Forever in Death - Gigi Amora (find a book to read txt) 📗

I was just lying there, dark red blood oozing slowly from my wound. My whole body was throb, throb, throbbing; it felt as though I had entered my own heart, and felt its beat across me, my fingers, my toes, my growing tailbone and wings…the pain was so intense. I knew at that point, this is the day I’m going to die. I just lye there, waiting, waiting for what happens to everyone before they die to happen to me; I was waiting for ‘my life to flash before my eyes.’ I tried to look down, to see what was causing this wretched bloodlust; but I couldn’t see it, my eyes were clouded with blood, black blood. Though I could not see, I could feel, I was clutching onto whatever it was jabbing into my stomach. It was a blade, but it felt more like cloth. A shadow blade. I heard someone call my name, someone I know, a friend I think; I couldn’t tell, my vision started to blur, and fade to black; as though I were simply falling asleep.
I welcomed the darkness; it was the same dark that I fell into every night before the waking of dawn, the darkness that I had succumbed to for the past month and a half. I still felt the pain, even when I began to feel cloth cradle around me, making it warm all around my body. I was still clutching something…
I opened my eyes.
I was back in my room at home, the dark navy quilt of my bed, the only cover I use, was caked on the far end, and reaching over me like a tubed wave coming into shore. My brown cover sheet, the one with the tiger’s face, was covering up my legs, making it feel pleasantly warm; despite the autumn chill that cradled the air around me. I looked to the popcorn ceiling, the dots that created my little galaxy moved, merged, formed, then separated again and again; until finally an image appeared. My eyes widened at what I saw, a dagger, stabbing into the belly of a winged wolf with the antlers of a dear. A prophecy. I looked at my stomach to see what I was clutching so hard onto; it was the sleeve of my navy blue nightshirt. I let go, and got up. I strolled onto my hands and knees, then stretched, stretched like the most lazy cat in the morning sun, trying to preserve what warmth I had for the day to come. It was the day after Thanksmas A holiday my family had created, since we couldn’t all see each other on the same days, My mother’s family didn’t much enjoy my father’s company, but they were all humble folk; And rarely deliberately wasted time by doing nothing.
As I sat there in my navy and white striped pants scratching sleep from my head, I pondered about the dream I had, a Future-Dream; that much I cannot doubt. I looked at the beige-yellow walls of my small, squared room, I thought allowed, “Is this truly the day? Is this the day that had been prophesized all those years ago?” As normal, silence was my answer. I brought out my foot so that I could get dressed for the day and leave for my friend’s, as I dropped my foot onto the floor, a slightly cross and extremely distorted yelp came from below. Lifting my foot in a hurry, I met the face of a little miniature dachshund at the age of five.
“I’m sorry Dori! I didn’t see you there!” I said with reassurance, petting the poor girl’s head until she got on her back and thrusted her fluffy brown paws up for me to play with; “Sorry girl, I can’t play. Gotta go potty?” I said this often, the dogs both know this means they get to go outside and, well, go to the bathroom. I let her out, then I woke Badger from his resting place, put his long leash on and tossed him outside. While waiting, I went to the kitchen to fill their bowls; Going back to the door to let them in, I heard them start to growl or bark. “Dori!” I yelled out the door to shut the black and brown hound up; at that point, I noticed something, or rather, someONE. A boy, no older than 17 or 18 I’d say, was wearing a pure white hoodie with red flames along the bottom. He was wearing jeans, and thank GOD he wasn't sagging. He came up to me, and I saw his face, he had rusty red hair, and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen. Greener than the healthiest of grass in the spring. I knew whom he was, but I asked anyway.
“And you are…?” I said, trying as much as possible to act as though we had never met.
“Alex…remember?” He said, then, with a look of surprise, continued; “In the shadow of the sun, and the light of the dark; may the world be at peace, as well as our hearts.” He recited the poem that had been chosen to be our password, that way, we’d know if there were some sort of spy, or one of those assassins, among the small group of three. I quickly grabbed the two dogs, and twitched my head, motioning him inside. Alex backed away, looking as timid as ever.
