Cured

Ch. 47

I sat up with a gasp, and looked around at my surroundings. The familiar red and black room calmed me, the small lamp on Tao's desk casting a cozy light across the dark room, and I settled back into bed with a sigh. "That was a total nightmare." I muttered to myself.

"Yeah. You should have seen it from our end. It was terrifying, watching you walking around like that." Tao said, and I looked over to see him sitting on the couch against the wall. "What did you see? How did you fly across the room like that?" He asked, and I could see that his eyes were dull, tired, as if from lack of sleep.

"This time, what I saw was the actual fight, not the aftermath." I began, remembering the many bodies I saw fall to the floor. "It still isn't going to go well."

"Nonsense. We can still change it, remember?" He said, making his way over to me, sitting on the edge of the bed. With a smile, he placed a kiss on my forehead, tucking some of my hair back into place, then his smile faded. "Before you were thrown across the living room, you were telling me to stop..." He began, hesitant. "What was I doing?"

I sighed, looking away from him. "I don't know what you were doing. All I know is that if you continued, you would have died. You were using up so much magic, I could see it all around you. Everything was the color of your eyes, of your veins." Tao nodded silently at my words, and waited for me to continue.

"There was a flash of light, and then I was pushed away by something." I finished. "That's it. That's all I saw."

He knew there was more to the whole experience, buy didn't want to push, so he simply placed another kiss on my forehead, then stood. "I'm going to get you something to eat. Everyone is down at dinner, but I don't want you walking around yet, you hit your head pretty hard yesterday."

"Yesterday? I've been out for a day?" I asked, and he nodded. "But, that means..." I trailed off, and he gave another nod.

Slowly, he let out a breath, clearly nervous. "Tomorrow is the next full moon. Tomorrow...Daehyun is going to attack."

I sat in bed until Tao returned with dinner, just staring down at my hands, and I didn't acknowledge the food for a while. I was still running everything through my head. Daehyun was going to be here, there was going to be fire, fighting, and death. Tao sat on the bed beside me, just watching me as I was thinking.

"Tomorrow, I want you to promise not to do anything dangerous." I said. "No matter what happens, you can't lose control, okay?"

"What happened in your vision that made me react like that?" He asked, but I had a feeling he already knew the answer.

"Tao." I began, but I felt myself strain to hold back the tears that threatened to spill down my cheeks. It wasn't enough, and I broke down. Tao's arms were around me, and I cried into his chest as I held him close.

"Hey, it's okay." He said softly, running a hand through my hair to calm me. "The future isn't set in stone. It's all a bundle of possibilities. It can change." He reminded. "We can change it. Things don't have to turn out the way you keep seeing. We will find a way to prevent it."

At his words, my chest began to ache. I knew that. That future I keep seeing, the one with the twins and masked woman, is all because of one choice I didn't make on that timeline. "I-" I began, pulling away from Tao, looking up to see that he was crying as well. "I know how to prevent it. The future I see is a result of a decision I didn't make." I answered through sobs, trying to slow the tears, only for more to fall.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, wiping tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.

I shook my head. I couldn't say any more, or he'd know I had the keys and that Mee-Yon and I were hiding something from everyone.