Loving Rain (Watty Awards 2011)

Chapter 20 - The Memory

The picture to the side is dedicated to Night-World, who has become the first official Team Cian member. haha. Any more out there? =) I'll post one for Team Alan, too, since I know several of you are rooting for him. 

Thanks to all of you followers. You make my life special. =)

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Loving Rain - Ch. 20

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My eyes were stuck on the fabric that draped over the top of my canopy bed, and my mind was completely empty. The only thing I was paying attention to was the way the fabric fell in such nice and neat folds, each one seemingly perfect and symmetrical to the others. Every so often my eyelids would droop and I would almost fall asleep, but then something would pierce through my blank barriers and jolt me back into reality, where I would have to once again focus on absolutely nothing. It must’ve taken hours before my mind actually stayed blank and I was able to fall into a deep sleep. 

*****

I was wearing the green dress that I had worn the night I met Alan, and I was standing in the middle of Cian’s palace library. Lee was there tossing books into the floor and laughing at me when I would run and try to pick them up and put them back on the shelves.

               “Lee, stop it! These are important,” I told her.

               “They’re lies, Rain.” She kept throwing books down at an unbelievable rate. “What you think isn’t true; it’s all a lie.”

               I didn’t question what she was saying; in my dream, I wasn’t confused by her words. But I still tried to save each book that I could reach. I wasn’t as fast as Lee, though, and pretty soon I was walking on layers of books trying to save them, and the floor was no longer visible. I had almost decided to give up when a loud crash of thunder erupted and pellets of rain hit the large window on the far wall. I jumped, but Lee looked at it with a calm acceptance and reassurance.

               “You need to understand, Rain,” said a voice behind me, and I twirled around to see that Gunter had materialized there. His hand brushed my shoulder and I felt a wave of nausea pass over me. “Understand, Rain!” he screamed at me.

               Lee began throwing books down again, and then Gunter took out a match and set fire to them. I tried to put the flames out, but the bottom of my dress just burned and the heat grew and grew. Tears started to escape my eyes. “But, it’s important. It’s how I know.”

               As soon as I said the words, everything stopped. The books underneath me disappeared, the flames vanished, and I saw that my surroundings had changed. I was standing in a valley around the place that Cian had first seen me and took me to his castle. Lee and Gunter stood in front of me, their arms locked across their chests and their faces solemn.

               “You can’t know,” they told me. “What you think isn’t true.”

               I was still crying a little bit, and I desperately needed them to believe me. “It is, it is, it is true! He told me.”

               Gunter took another step towards me, and Lee was suddenly at my ear. “Who told you?” she whispered.

               “Alan. I mean, Cian. Wait…”

               Gunter looked at Lee and they both shook their heads. “She doesn’t know,” they said, as if I wasn’t even there.