asleep.
Then, countless images of people I could not name - though some part of me felt that I had met them before - flashed through my head. Before a face was replaced by a new one, I watched them age from a young child to various ages of adulthood. As time etched lines into their faces, their joyous smiles would fade and the light in their eyes would flicker, then dim, then die out altogether. Before they were gone, their expressions would become distorted with a fear that I could not comprehend. And as each one disappeared, the grief that had settled in my stomach like a stone grew heavier. Like I was losing everyone that I had ever known.
     Who are these people? I thought. What are they so afraid of?
     No answer came; instead that perpetual darkness returned. I floated in it for a while, nothing but a cloud of thought amongst the closest thing to eternity I've ever seen and probably ever would. It seemed I had left the rest of myself in my bed, and I wondered where my dreams had taken me.
     Then, I was opening my eyes, and I was nowhere I had ever been before.
     I was rocking slowly back and forth in a chair, my feet bare and my skin tan like it had been before I had started to turn into someone else, someone with responsibilities I would have never been able to predict, for I still couldn't even fathom them. I was on a porch that looked out over a perfectly manicured lawn, where many beautiful wild horses grazed. The sky was blue and cloudless, and the Sun - larger and brighter than I had ever seen it before - beamed down on me. It seemed to be so close that it could crash through the atmosphere at any moment and start barreling towards me at impossible speeds. It was both the most beautiful and most horrifying thing I had ever seen.
     And it all seemed so strangely real. Unlike any other dream, this one filled all of my senses - left nothing to imagination. I could feel the heat of the day, the sheen of sweat on my skin; I could hear the breeze traveling from the dark forest a distance ahead, over the field, and whisper past my ears, mingling with the birdsong echoing around me. I could even taste the fresh air coursing through my lungs with each breath that I took. If it weren't for one thing, it would be simple to believe this was reality.
     It must be a dream, for there was someone beside me, but I could not turn to face them, no matter how hard I tried to will myself to. I could feel their presence next to me, even though they had done nothing to make themselves known. An energy pulsed from them that hit me and then seemed to run through my veins like electricity, causing my heart to race and my hands to tremble. There was power coming from them that I had only experienced in small glimpses in the dark of that basement. A fear then possessed me - fear of what might happen to me if this stranger focused all of that otherworldly power on me at once.
     The voice that came from my left was a stark contrast against the brute force of her spirit. She spoke softly, in a musical way that only hinted at her intelligence and strength. She did not need to raise her voice to command my attention - the moment she began to talk, my focus was all her's. I was sure that if I was able to move, my eyes would find her and I would not be able to look away.
     "There's almost no one left," the stranger muttered sadly. "And the ones that are, are very sick."
     I didn't know what she was talking about, and could not find my voice to ask. But, after a period of silence, I did question her, without realizing I was going to speak at all. Though the words I were saying meant nothing to me, I was sure it was me saying it, even though I could not predict what would come next.
     "It's like I can feel us fading," this strange dream version of me said. "What does that mean for us, when they're all gone?"
     She sighed, and the grief in that sigh I could feel in my own chest, cold and heavy. "I don't know. Terrat suggests we spread the word of our existence somehow, before we get too weak."
     "But why?" I heard myself blurt. "We never wanted everyone to know about us. We all know that won't turn out good."
     "The faith of our people keeps us powerful. Without them, I'm afraid we will one day diminish to nothing. I know, the wrong people learning about us could put us, and even the world, in danger..." She paused for a moment. "I don't know what else to do."
     "Layqa can't cure them?"
     "She's tried all she can. You know we can't involve ourselves with the mortals too much."
     A thoughtful silence fell over us. I gazed into the distance, past the field and at the seemingly endless forest beyond, pondering on this odd dream and what the stranger could be talking about even as it played out before me. I had never experienced something so terrifyingly gorgeous. The room I had fallen asleep in seemed like nothing but a faint memory compared to my unfamiliar but intricately detailed surroundings.
Movement in the woods distracted me from my thoughts. At such a distance, I could not be sure how big the thing was, but I was sure it had to be at least the size of a car. I told myself that there was no way it could be an animal even as I saw flashes of a white pelt through the bright green leaves as whatever it was meandered through the thick forest. It wasn't just limbs that shuddered as it shoved past, it was as if it was pushing the very trees aside to clear its path.

Friday, July 12th; 6:52pm
My eyes shot open as I sat up suddenly in bed, clutching at my throat as I gasped for air. For a few seconds, I did not recognize the room that I was in. I had to really study the dingy walls and stained comforter puddled around my waist, and the bathroom veiled in shadows across the hall, to come back to the present.
The contents of my dream filled my groggy mind ruthlessly before I could even fully wake. Who was she? What was she talking about? What was that place? That animal? Questions flooded my bleary conscience, none of them with any answer I could provide. My whole time at ShadowWood had been life changing, mind boggling, and full of impossibilities that have become undeniably possible, but I had never felt more lost than I did now. I had never let the nonsense my sleeping mind created bother me once I had awoken, but I could not stop the thoughts of that other world in my head from expounding on themselves. Beneath the deep sadness that had surrounded me and that stranger on the porch was the warm comfort of something familiar, even missed.
The memory of all those children that I watched grow up and then get replaced was the last one to come.
An epiphany followed that, so suddenly that it took my breath away. I shot to my feet, and the carpet felt like pins and needles for a few staggering moments before I could finally shamble to my closet and start grabbing clothes.
Something was telling me that I needed to see Melany. Before it was too late. For what, I didn't know.
That something also told me that the dream maybe wasn't a dream at all, but a piece of my past.