A Dragonfly's Dream

Chapter XXVI- The Divine Sentinels

DREAM JOURNAL

The Divine Sentinels

I was in this room with a few people. I think it was a residential apartment. We were in the living room. He was sitting on a couch a bit far from me. He seemed serious and troubled.

Then, he seemed to have realized or resolved something. He took my hand and we flew out of the room.

He took me to this place of solitude. It was a place where no one was watching and we could freely talk. He was trying to directly tell me things, but he had difficulty doing so.

Outside, numerous divine sentinels had gathered around the place.

Cornered, James pleaded with them.

But the leader of the sentinels merely shook his head.

.........

James looked around the hospital. He stared at the closed door before him. Room 414. He had been there before. But that time, as he was about to enter the room, his feelings of heaviness grew, and he realized that he simply couldn't go in and visit the person he intended to see. Instead, he had thought of Lyssa, and instantly found himself before her.

But at that moment, he offered no resistance at all to such heaviness that was upon him. He looked at the people in the hallway. Four women stood outside one of the rooms. Two of them were probably in their forties, while the other two seemed to be something in their early twenties. He'd overheard their conversation. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, but well, they weren't aware of his presence, so they just talked on as if no one was there. Well, no one they could see, anyway.

"Let's pray that death claims her so she won't have to suffer much longer." One of them said.

The door opened and the doctor came out to talk to them. They listened as he explained the different stages the patient would have to go through. One of the younger girls shook her head as she listened. "What can be worse than dying slowly and painfully?"

Ending one's life. James thought, bitterly.

Quickly, he closed his eyes, and thought of her. Alyssa. The mere thought of her warmed his heart. He thought of the way he was always hanging around her, whether she was aware of it or not. Sometimes, he just sat beside her, and held her hand without her knowing. Many times, he watched her sleep. Thinking about her was enough to chase away the gloom in that dreary place.

And then, a thought suddenly occurred to him. She was his way of escape too, Alyssa. He had used thoughts of her to escape all the guilt, all the regret and anger that he should have faced a long time ago. Was that all that she was to him? In death, she had been his savior. Yet during his life, he had let time pass without doing anything. What if his love for her had not been real? What if...what if thoughts of her simply pulled him back to high school --- to that time in his life when he was happiest? The idea made him shudder. No, that couldn't be. It couldn't be. He would not accept that. His love for her was the most real thing he had ever felt.

"I knew I would find you here."

James turned to where the voice had come from. Though he knew who it was before he even saw him. James had been waiting for him. He was ready.

"Are you sure?" Zarael asked, reading his mind.

James nodded. He remembered of course, the first time he met Zarael. It was at this same hospital, where they took his body after the accident.