Visionaries

eight

// EIGHT //

I'm gently walking through a football field. I have a lot on my mind, but I cannot think straight. My eyes are diverted to the person who is my distraction at this moment, but really is the reason of all my thinking.

The clouds and the sky are kind of blurry and extremely shiny. The atmosphere seems surreal.

"Darius, what are we doing here?"

I look at him play and perform tricks with the ball.

"Want to play?" He has a mischievous grin plastered on his face, but I don't give it any meaning. I mean it's Darius. What is he planning? To beat me at football? To make me fall while beating me? I trust him. This'll be fun.

I nod and run over to where he is standing. I place myself, knees bent and my hands on my thighs, right in front of him with the ball between us.

He obviously gets a hold of the ball quicker, but I give it my all. I run after him, try to play tricks and it ends up being a really fun game. Because the field is so big and we're only two, we decided to play the best out of three goals. Darius is winning 1-0.

I walk back to the center of the field where he is waiting for me with the ball. We need to start at the kick-off again. As we start to play again, I notice a change in weather. It very suddenly becomes cold and windy. I look up to be greeted by clouds, but they aren't normal. They keep changing colours. I decide to blame it on my fatigue.

Blue, green, red and purple start taking over the sky and I cannot play anymore. I stop and Darius seems surprised. I point to the sky. He looks up and an almost silent gasp escapes his mouth. I stare as well. The clouds start drifting away and I'm very relieved. The colours are gone, but instead of the clouds, darkness unveils and Darius and I can barely see each other. He reaches an arm out, almost blind, trying to find mine. We finally find each other and hook our arms together.

We stare at what we think is the sky and wait. At the corners of the sky, light seems to reappear. The lighted parts keep getting bigger and bigger until we realize that we were covered. And what was covering us? A black glove. I look at Darius and I look at myself. I then look up and see, outside of wherever I am, all the things I use in sizes so much bigger than me.

Our dark sky was the hand of the black gloved man. And we are miniature people. Our football field is probably a box. We are litteraly his pawns.

"Goodbye," a gruff voice says from outside the box before water takes over the park. Darius looks at me with eyes filled with sorrow and mouths an apology before we're washed away.

***

"May? May! May, please wake up."

My body is shaking and it feels warm, but all I know is that I have an uncomfortable feeling surrounding me and the feeling of my wet sweat is more scary to me than the fact that I'm not breathing.

Strong hands take a hold of my arms. "May, please listen to my voice. It's Darius. Please, wake up. It's okay. Everything is okay and safe."

Slowly, as I listen to his every word, I get calmer and calmer and his strong voice is surprisingly soothing. Once my breathing is back to normal and that I can look past the wetness of my collar, I open my eyes.

Cass and Darius are by my bed. Cass is standing whereas Darius is on his knees, our faces being on the same level.

"What happened?" My voice comes out sounding croaked, but at least I manage to speak.

"It's noon. Cass has been trying to wake you up since she came back from her run, but you seemed to be in a deep sleep and with everything going on, she left you to rest. She then called me and it's been half an hour that we're trying to wake you up. Five minutes before you did, you started shaking uncontrollably, May."