Jack

“Jack, stop, this goes that way.” I slouched back against my tree again, swatting some sort of mutated fly. Brady was stooped over, digging one of the tent’s poles into forest litter and stirred up terra. In Boston, hardly are there any places to run. Good thing, since the squad cars weren’t after us in the first place.

“Where’s Sarge?” I realized it’d been nearly an hour since I’d seen the guy. Usually he stuck right by me.

“With the kids.”

“Speak of the devil, where are they?”

Brady let out a low grunt as the pole of the tent slipped out of his grip momentarily, stabbing one of his knuckles. He brought the back of his wrist across his forehead and muttered a curse before answering me. “I’m surprised. You sound concerned.”

“I’m very concerned. You should be too. Have you seen the teenage crime rate? It’s increased by about fifteen perce—-”

“Jesus Jack, what are you, my wife?” We scowled at each other for an extra minute before Brady turned back to his tent, the underarms of his long buttoned shirt beginning to dampen.

“Hey Brady, what do you need when you find a lawyer buried in the desert, up to his neck in sand?”

“I’ve heard this one before.”

I bit into a grin, casually pushing myself away from the large pine. “More sand.” I knelt down to seat myself on the forest ground, shoving my hand into a pile of pine needles.

Vision

Bliss Hughs and James Pyro ambled through the forest in the pitch blackness, their expressions wild. They were both wondering what had just happened and if it would ever happen again.

“So,” James countered, hushed. He fitted his hand around Bliss’s right shoulder, to steady himself. His blond-haired friend didn’t bother to shake him off, and instead subconsciously leaned into James’s momentary comfort. James could see that Bliss was just as shaken as he was. “Do you think it’s all true?”

Bliss swallowed silently and shivered despite James’s unusually hot touch. Growing up, Bliss embraced the cold, with open arms. “Seems like a horrid tale. I be believe’n it.” Silently, he added, “Scared, is you?”

James bowed his head, deciding to avoid Bliss’s question. “We’re special. They told us we were. What do you suppose the Prophecy is, though?”

“Don’t know. We be lost iffen we don’t find it.”

James and Bliss silently pushed forwards, fearing the worst. Why had that shady man approached James and Bliss on the night of James’s bachelor party? He seemed to know them, though, even more than they knew themselves. He spoke of some prophecy. He spoke of demons, and “abilities”. He also seemed to know that Bliss and James harbored some of these strange abilities too. James had just pinpointed himself as a freak before, but now he didn’t know what to think. At first he grew angry, almost too enraged to control himself, but the man had been frantic. Why shouldn’t they believe him? Why should they? What else had the man “seen”? What was his name again? Traven. That was his name.

Traven Daniels.

James knelt down by a large mound of pine needles and breathed. He would find Traven again. Either that, or Traven would find him. It was only a matter of time.

Now

I stole my hand away from the pile of pine needles that James Pyro had squatted next to many, many years before.

What the hell was that?

I brought myself to steal a glance at Brady and realized that fortunately he hadn’t been paying attention. I really didn’t need all of the cackling over me this time. Brady had already bought into all of this crap. If he saw me pass into one of these hallucinations again, he’d probably go into a full-fledged flight back to the heart of Boston.

I brought my hand up, bringing my finger tips to slowly brush the edge of my forehead.

It couldn’t be real.