Dream Come True

24

TODAY was the day that has haunted my thoughts and curdled my dreams.

I watched from our hiding place as the earth rumbled with sorrow. The remains of the city's architecture were left exposed at my feet, the pebbles rattling against the cracked concrete. Desperate screams reverberated over the booms of bombs, while angry yells continued to ignore them. There was something vague about the expressions on the soldiers' faces, a vacantness that sent shivers trickling down my spine. I turned away, unable to watch the lives and peace of what I had taken for granted shred itself into obscurity.

I rolled out a map, flattening it amongst the dust and shuffling the rubble out of the way.
"Dad, where are we now?" Drey asked, squinting over my shoulder at the tattered paper. Peter hesitated a moment, slightly stunned. He composed himself so quickly I almost thought I had misinterpreted his pause, had it not been for the shimmer of a desperate, aching hope in his eyes.
"We're here now," He said pointing to the map. "Do you know where we would find him? Did he have a hiding place?" Peter asked. Drey shifted his finger further north on the page.
"He stays in the back of this building. Well, what's left of it." Peter scratched his hand across the week-old stubble on his jaw.
"I know of an underground cell just next to it. But that'll take us straight through the thick of it." He muttered to himself. Alesia leaned forward to study the map.
"Doesn't look like to me that there is a 'thick of it'. It's all around us. There's no way to get to him without putting ourselves in the crossfire." She stated, tucking the brown curtain of hair behind her ear.
"That's probably how he planned it." Xander murmured. "We have a lot of assets that are useful though. We'll probably have to utilise all of them to get to him." Drey nodded.
"Our only option is this back road up through here. After this last part, it'll have to be on foot. The demolition is too bad, there's no way through."
"And after that?" I asked. Grim faces stared back at me.
"We pray for a miracle."

***

My fingers were mimicking my stomach as they tangled themselves into knots on my lap. Once again we were all shoved into the Jeep, bumbling down the fragmented tar. For safety, Drey had morphed himself in to the stern, white haired general. The only thing discrediting his cool demeanour was the tightness of his fingers, curled around the steering wheel, forcing his knuckles white.

My crusty eyes squinted past the bleak morning sunlight. I had tossed and turned all night after we had spent the day preparing for the journey ahead, the distant expolsions and anguished cries drifting endlessly through the night. Vague, blurry pictures of Dougal's wild eyes raged behind my eyes with a hollow, melancholy voice repeating the same phrase with merciless torment.

A time will come when the strings are strung, unclean world to renew.
The Lovers in souls, their clemency controls the future that leads true.

I scrambled through the words for what felt like the millionth time in attempt to make sense of the muddle. None of our clues connected, all of our leads just a swirl of disjointed patterns.

An abrupt stop lurched my body forward as the jeep came to a halt.
"This is as far as we go in the car. Everyone stick together, we're exposed out here." Drey announced, jumping out onto the ground and dragging a backpack with him. We each grabbed the all the necessities we could carry and followed Drey through the debris. Xander took my raw fingers and linked his through them as we walked.
"What did you dream about last night?" He asked, his warm chocolate eyes locking in on mine.
"I don't really know. Everything was so blurry and disjointed. I couldn't grab onto anything useful. Except..." I trailed off, losing myself in thought.
"Except the rhyme." He finished for me. I nodded.
"I heard you say it in your sleep. What does it mean?" I shook my head in response with a shrug.
"Come on, you lovebirds. We're getting close." Alesia called back at us. We quickened our steps, and crawled over the mountain of rubble to catch up.
"Wait a minute," I said suddenly. Lovebirds... The Lovers. "Drey, what was it you said about a prophesy?" Drey looked back at me.
"Uh, Dougal used to always talk about how he was told by his aunt about some prophesy. Always talking about how it was his destiny to 'clean and renew' the world with his 'strings' or something. There was a part about two unlikely lovers stopping him and keeping it dirty."
"Did you ever hear the whole prophesy?" Xander asked. Drey looked up and squinted at the sky, trying to remember.
"Yeah, he said it once. But I don't really remember. It had something about strings and clemency in it." He answered. I looked up and met Xander's glance.

A terrifying boom suddenly rocked the ground we stood on and we all fell to our knees with a cry.
"Get behind me, now!" Peter bellowed. "We stick close and run fast. Let's go!"
I swung my legs as fast as I could to match Peters speed, Xander pulling me close behind. The lavender shield propelled the soaring bullets away from us as the army open fired. The intense noise assaulted my ears and I ran faster. We dashed between trees and debris as metres turned into kilometres. Exhaustion wore down on our legs and breath scraped up our dry throats.
"Quickly! We're almost there!" Peter ground out hidden dome came into view. Fatigue was rapidly draining his face of colour as he tried to stretch his shield further around us. Behind me I heard tumble and a cry escape Alesia's mouth as she crashed to the ground.
"Alesia!" I screamed reaching back for her. Drey pushed me forward.
"Go! Go, I've got her!" He shouted, scooping her up and sprinting after us. We leaped over the lip of a pile of rocks, getting further and further away from the massacre evolving behind us. Shots erupting from weapons still followed us as Peter wrenched open the door. Drey pumped his legs faster, Alesia wincing in his arms and clutching her ankle. The lavender shield wavered around us and began to shrink, Peter's exhaustion beginning to take its toll.
"Quickly!" I shrieked, holding open the door. Drey's arm peeked through the force field and he let out a grunt of pain, a bullet hitting its mark in his shoulder. His grip on Alesia faltered and Xander rushed to throw his arm around them, supporting them as they stumbled the last few feet. They threw themselves inside the shelter and Peter slammed the lock down and opened the underground hatch, shoving us all inside.

The bolt latching into place felt like a sigh as we collapsed to the ground, our ragged breathing and grunts of pain ringing off the walls.