LIGHT

Chapter 5

Carried whispers of time had locked me in a cage, awing my minutes with dropped jaws and wonder. The pain, desperation, many vowels of unspoken verbs acted upon pure strife to conjure answers from his presence.

Zeal.

I knew it was him, back in the nightmare that started all of this. I mean, did I? I had a feeling, but there was no way to know for sure. Mom and Dad had spent years yanking my imaginary friend, Zeal, from my mind. Hours and hours on end were spent riddling the constant puzzle of his existence, the many wars and what not I'd claimed we fought together. Luckily, by the time I turned ten, I had grown to believe my therapist, Dr. Hines. To keep believing in something as stupid as an imaginary friend, and a dream world named after an 80's rock band, wasn't going to get me through the move from the orphanage. I needed a fresh start.

But now, staring Zeal eye to eye—after all these years—has brought me to yet another dawning beginning.

Or is it the end?

"Oh come on," Zeal taunted, "Get up. If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead."

It took Vince a minute to process it all, hurdling over his knees with a million coughs and sighs, catching his breath.

"How did you get here?" I wasted no time trying to get to his purpose.

"How do you think, Oh Great Seer."

"Stop calling me that!"

"Stop denying it! US! Everything!"

Zeal's eyes went up in flames, scorching the air with a blinding shine of gold. The royal blue ring from before was thinning, giving way to the fiery gold rush.

"You deny only what you fear. And it isn't me you're afraid of. It is yourself—what you're capable of."

"That was a long time...time ago, Z. Things were different." My words frayed, chopping the response into bits of uncertainty.

"Oh, please, Mighty Seer—" His tone was sarcastic—"Due tell the deafening difference handicapping your memory. Because your ears lay the only things able to shy away the truth. Not your eyes. The portal—"

"I thought the portals were all destroyed. Until now, you've only been able to contact me through—"

"What," Zeal interrupted, a heat of passionate resentment lacing his tone.  "Your dreams? The dreams you've been ignoring? The same dreams you've been discarding as fiction? The same nights you left me to die—alone—waiting for you to come back for me?"

A pit had dug itself into my stomach, cradling the emptiness I know he felt. That feeling of abandonment haunted me for years, even after being adopted. I could barley stand at the thought of inflicting that feeling—the one I fought so hard to erase—on someone else.

Especially Zeal.

"Zain...what the...is that? How is...this?" Vince had finally regained his footing, but not his strength. He was still weak, resting against the wall.

"Vince, you've got to go."

"Yea," Zeal's jealously and hatred stained the air. "Leave us. We have unfinished business to tend to."

"Zeal, don't," I paused, stamping my palm against the air hovering in front of his chest."

"You do not order me!" Zeal swiped my hand away, readying his stance, again, to attack.

Vince just stared, frozen and unable to move.

"Now, like I said before, be gone." His strides became longer, stepping a foot of fear into Vince with every step."