Forever for Rose

Preface.

I'm shaking, my body turning cold, the light leaving my eyes.

Everything is black, until it isn't.

Stone.

Stone everywhere.

There's a city...small...deserted, yet it feels so alive.

Walking forward, the gravel crunches beneath my chucks. I smell the rain on the wind. It'll either be coming soon or it has only recently stopped.

I hear voices and duck beside a fountain, peering through the water's spray to catch a glimpse of a man. He doesn't look familiar. I don't know his name. Yet I know he's important. His eyes, black as midnight, scan the small opening of the little city, then he laughs.

I know it's not a good sign. Something in it makes my stomach quiver.

He's bad. I can tell.

His skin is grey...he looks sickly, his face sagging with age and his stringy brown and white hair rustles in the wind.

Behind him appears a woman. She's beautiful, her hair red like rubies, her eyes glowing greenish blue. She shares the man's laugh, turning behind her to usher forward at least a dozen cloaked men or women, from here I can't tell...but what's worse, the cloaked figures drag chains behind them...chains that drag men. The very first man in line is one I know well.

Knowing I shouldn't...knowing I can't change anything...knowing they can't see me...My legs straighten and I come from behind the fountain.

"Pedro!" I scream, my voice tangling with the laughter of the man and the woman.

His body, like the others behind him, is covered in dried blood and his face is mangled in pain. He doesn't turn at the sound of my voice. I knew he wouldn't. No one ever does.

Tingling starts in my toes and I know that my time is almost up.

I turn my eyes slowly back to the man and the woman, only to find the woman's greenish blue glowing eyes looking back at me. She's stopped laughing, causing the man to turn his wrinkled face to look at her questioningly, and then he follows her gaze over to me.

His eyes don't meet mine though...not like hers. He doesn't see me...but somehow she does.

"Who are you?" She whispers angrily, her fists clinching at her sides and her eyes glowing brighter.

Lightning splits the night sky over us, the light outshining her eyes for long enough for me to look away. No sooner than I do, the earth below my feet rumbles, accompanied by the thunder rolling over the hills around us.

The smell of the rain becomes stronger right as the clouds seem to open up and pour out over us. I close my eyes, feeling it as it hits me, but I open them back up as the first drop lands on my face.

It was hot.

Hot, and thick.

I hold out my hands in front of me and scream at the crimson liquid covering my skin.

Blood covers everything.

Me, the gravel, the stone.

Stone everywhere, stained red with blood rain.

"Breathe." I whisper to myself as the light returns to my eyes, the eerie images gone, replaced by the library in front of me.

"Who were you talking to?" A girl sitting at another table asks, tilting her head at me like she's confused. "You were...you were mumbling something." She says lowly, glancing slightly to the two girls sitting at the computers to my left.

I roll my eyes when I find them staring at me.

"It's ok," Tawny says to the girl at the table, smacking her gum obnoxiously. I never should have ventured out to the public library. I know better than this. Even in a public library you can run into bitches. "She does this sometimes."

Tawny turns back to her friend, Mallory, and the two giggle, standing up and pushing their chairs back up to the computer desks. "Same old freak." Tawny sneers, making Mallory cover her thin lips with her hands to keep from laughing.

"You really should have your head examined by a professional." Mallory whispers to me. "Just because you graduated top of our class doesn't mean you don't have brain issues." She smiles, winking at me. "Have a nice little trip there?" She asks, referring to my blackout.

"I just dozed off." I try to lie, but I don't know why I bother. I've been made fun of at school for years over my little episodes.

"Right." Tawny nods. "You sleep with your eyes wide open while staring at a wall and whispering creepy things to yourself." The two girls laugh again, then thankfully walk away, fulfilled with their duty of making my life hell.

With a red face I gather my book that mom and dad gave me, insistent that I read it, then turn slowly to the other girl at the table. I can hardly keep my eyes on hers. She looks at me like a wounded animal, or worse, like a freak of nature.

"I was just wondering..." I start, my voice shaking a little. "What was it that I was saying?"

The girl looked around, unsure of whether or not she should even speak to me, then she sighs, not looking me in the eyes.

"You said..." She pauses, clicking her lid on her pen. "It sounded like..."

My face grows hotter still as she packs her things, shoving her bag over her shoulder and standing.

"Please just tell me."

I knew from time to time that when I black out people have said I was mumbling things, but usually it makes no sense or has nothing to do with what I saw. More often I don't say anything and my freakish episode can go unnoticed. But since Tawny and Mallory were lucky enough to be around for this one, I needed to know what I'd said before I get to read about it all over Tawny's blog or on Mallory's Facebook page.

The girl bites her lip, her face red too.

"Upon blood rain, a new blood shall reign."