My eyes float up to the blue sky and back down again to the clouds, and I wonder about all the stories that say God separated dark and light and all of that. Millions or billions of years ago, when people said there were only two things. Part of me wonders if the light and dark was really white cloud and deep blue sky.
The philosophical part of me wonders if I’m at the point of origin for the universes. The place that existed before the garden and before time. Immediately, Adam’s shows ruin my intellectual wondering, and The Land Before Time pops into my head. It’s this insanely old animated movie he found on YouTube about dinosaurs. It’s actually pretty cute.
I picture the little dino characters playing here, running around. And I start to see shadows in the distance.
At first, hope bubbles up in my stomach, and I think it might be Ziel coming to see me. I haven’t been able to find him in my dreams for what feels like forever. My mind rarely ends up in the clouds these days, so weighed down by heartache, which really isn’t fair at all, because I could really use his arms around me right now. I could use a hug, imaginary or not.
I watch the shadows grow closer, and as they do, they separate. I realize that they’re multiple forms—not a single person but several. And they seem thicker and taller than most people as well.
A breeze starts up, and my hair whips around me, the pink curls bouncing prettily, in a way they never would in real life. They dance in front of my eyes and then away. When they fly to the side, I realize that the shadows are suddenly much closer, moving much faster.
A horrid growl carries across the dunes of clouds between them and myself, the kind that sounds like a lion or a bear, like a predator who’s furious. Did…did they smell me?
Fuck.
I turn, and my legs start pumping as I sprint up the hill made of clouds. My eyes scan right to left, but there’s nowhere to hide. There’s only dune after dune of cumulus white.
Behind me, the snarls grow louder and closer. I feel the clouds start to vibrate underneath my feet, as if this is some kind of giant trampoline, and the movement of the monsters reverberates through the cloud and reaches all the way to my toes. I glance back and see that the shadows are actually huge brown monsters somewhat shaped like men, but they have no necks. Their heads are domes set onto their shoulders, and their skin isn’t smooth, but cracked and oozing. Their eyes are dark black and bulging, with multiple facets, like a fly’s. The wind changes direction and whips from them to me, and a putrid scent washes over me.
Shit. I cough and gag. They smell like literal shit.
One lifts an arm and swings his hand backwards, as if he’s about to throw something at me. But there’s nothing in his hand.
My eyes widen when his entire hand detaches from his arm and flies at me, sailing through the sky, aided by the wind. I scramble to get away as the hand smashes into the clouds with a disgusting plop. I scurry up an entire dune of puffy clouds before I look back. I jump from round puff to round puff, climbing the thirty-foot rise, my chest puffing and sore by the time I reach the crest. When I do look back, it’s with horror, because I find that the hand made of shit is dragging itself up the cloud dune after me, leaving a shit stain behind it.
Motherfucker! I try to tell myself this is a dream. I try to wake up. But it doesn’t matter that this is a dream, because my eyes won’t open and I’m stuck. I’m stuck in the awful mess, and these growling things are coming for me, and they’re so close now that I can see the sheen on their black eyes as they start to ascend the hill.
Something grabs my hand, and I shriek and whirl, my fist flying into a huge chest.
“Shhh, Katrina, love, quiet. It’ll only stir them up more.” Ziel’s gravelly tone instantly makes me turn soft and limp. My limbs become compliant, and I stare up at him with wide eyes, willing him to save me.
Tonight, his red cape billows out to one side, the wind whipping it up. His skin is bronzed, his lips thick, his hair a mop of brown curls. But his smirk is familiar, even if his face is not.
“Need a hero?” he asks.
And I don’t give a shit that it’s not modern of me. I leap in his arms and wrap my legs around his waist, whimpering, “Hell yes.”
Ziel jumps into the sky, blasting off like he’s Superman, a hook swiping under my stomach and yanking it up into my throat as we zip through the air, arching over the roaring shit demons beneath us, spiraling to dodge another shit hand they launch at us.
I burst into ridiculous, relieved laughter as my dream guy plays the hero and rescues me.
“Why are you laughing?”
I grin. “Because this is the most ridiculous dream ever. I mean, where did I even come up with shit monsters?”
“Katrina…” Ziel’s brow lowers. “I know you’re asleep, but you know this realm is real… Don’t you? I’m really here.”
“What?” I ask, my mind not quite processing. He can’t really be here in this cloud desert. He’s imaginary.
Suddenly, Ziel tucks me in tighter and shoots backwards so that we dodge another excrement missile.
My silly giggles come back as my stomach drops and we soar off, and I can’t help but compare the sensation to a wild roller coaster. Sometimes, my mind is ridiculous. Ziel shakes his head but smiles fondly down at me. I reach up, my braver dream-self ready to kiss him. But I don’t even get the opportunity to lean up and give his luscious lips a thank you because something grabs my arm.
I turn, worried a shit hand has grabbed me. But nothing’s there. The yanking continues. Harder. More insistent.
And then a tiny voice breaks through my dream. Adam says, “Katty.”
Ziel immediately disappears, and the dark shadows of the hotel room loom over me, deep blue and black like a bruise. Going from dream to reality feels like I’ve been punched, and I stare at Adam, disoriented and half-awake for a moment.
“Katty, I had a nightmare,” Adam tells me, his eyes wide. I can see they’re red-rimmed from crying.
“Oh, bud.” I lean down and kiss his unruly bedhead. I give a long yawn. “Let me get you a glass of water, and I’ll tell you a story, okay?”
He nods and sniffles.
I shuck off the covers and go over to the bathroom, flicking on the faucet to get him a drink. I scrub a hand over my face. This is his third nightmare in less than a week.
As I make my way back to bed and help him get a sip of water, then flick on the side light and start telling him about the time his sister got chased through the school by a poop monster (yeah, I’m not super creative at midnight, and poop is always good for a four-year-old giggle), I can’t help but wonder if what I’m doing, keeping Adam away from Mom and Dad, is the right thing.
Is he having all these nightmares because our family is broken?
Guilt rubs my insides like sandpaper, leaving me raw and aching. If he is…then it’s all my fault.
6
Raz
She disappeared. She was in my arms, and she just disappeared. Right as I was about to pour my fucking heart out and tell her everything.
But what would make Katrina leave? What would steal her from sleep?
Visions of that fucker who showed up in the gym at Lakewood Prep flash before my eyes. Akor breaking every bone in that bastard’s body with pain magic wasn’t enough of a punishment. Especially not when we’d had to hustle Zolroth out of there so that he wouldn’t bleed out.