Lost In Time

Epilogue: The Dream

Man, I screwed up. I'm such an idiot. Those words hit me like a truck, over and over. Lia's tear-streaked face had a permanent residence in my head. Fingers gripped my hair, threatening to rip out my raven locks as the words repeated over and over. Such a screw up. What an idiot. I never wanted to hurt her. And yet, being me, I screwed up and did it anyway. Just like when we were kids. It was her world, her magick, I had no right to try and steal that necklace. How was I supposed to know it would turn into a freaking snake? It was the first time I had ever truly panicked as a kid, when she took the bite for me, instead of me.

Slowly, with shaking fingers, I looked at the beat up note from so long ago, rereading the words I knew by heart.

Sorry I can't be there when you wake up. You and I come from different magicks, different families, different ways of life. You're a Walker. I'm a Traveler. We are bound by different forces. I just wanted to say...thanks for everything, and helping me out. Uh, have a good life, I guess? Wish we could have spent some more time together, but yeah. Some things just aren't meant to be.

Lia

I had never thrown it away. This note was my one treasure as a kid. I had hidden it carefully, inside of a hidden compartment in my Mom's old jewelry box, from her days in the ocean. The Dark Times, she calls them. I didn't know much about them as a kid, but now...now I knew too much. Enough to know to be scared. I sighed again, folding the heavily creased note and putting it inside of my shirt pocket, right over my heart. It weighed almost nothing, yet it had had a chain wrapped around my heart ever since that fateful day. Never had I cared more deeply for a simple piece of paper than I had that note. When it ripped, I went traipsing all over the house, looking for good, sturdy tape. When the housekeeper accidentally threw it away in the trash, I looked through the dumpster, then sprayed my Mom's favorite lavender perfume on it so it wouldn't stink up my room. My pillow. Man, if the guys ever knew I had slept with it under my pillow...My smile faded, as I stared up into the darkness of my bare room.

The guys. My friends. The ones who have had my back throughout the years. We were such a merry band of misfits...I may never see them again. I had made them promise me, almost in blood that they wouldn't look for me. That they wouldn't come here, to see me maybe...I had told them to stay behind, watch over Lia. The girl who held my heart. The girl who I may never see again.

Tonight was my last night. My birthday was next week. My eighteenth birthday. The entire reason I was doing this. If this failed...well, I always had agreed that death was better than what I would become. Almost anything would be. It was why I had been such an asshole and pushed her away. In case I might die, and never see her again.

My Adam's apple bobbed as I swallowed audibly. I didn't want that to happen. God, it had been so hard not to just lay my lips on hers and finally know what that feels like. But I didn't want her hurt if I never came back. Seeing Mom the way she had been at the hospital...it hit hard for me. I had to do this. Even if the risk was great.

Sleep found me in an uneasy state, then I found myself in a dream, as I always do. Lia said she went to memories, and I went to dreams. Different magicks. But this dream...there was something horribly wrong about it. The air was hot and humid, and the air had a red haze to it. I was in a round corridor, and some foul, foreign shouts were echoing all around me. Tortured, painful screams resounded everywhere, and heavy machinery whirled. Something about this place made my skin crawl, not an easy feat. I had seen too much, but this...this was something else.

I walked around aimlessly, seeing no one, but hearing everything. The corridor was becoming brighter, redder, the heat becoming almost unbearable. Then I turned a corner and almost walked right off the edge. Immediately I hugged the wall, my heart giving me palpations. I was looking down into a red hazy nothing. Swallowing hard, I looked up, and saw Demons of every kind stomping around, doing God knows what. But God doesn't know, does he? This isn't his realm this...this is Hell. Fear chilled my bones, and I forced myself to move sideways, focusing on the task at hand. I usually just wondered around, messing up people's dreams, it was a world of no consequences for me. But this one...I wanted, no needed, to see who it was. Who was dreaming inside of Hell? I got to the other side and found a normal walkway, my dream magic swirling all over my skin. I needed it to show me where to go. Where it pointed, I followed, navigating crazy complicated corridors and mazes to get to my final destination. What I passed...is better to not think about. Instead I walked faster to get away.

