now.
Then She showed up, but instead of bursting into my consciousness and pelting me with words, She just painted picture after picture, flooding my mind with images, provoking memories, thoughts, emotions. I saw my life. I saw it for what it was: a mix of illness and emotion, danger and decision. Now everything I had ever known—or thought I believed in—was on its head. I saw a scared little girl in a dress and ribbons hiding behind a curtain, pulling the strings of a marionette below her. When I looked down I saw who the marionette was. It was me. And it was clear I was playing with something I didn’t know how to operate.
What am I supposed to do with my newly long life?
“Will it be a gift to you, or a curse?” She asked.
That depends, I answered my pet voice-in-the-head, considering everything for a long while. Finally I thought, How are Michael and I going to be together when I will outlive him? What about a normal life…a family, one day…kids…and a dumb barking dog?
She posited something then, as if I was a student in her class. I saw a picture of the word NORMAL with a gigantic question mark superimposed on it, and the more I looked at the question mark the harder it was to see the word beneath it.
Oh, I get it. What’s normal even mean?
She smiled. It was something felt rather than seen; it was weird.
I looked around me at the wreckage of the city. From time to time, pieces of rotten skyscrapers finally succumbed and fell from immense heights to the overgrown streets below, raising huge clouds of dust, the crashing more shocking because of the eerie silence in which it sounded. Am I supposed to be some sort of hero…saving people from burning buildings?
I turned to Kreios and looked at him, realizing he was only a figment of my own dream. “Will we ever find you?” I asked him. “And if we do…will you have the answers?”
“So much doubt and worry,” She said, scolding me.
My mind would not stop working. Even in my own dreams, I could have no rest. It’s all just so complicated!
“How do you really feel about Michael?” She asked.
I love him…
“Do tigers change their stripes?”
Cryptic. And freaking typical. Will I ever get past what he was; that’s what you’re asking me. Might he do it again? How can I know? I understand why he told the lie.
“Still…it was a lie.”
My stomach ached. I hugged myself and became aware of Michael’s arms around me. We were on the train and he was behind, holding me with strong, warm arms. Isn’t this enough?
“Is it?”
In so many ways, it was not. This is my demon…my curse.
“Find the answer on your own. It’s the only way you can really know the truth. And let her guide you.”
She was gone. I was back in the city, on the little hillock again. Ellie was to my left, only she didn’t appear to be sinister anymore. I wondered about her, but she didn’t regard me. Kreios was to my right again, staring directly ahead as well.
“Be ready, Airel.” Kreios whispered.
I snapped my eyes back to the front.
There was something in the meadow besides grass and wildflowers. Something dark, something that flowed like a spill. Some noxious fume. I could just pick out details as the tentacles of the thing flowed into the open field and slowly took it over and choked the life out of it, like a gnarled hand grasping to kill.
Anti-Cherubs. Infernals. Brothers. Demons. Still others; an approaching army. The Horde was a single organism that breathed from the same cursed lungs, moving as one.
At their front, in the midst of their leading edge, stood a figure cloaked in red, the pure white of its robe peeking out in the breeze that lifted and teased the cloak. A long black staff was in its hand. The Seer had miraculously returned from his overthrow. Or perhaps a new one has been found.
Three angelic warriors stood against the very essence of evil; all that could be mustered. I pretended to be calm but fear rose up inside me. I tried to count but then realized there were far too many thousands for me to continue.
A stone’s throw away, the leader—the Seer—stopped, holding up a pasty white hand in signification to the Horde. They then halted in their many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. It was a sick greeting, like the kiss of Judas. The hand