Wake Me

Chapter Fifteen

Dani stood in the same spot for several minutes, coming to terms with what she had just witnessed. A somewhat normal looking man turned himself into a white, killing-machine wolf-beast, which also happened to be the love of her life's unreality boss.

Dazed, Dani turned and walked back to her belongings. She kissed two fingers and pressed them to the top of her mother's headstone. "Mom, I've been here too long. I need to get home and prepare dinner. I...love you." She shoved her blanket into the backpack, threw it over her shoulder and left.

As she walked toward the parking area, Dani compiled her thoughts on exactly how to tell Gunner that she'd met his unreality boss. However, she considered leaving out the part of her nearly being killed, if it wasn't for his boss. She didn't want him feeling even more obligated to the Alpha of the Reapers; 'the stranger' as she'd come to know him.

As she approached the bottom of the cemetery, she looked ahead at the gate that she'd normally enter through. Her feet immediately stopped, seeing nothing but a massive black shroud just beyond the gate. Literally everything was missing; her truck, the parking area, the gravel road. It was as if the world had been removed beyond the gate.

"What in the he..."

"Dani?" A female voice called her from behind.

Dani slowly turned around to find a woman standing beside Gunner's boss. The stranger took a few steps and held out a hand until her locket dangled from his fist.

"As promised." She extended her hand; he dropped it into her palm. "I figured since you've made this your unreality, you should at least meet the person you call mother."

He took a step aside, taking a bow as if he had finished a fine display of dance. "Dani, this is your mother, Danielle."

Dani clutched the chain and locket in her fist as her eyes raised to meet the gaze of her dead mother. Her hair was the same color as hers, but her eyes were glowing green like emeralds in a ray of sunshine. Her face, however seemed blurry; unfocused.

"But...How are you here?" Dani asked, questioning everything that she'd been told. "You're...dead."

Dani's mother smiled just as her face seemed to come together, now merely a reflection of herself in the mirror, it seemed. "I understand that you come here, looking for me." Her sweet voice caused Dani's eyes to well with tears. Her mother took a few steps to stand before her. She raised out her arms, "But as you can see, my spirit lives on with you and your father."

"I must be dreaming." Dani said, shaking her head in disbelief. That's when she remembered Gunner had met his dead mother in the unreality realm. She shook her head even harder, looking around herself. Suddenly, things seemed different now that she was processing things more clearly. "I've been dreaming this entire time?" She continued to ask, looking over at the familiar stranger, trying to pull all the loose ends together to complete her thoughts. "Of course I am. I'm in my unreality realm because you're here."

He thinly pursed his lips, "Reality, unreality. It's all the same for me."

Dani looked to her mother, who had turned her back as if to leave. "Don't leave me—mother." She asked reaching out toward her. Just as her fingers touched her shoulder, she evaporated into a fine mist. "Mother?" She gasped, looking down at her wet fingertips.

Confused, she glared at the stranger; his ghastly complexion and white hair, no longer blonde. "Why would you do this to me?" She questioned the stranger, angry that he teased her with a mirage of her dead mother.

He tsked, "You have so much to learn." Blinking, his eyes changed shape and color, like a green-eyed reptile.

"I want to go home! I hate it here!" She suddenly felt trapped and unsafe. The unreality wasn't where she longed to be anymore. "Gunner!" She cried. "Gunner, please come and wake me!"