Then I found him, the dreamer. Locked away in a heavily barred cell, chained to the wall, blood puddles all over the uneven dirty floor. Even the dirt was red. When I saw him, I wanted to throw up. How...How is he still alive?! I saw more bone than skin, blood seeping from all of his numerous wounds, ribs barely moving as he struggled to breathe. Rags for clothes, what might have passed as jeans and a nice button up at some point. His skeletal feet were bare. He was skinny, too skinny. His head was bent, and you could see the knots in his spine through his long, oily hair. He smelled awful. Then he lifted his head, shaking heavily with the effort it took, and I nearly buckled when I saw his eyes, his face. Clear, sky-blue eyes stared back at me. Just like Lia's right eye. This man...he looked like her. No, she looked like him, because this...this was Lia's Dad.

"You...boy." His voice was raspy, unused, like he had swallowed glass over and over. I swallowed hard, stepping forward to place my hands on the rusted bars.

"You're...you're Lia's Dad, aren't you?" I breathed, barely able to take my eyes off of him. I didn't even know his name, or anything about him, but he looked...so much like her. It had to be.

"What?" Breathing hard, he slumped against the wall, yet his eyes stared right into mine. His human body may be failing him, but he wasn't done yet. Not by a long shot.

"Eli, Eli's your daughter, right?" Light shone in his eyes, and it was like saying her name gave him strength. With immense difficulty, he sat up, his voice getting stronger.

"You know her, my Eli? You can get a message to her, no, protect her?" He said urgently, looking around, as if waiting for his tormenters to come back at any second.

I nodded eagerly. "Yeah, yeah I can. What do you want me to say?"

His voice was sharp, commanding. "Nothing! You don't breathe a word of this to her. Let her think I'm dead. It will protect her from them. If they know where she is, that she's alive and is my daughter, of my bloodline, they will do anything to get her. And they won't stop torturing her and I until one of us breaks, and gives them what they want." The fear in his eyes for her...it made it hard for me to breathe. He wasn't kidding, and I knew it. I saw it. A fear, a fear for Lia spread through me like I never knew before.

I found it difficult to find my voice. "W-what do they want with her, with you? What is it that she has that they think she can give?"

"Her magic." He said coldly, angrily.

The Traveler magic. Blake had mentioned it before. "B-but what about you, why would they need her if they have you?"

He sighed heavily. "I can't give them what they want if I don't know where it is." He whispered the last part. Then I knew. They think Lia knows where it is, whatever it is.

I lowered my voice urgently, sensing he was about to wake up, wake up to the horrible reality he lived. "But she doesn't know what it is, does she, sir?"

He smiled grimly. "No, no she doesn't son. Go. They are coming." The world shook under my feet, and suddenly I awoke to someone shaking my shoulder violently. My keeper, a lower minion of My Lord. Wildly, I stared into his light green eyes, fear still gripping my heart.

"Walker, Walker! Good, you are awake. He is ready for you now." It was time. Time to see if I lived, or if I died. But now...now it was imperative that I survive. If I didn't...Lia's life depended on it. She needed me. Now more than ever.

So I got up, a numb feeling spreading everywhere. Was this how the prisoners felt, walking to death row? Knowing they were about to die, that it wasn't up to them? It was an awful feeling. Fear still had an iron grip on my heart, and I could barely breathe. But I walked, walked out of that bare little room and down the darkly lit hallway, to the dark set of iron double doors at the very end. I was glad I had sent Mom and Dad away, they didn't need to be here for this. Whatever happens, happens. They would be okay. It was the only sense of relief I felt as I pushed open those double doors, into the complete darkness. My eyes struggled to find the silhouette of the man that would either be my murderer, or my savior.

"Are you ready?" His voice, so eloquently smooth, like silk, murmured.

I swallowed once more, and found my voice again. I thought of Lia, of my parents, and of my friends. I would survive this, for them.

"I am ready."