30-Kit
The dream takes me without warning or mercy.
One blink, and I’m at the edge the forest, air heavy with moss and rain-soaked earth. Light filters through the canopy in slender beams, transforming the leaves into sheets of emerald glass. The wind hums with a melody I’ve known since before I had a name.
It’s Eden, or the closest thing I’ll ever get to it.
A familiar giggle weaves through the trees. There she is, with eyes as bright as polished amber. She kneels among the flower field’s daffodils, fingertips brushing their sunny petals. Her hair catches the currents like a banner of toasted brown silk. I’m drawn to her in a way I can’t fight.
As always.
Damp leaves brush my boots, crushed herbs releasing their aroma. I move through the undergrowth like a shadow. Wind catches her curls, carrying a wildflower fragrance toward me as I creep closer. My heartbeat grows, drowning out the breeze.
I reach behind me, fingertips brushing the hilt of the dagger sheathed in my belt. It hums faintly, vibrating with the weight of the ending it represents. A few paces away, she stills, her spine straightening.
It’s now or never—the lion leaping at prey before it runs.
I take another step, but it’s small, too hesitant. Skirts sweeping across the flower tops, she bolts. She darts across the field, hair streaming behind her like a comet’s tail.
My fingers brush her puffed white sleeve as I lunge after, but she twists away. She leaps over a fallen log at the edge of the trees but slips on wet moss, nearly losing her footing. I catch her wrist for a moment before she spins out of reach again, but she’s cornered against a rotted trunk.
She puts up a fight, small but fierce, palms pounding against me. I catch her wrists gently, lifting them above her head. Her breath trembles against my neck. Resolve settles across her features like fresh snowfall, soft and quiet, as she realises there’s nowhere left to go.
“I do not belong to him,” she states, a spark of defiance flaring beneath her phoenix stare. “Don’t let him take me back. Please.”
Her voice breaks, cracking my resolve like ice.
“It’s the only way I can see her,” I whisper, the confession falling from my lips like breath as I release her.
Melody; a wound that never healed properly.
“I know you’re not ready to let go yet,” Zach whispers as her trembling hand rests against my cheek. “It’s okay.”
Her skin is impossibly cold, like tundra made flesh. A tear slips down her face and catches the approaching twilight like a falling star. She bows her head, not bothering to look up. Fury rips from me, strangled and unbidden at what I am forced to do.
I lift the knife between us. Sunlight blooms from it in a wash, like golden hour breaking through fog. With a swift arc, I plunge the blade into her chest.
Her form dissolves into petals of silver that scatter through my fingers, settling on the forest floor like withered leaves. Her presence fades, and something inside me goes with her. The loss hollows me out, leaving a cold echo where her warmth should be.
The forest collapses like a dying star, and I’m standing in a dripping grotto, dingy air stinging my lungs. Somnium appears as if summoned from the earth at my feet, skin white as marble. He regards me with a mixture of pity and disdain.
“What is this place?” I ask, breath fogging as I drop the heavy metal weapon.
“My home, I believe. Once.” His brow creases, deep lines knitting together as he bends to retrieve the blasted knife. “It is difficult to separate my own memories from the souls that I have touched. But my past becomes clearer the closer you get to her.”
“Then why have me keep killing her?”
“Calm yourself,” he says, tone clipped and dismissive as he leans a shoulder to the damp wall. “As I said before, she is alive and well. I am simply preventing her from slipping back into your mind.”
He speaks as if I’m a leash he can yank at will.
“I thought you wanted to be reunited.” I shake my foot, trying to dry the soaked leather boots to prevent my toes from freezing.
“She knows a truth that she should not yet know.” He twirls the knife between his pointers, its silver blade soiled with what I’ve done once again. “And you are not ready to uncover it.”
“Bloody hell, mate,” I reply, wanting nothing more than to throttle the wanker. My hands curl into fists, but they’re useless against him. “Why tell me any of this?”
He smirks, a cruel curl of his lips that’s as deadly as the dagger.
“Because there is nothing you can do about it.”