Jack

Vision

There is a tree. The tree is tall and dry looking. The bark is dark and ragged, it’s branches twisted and gnarled like an elderly man’s knotting hands. One branch is twisted into an odd spiral, which I relate to Julia’s curls.

I look around.

A few feet beside the tree is a noticeably large hole. Forest litter fills it, along with something else I can’t place. Looking beyond the tree and the hole, the forest looks dark, almost… too dark. I try to take a step, but my feet are anchored. I need to…

Now

“Jack, you handsome devil,” I blink several times as the world spins into view. Brady’s glowing features materialize before my eyes and I suck in a sharp breath. As if he took that as a good omen, he grinned. “you saw something, didn’t you?”

“No,” I muttered, shrugging Brady off with a turn of my shoulder. “Just, a patient earlier… was trying to regulate her immune system, and...” I interrupted myself with a yawn. “Look, Brady. I’m going for a walk...” Brady’s ecstatic mood was destroyed.

“Number one, some wicked witch of the west tried to kill you twice, and number two, Lassie’s gone missing—-”

“Then come with me,” I spat between my teeth, knowing I was going to regret the decision as soon as I said it. Brady chuckled.

“I’ll get Elin.”

I thought of objecting to that, but I stopped. Something was going to happen near that tree I’d seen, and I was going to find it. The kid was absurd, but hell maybe she had a point. She knew something. It might not be what I thought it was, but knowledge in my opinion was something you didn’t bitch with.