The Chosen Path

Chapter Six

Jake tossed in his sleep. "Jake, why don't you find me?" Aurora asked him.

"Where are you?" Jake asked her.

He pushed her swing, and her braids flew back as she swung up in the air. Her short legs pointed up to the sky.

"You're not even looking for me," she complained, pouting.

"I've been busy. You know I moved to California, I'm going to college," Jake said, pushing her again.

"You used to look for me all the time. You used to look at all the pretty blonde girls and ask 'Aurora?'. You don't do that anymore," she said in a wounded voice.

"I'm sorry, Aurora. I didn't think it'd hurt you. I'm just trying to move on in my life. Be a different person," he told her, pushing her up again.

"Why do you want to be a different person, you're fine the way you are," she said loyally.

"You might think so, but everyone else in Iowa doesn't," he said.

"Why do you think I'm in Iowa?" she asked him with a confused frown.

Jake stopped the swing. "You're not?" he asked her, stunned. Why wouldn't she be in Iowa? Where was she?!

She turned to him with her small face and looked up at him with wide, innocent, green eyes. "I never said I was," she said. Then she jumped off the swing, enthusiastically, as if she was going to run off on him again.

"Well, where are you, Aurora? Hell, are you anywhere? Are you even real? Or are you just a figment of my imagination?" he demanded. "I've been driving myself crazy looking for some crush I had on an imaginary friend when I was seven!" he yelled angrily.

She looked at him. "I have loved you all my life and I always will. But it is up to you to decide who you are. When you do, then you can find me," she said, walking away from him.

Jake saw black fog starting around his legs. "Aurora!" he yelled, afraid for her not for himself. "Get out of here!"

Aurora ran back to Jake. He grabbed her, but she pushed him away. She stood between him and the demon that was now dense, black, fog with glowing red eyes. More fog entwined around their feet. "Out of here, demon, you have no power over this place or this man," she said, stomping her little feet on the fog, trying to push it into the ground.

Jake heard a thunderous laughter, and the ground shook beneath his feet. "Out of here, demon. Out!" she yelled to the ground. The black fog disappeared. "You're no help!" she yelled at Jake. "You waste your power, the gift you've been given. Learn to use it before he gets you!" she yelled, gesturing to the ground. And then, as always, she ran away.

Jake jumped up to a sitting position. He switched on his bedside lamp. He took some deep breaths. "Not again," he gasped.

*****************************

Emily sat up in bed. She took a couple of deep breaths. She put her hand to her head and ran her hand in her hair.

"You ok?" Raven asked her from her position on a pillow on the floor.

"Yeah," Emily said. She took the glass of water Raven handed her. "The demon's back. It's trying to mess with Jake again," she told her.

Raven stood up. "Is he okay?" she asked concerned, reaching for Emily's wall.

"I think so. Go check, okay? I gotta lie down," she said, and did so.

Raven pressed against a paneling on Emily's wall which opened the wall. She stepped onto a ladder and climbed down. She slid a panel to the side and peeked into Jake's room.

He sat in his bed, sipping water, and taking breaths. Raven climbed back up the ladder and closed the wall behind her.

"He's breathing hard. I better go calm him down. Are you okay, though?" she asked. Emily waved her away.

Raven bounded down Emily's main stairs and went to Jake's door and knocked. "Bad dream?" Raven asked innocently.

"Did I yell again?" Jake asked.

"No, I just heard heavy breathing from across the hall and thought I'd investigate," she said sarcastically with a shrug.

"I'm fine," he answered.

"Yeah. We gotta work on those 'I'm fines', don't we?" she said, sitting next to him on his bed.

"You want to talk about yours?" Jake asked her.

"No, I can handle it," she said, blowing out a breath."Thanks, anyway. You?"

"I'm not sure if I can handle it," he said honestly.

"Anything I can do?" Raven asked him.

"I don't know," Jake answered, shaking his head. He shrugged. "I don't know what this place is, what I am, what all of us are. All I know is, I've never been as happy as I am here," he said, staring at the wall, instead of looking her in the eye to admit that.

"We're happy you're here too," she said, touching his arm.

Jake smiled appreciatively. It was nice having someone to talk to."I'm worried too. About the demon. He was in my dream again."

"What happened?" she asked, concerned. He decided to tell her and to tell her everything that happened in his dream.

"Well, I agree with Aurora. You need to figure out who you are, and what you want to do, and then you can look for your long lost puppy love," she teased with a smile and made a kissing face.

He pushed her shoulder. "I'm not telling you anything again," he said, putting his hands in his face embarrassed.

"Sorry. I won't tease. She sounds cute," Raven said.

"I only see her as seven though. I keep thinking she must be my age, you know. Well, I guess, wishing. And then I wonder maybe she's a ghost or something that's trying to tell me something, but I'm just not getting it," Jake explained.

"It's possible. Ghosts can enter into someone's dream. Like the demon can. It's spiritual not physical. It's pretty easy to do, if you think about it," Raven said with a shrug, like it was no big deal a ghost was possibly haunting him.

"So a ghost is haunting me?" Jake asked.

"I didn't say that. But I didn't exclude the possibility. Anything's possible," she said with a shrug.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said. "You all have shown me that."

"Here," Raven said, adjusting his pillow so he'd lie back down.

She pushed his chest back so he would do so. "Now, go back to sleep and have some nice dreams about Aurora, instead of her telling you to get a life and demons chasing you and all that stuff," she said, talking with her hands.

"I'll try," Jake said, looking up at her from his pillow.

"Don't try. Do. That's what you can do, Jake. You have power over your dreams. They don't have power over you, unless you let them. Take control. Go take a cruise in the Caribbean or something!" she said, shaking him.

"Okay, cruise in the Caribbean it is," he said, closing his eyes and starting to drift off to sleep. Jake felt her kiss his cheek.

"Sweet dreams," she whispered firmly into his ear.