VISION ✔️ || The Keepers of Astraela #1

9.0 || Of Transformation and Fictional Realms

EVA

"IF TONIGHT GETS ANY WEIRDER, the Winchesters are going to break down my door."

Bobbi paced her living room, shaking her head as if she didn't believe her own words.

Eva wasn't sure she did, either.

After the trance-like sleepwalking spell to her coworker vaporizing a mountain lion, sitting on the couch beside her fictional character pushed her brain to its limit. Her head pounded with such ferocity that she was certain it would crack apart.

If it was that bad for her, she could only imagine what it was like for Bobbi. An hour ago, her best friend had been eyeball deep in a Supernatural binge, and now they were all living it.

Eva had a lot of explaining to do—from why she had been towing a man covered in blood and mountain lion ash to how he had ripped himself from the pages of her novels. But Bobbi had yet to doubt her, and she helped the two of them up the stairs with a stern warning to not get blood on her brand new carpet.

A soft gulp pulled Eva's attention back to Emrys, who sipped at a cup of ice water. Somehow, he had come around from the attack. Still not back to normal, but no longer teetering on the verge of death.

Bobbi's bare feet stopped slapping across the hardwood floor as she prodded the shutters, peering through the slit between her fingers. Sirens wailed in the distance, undoubtedly looking for the source of the power surge and blood-chilling screams. Emrys had assured her they wouldn't find him, but it hadn't kept her from frantically pacing the entire night.

Finally, Bobbi flicked the shutters closed and turned to face him. "Are you just going to sit there, or are you actually going to explain what the hell is happening?"

She hadn't come near the couch since giving him his drink—and even that had taken a considerable amount of begging from Eva, who refused to leave his beaten and bloodied side.

"I thought I'd take a minute to... I don't know, stop bleeding to death," Emrys muttered, half-echoed into his cup.

Bobbi was not amused. "I don't get it. You can't be him."

Emrys lowered his eyes to his body. "Pretty sure I am."

"Eva said you were just Jensen."

Emrys' laugh was so lighthearted that it made Eva do a double take. Did he find it funny?

"That's because I am Jensen. I would show you, but..." He lifted the edge of his shirt, drenched in a sickening shade of maroon. "Little under the weather right now."

As he peeled the fabric from his skin, even Bobbi drew closer to examine his wound. Where the feline's claws had dug trenches into his stomach, the skin had already begun to heal. The area remained an ugly red, tinted from his blood-soaked clothes. But aside from thin scabs marring the once-filleted flesh, there was no sign he had been that close to death.

"I don't understand," said Eva. "I've watched you heal yourself. You turn your body to ash and meld it back together with hellfire. Why can't you—"

"Cool down period."

The words left his mouth so matter-of-factly that Eva paused, jaw half-open. "What?"

Emrys tugged his shirt back down. "My powers aren't limitless. I need time to recharge, and if you can't tell, I'm not really in great shape right now." He leaned forward, setting his cup on the coffee table. "When I change forms, I'm consumed in radiant light. It was the only way to fry that son of a bitch with my powers on the fritz."