The Paragon

Chapter Nine

Everything was white again. There I stood, back in that white void I'd only been once before in my dream—I was dreaming again, or something like it. Strangely enough, I didn't wake up immediately upon realizing that fact. I was left to wander in this field of emptiness.

It wasn't empty long. Streaks of green started to appear around me, very faint but clearly noticeable in the otherwise blank abyss. And then she was there again, in front of me, in as quick a moment as it took me to blink.

"Mom," I said. Again, I reached out to her, and again she was just out of my reach. "Mom, are you really there? Is it you?"

Her mouth moved again. I could almost hear her—it was like she was whispering far away. "I can't hear you," I said, frustrated. "Mom, I have so much to tell you. I-I'm the Paragon, or something. They say I'm the Paragon."

Mom nodded and smiled, so I knew she could hear me. Then her mouth moved again and I just barely caught the tail-end of her words. "...instincts," she said, and when I heard her voice finally, however faint, it was like a bucket of cold water pouring over me. It was her voice. I'd never forgotten—except I had. I'd forgotten her voice. But that was it.

"What?" I said, desperate to hear it again. "I can't hear you, Mom, please."

"Follow your instincts," she said, and then she disappeared like a cloud of dust being blown away.

"Mom!" I cried out, and in that instant found myself shooting straight up in bed, gasping for breath. She was gone again. She was gone, and I was here. I ground the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to erase the memory. Stubbornly, it stayed, unlike any other dream I had. Any other dream except for the other one she'd appeared in. That one had stayed with me as well.

It was the very early hours of the morning—the clock by my bedside read 3:07. But I knew that I wouldn't be finding sleep any time soon. Instead, I swung my legs out of bed, shivering a little as my bare feet touched the stone floor. I stepped into some slip-on shoes nearby and left the room, quickly and quietly. I knew exactly where to go.

When Eli and I were little, even before Mom had died, we'd always woken each other first when we had bad dreams. We hadn't done so in a couple years—both of us had stopped having bad dreams, or at least ones we felt we needed to talk about.

This hadn't been a nightmare, but it was sitting on me like one.

Eli's door wasn't far from mine, just down the hall. I knocked once and walked right in, just like I would at home. The room was dark, but my eyes adjusted quickly, especially after being in my own dark room only moments before. Smaller than my room, with a bed in the corner instead of the center of the back wall, and significantly less storage space. Not that we had much to store, having left our whole lives behind to come here.

A lump in the bed was stirring. "Who's there?" Eli's tired voice asked, sounding slightly alarmed. I felt a little guilty for startling him.

"It's me," I said, not bothering to be quiet, since Eli was already awake. "Sorry, I—"

Eli cut me off with a quiet shush, gesturing next to him. With a start, I realized that Casp was in that bed as well, still fast asleep beside him. "Oh...I'm sorry, I didn't think..." I said awkwardly. Of all the times I'd barged into my brother's room, I'd never found someone else in there as well.

"Immy? Are you okay?" Eli asked, rubbing his eyes and running fingers through his sleep mussed hair.

"I'm okay," I assured him, embarrassed by my own actions now. I sort of wished I'd waited for him to answer the door—I could have walked in on something truly scarring. Even so, I'd clearly ruined something sweet and romantic. "I just wanted to talk. I can go, I'm sorry—"