“Come on! They’re asleep, there’s no way any of ‘em are gonna wake up ‘til noon.” That seemed to convince him, and he joined me inside. I let the dogs go and gobble up their pellet-food like pigs, while I had my guest sit on the couch, while I went to grab my things, not much really, just a drawstring bag with two outfits, and my messenger bag full of yarn that I would use up before too long. It was light, aside from the fact it was so full of the thick thread that I could hardly get it closed the night before. I didn’t bother to get dressed; I knew I’d get the opportunity to later. I took that time too look at my alarm clock, I had to shade it from the rising sun to see. It said that it was 7:23 AM, I thought to myself, there’s no WAY that that they’re gonna be up for a long while. I went back out to the living room, Alex was already standing, waiting for me; it was time to go, I had written a note the night before that my friend’s parents were picking me up early, so I had to get up before they did. I stuck the note right under the ‘burnt waffle’ coaster so that they knew where I was.
“You ready?” Alex asked.
“Yeah,” I said looking up, “let’s go.”
We went to the door; Alex drew a large circle with his finger, then the symbol for ‘the traveler’ inside it. He looked at me once more, with his hand grasping the door, and said “Your SURE you’re ready?”
I closed my eyes and looked to the ceiling behind my lids, it’s how I had always rolled my eyes. I looked at him, and with my most assertive voice I stated, “Yes, now let’s get moving before Badger decides to bark at something.” This was something he did often, Badger would see something, anything, even a leaf; and bark at it non-stop until either he sees it’s no threat or someone makes him stop.
Alex simply smiled at me, a silly smile that told me he knew that there’d be no point in asking any more questions.
“Alright, let’s go.” He said, grabbing onto my wrist so that I could see his firm grip on his red, white and pink colored nails. I looked dead at the door as he opened it; the natural neighborhood view from outside gave way to a dark, swirling vortex that seemed like a never-ending tunnel, despite the light at the end of the hall. We entered, I grabbed onto Alex’s wrist as well, so that if one of us lost grip, the other would still be holding on. This was a rule that had been well established for years, Alex has told me how easy it is to get lost in the tunnel if you don’t know where you’re going. Almost as soon as we entered and he closed the door, it seemed as though we were almost on the other side.
“Bank,” I heard him say, I leaned right. The white at the end of the hall disappeared and a new light, a green one, came into view. We continued going in a straight line for what felt like eight or ten minutes before I heard Alex say, “Cane.” We stopped, and turned a solid left. We continued, towards a beige light now.
We were close to the exit now; I wondered how much time had passed; remembering that a day in this place was about 5 seconds in the real world.
“We’re almost there,” I heard myself say, I had traveled this route before, but neither Alex nor I was confidant enough that I could go through it on my own. The beige light was only a few footsteps away now, one…two…three… the fourth step put us in the light. The entire black behind us suddenly turned into the beige, which gave away to blue, then green, then finally settled onto a light auburn orange. We were here.
Unfortunately, not the entrance I was expecting, we were on the ceiling, and we fell. Alex landed on my thigh, at which I promptly grunted, “Hey!”
“Oh, sorry!” Alex said timidly, climbing off; careful not to step on me anywhere else.
“Well you two sure took your sweet time!” I heard a familiar voice; I looked up, or, down rather, to see.
“Arin!” I cheered, I got up as fast as I could; after which we hugged. The two of us hadn’t seen each other in over three months; but we had sent emails to one another often.
Alex was not rude to interrupt, since my hugs never lasted very long; but I could sense he had noticed a change in me, so he asked “Say Gigi, I noticed you were acting kinda funny; is something wrong?”
I stopped the hug immediately and looked at him, I still marvel at his ability to sense another person’s worries and emotions no matter how much they try to hide it. Arin let go as I let my arms slide to my knees, which were now digging into the edge of my friend’s bed.
“Just a dream I had, it’s not a big deal-“
“Gigi! Did you have another one? Did you see what happened, how far into the fut-“ I cupped my hand over her mouth to keep her from finishing. I had had many dreams of late, all of which were predictions of the future yet to come. All of which ranged in less and less time with each passing day. I had always called them Future Dreams, since I never knew the real name for what they’re called. I have always had this sense, for years, lives, maybe even longer. I felt my eyes burn up in remembering what I had seen that night, the scent of the blood, the feeling of the blade inside of me, the cold chill of the autumn air that only half scented of rain, and most of all, the sound, the blood curdling sound that I had heard just before I awoke. I took my hand away from Arin’s mouth and shuddered. The dream scared me, it showed what