|| Inevitable ||

XV

Ŧ

"They found another body."

Those are the words that echo and bounce off the walls of Elijah's mind, pounding and drumming like the beat of an incoming war. He can feel it coming. The brewing storm, the tremors beneath the earth.

His arms hang heavy by his sides as he stares down the unending walkway - a slim bridge of white leading on forever. It's the same walkway he's seen every night for the past three years. Each time he finds himself standing at one end, gasping for air and struggling to fight the insatiable urge to run. If he runs, he knows he'll never reach the other side. But the thought of staying and not knowing what lurks in the distance is one that eats away at him from the inside.

It's the same dream - always the same dream. And it's always the same choice he faces.

Everything is quiet, save for the quick huffs of his erratic, ragged breathing. Then, still and motionless for the briefest of seconds, Elijah makes his decision. He will run and run fast. 

With his decision made, Elijah leans over, shifts his weight forward and prepares for the hardest sprint of his life. Then it happens. Quick as lightning kissing the earth, the stillness of his dream is shattered. His feet slam against the ground, gripping at it and using it to propel himself forward at a breakneck pace.

Faster and faster he goes. Every part of his body moves in unison. The joints at his hips rotate, lifting his legs, his shins hinge back and forth, and the balls of his feet hit the ground so hard he can already feel the blisters forming.

If anyone could see him in this otherworldly place, they might say he was flying.

Run. Run. Run, a voice laughs at the back of his mind. You can't outrun the lies.

But flying as he may, Elijah can not elude time. Not even the speed of light can be beaten, the walkway beginning to turn black as he passes over it. Behind him only shadows and darkness remain, and ahead there is no end in sight. 

The darkness beats down on him like torrential rain on a tin roof, licking at his heels and chomping at the light; a monstrous beast. Desperately, his arms fly out. They do not reach for anything, they merely beg this puzzling world for more time, for just a couple more seconds to reach the end. But the end is nowhere to be seen and the jaw of darkness is firmly clamped around his leg, needle-like teeth piercing through his bones. With a scream of both terror and anguish, he is ripped away from the light.

He made his choice and now he lives with it.

And since the beginning of these mysterious dreams, it has always been that same choice.

A dry scream hurtles from his cracked lips as he awakens, throwing himself forward in his seat. "Woah, there!" Miles throws a hand out across Elijah's chest and tightens his other hand around the wheel. The car swerves slightly. "You nearly flew out the windshield like a bat of hell! What was all that about?"

A panting Elijah holds his hand to his chest. "I-I have no idea," he stammers out, trying to gulp down the dryness in his throat. His words are a lie. But no one needs to know about his dreams. "Not sure. Nightmare, maybe?" 

He knows that his days of sleepless nights won't be over until those awful terrors end. In the withering tendrils of the night, he feared their imminent return, and lay shell-shocked in the morning when they finally left. They did something to him, spoke to him in a way that nothing had before.