Julia Dream

Verse 3: Am I Really Dying?

Will the misty master break me?

Will the key unlock my mind?

Will the following footsteps catch me?

Am I really dying?

Part 4

7

As Jake’s wounded body falls to the floor of the little room in the Waking World, he spins his body to the left in the Dream World. He feels the tip of the centurion’s spear dig into his back. But the turn of his body only leaves a deep laceration where it would have otherwise impaled him. After the fast-paced scene he just left, the disorientation of slow motion almost makes him nauseous. Jake hits the shield full force as time speeds up to normal. As he crumples to the ground, he realizes that he still can’t breathe. The moment of Harvey’s hit floods back into his memory.

“Jake!” yells Jason, the satyr who showed him where to find Julia’s dress and the creature that Jake has come to trust the most in the Sapphire City. But his voice sounds far away. “Get up, mate!”

Finally, his diaphragm releases and he sucks in a huge gulp of air. Then he hears the rumble of the giant armadillo. Hand against his chest, though, Jake continues catching his breath and is unable to move. “Do you think that’s air you’re breathing right now?” Laurence Fishburne always had one of those voices, and in the Matrix films, his voice was no less intoxicating. Jake sees the translucent image of Morpheus, dressed in his black kung fu outfit and leaning towards him, the questioning frown a mild taunt. Is he truly breathing air? What is real, haus? The thought breaks through the Morpheus image and Jake sees the good doctor again. But Morpheus’ voice can still be heard. “Your mind makes it real… The body cannot live without the mind.”

“Or the soul,” he says aloud.

He gets to his feet. Jake is now decked out in black combat boots, black pants and shirt, and a black cassock with a Mandarin high collar, buttoned to the waist. Dark sunglasses hide his eyes as he plants his feet firmly to brace himself for what comes next. His heart rate bounds upwards into the upper 130s as Harvey once again bears down on his position. Standing his ground once had proven alarmingly unsuccessful and sent him reeling back into the Waking World. How can Jake be so sure that this time it will be different? He studies the gigantic armadillo and notices that the creature’s eyes are no longer shining red. Its carapace looks worn and brittle. Harvey is… aging. And aging quickly.

He plants his feet firmly and leans forward slightly, hands held loosely at his side. Harvey is no more than thirty yards away, now. The ground shakes maddeningly as Jake prepares himself mentally for another unfortunate collision with the beast. But something changes. Jake doesn’t understand it right away, but he knows that something fundamental has happened. He blinks his eyes behind the sunglasses, trying to focus on a world that has suddenly become blurred. Not blurred in a physical sense, really, but in a perceptive sense. And there’s not less to perceive, but more. A lot more. He sees Harvey barreling towards him, and he sees Gwen and the kids, too. Both visions are real at the same time, yet they also seem to waver like heat waves before a mirage. Time slows to a crawl.

A third image adds itself to Jake’s sight. He raises his right hand into the air and lets the butterfly flit to a landing. This butterfly is not red, though, but black. Its wings are also prismatic, and the effect spreads to Jake as soon as the butterfly touches him. The insect, whose wingspan is nearly a foot across, regards him silently.

From far away, Jake hears two voices at once. “Stay back,” says Kly, who has positioned her host of fairies along the destroyed street’s perimeter. “Whatever that is, it cannot be good.”

“Jake,” yells Jason again. “It’s going to kill you!”

No, it’s not, he thinks as he regards the black butterfly. I’m dying. Jake knows this is a visitor from the World of Death. Just as the prismatic red butterflies inhabit the Dream World, so do these prismatic blacks inhabit the land of the dead. In this elongated moment of time, he studies the giant butterfly resting on his arm. It weighs next to nothing, despite its size, and he can see that the black of its wings is not all the same. In his mind’s eye, he adds the color orange, turning the insect into a monarch butterfly from the Waking World. His mind returns to the long ago time (which had only been a few weeks) when he stopped at the Ayerco gas station and saw the three monarchs flying about him. It had seemed weird to him then. Butterflies had never flown around him like that. But it makes sense now. The butterflies are the mediums of the different worlds. They are the elements of transition between them. Without butterflies, Jake now knows, humans couldn’t move from one world to another.

Without the butterflies, humans would be animals running on instinct alone. The mind and the body form our consciousness. The mind and soul form our self-awareness. The body and the soul form our sense of vision. None of this is difficult for Jake to understand, yet, as the simple truths are revealed to him, he cannot fathom how he has never seen it before.

Time begins to speed up, the world is no longer quiet and still. The gigantic armadillo, Harvey, is bearing down on him like the freight train about to crush Doc Brown’s time-traveling DeLorean. But Jake “Neo” Chambers is no longer afraid. He steps forward with his left foot and raises his left hand, palm out, at the armadillo. Harvey freezes mid rush, only inches from Jake’s extended arm. Though Harvey’s face is still twisted in anger, the creature is no longer bellowing his defiance. Jake regards the catatonic armadillo with calm surprise. As powerful as Jake has ever felt during a lucid dream, the power now coursing through him dwarfs it completely.

Suddenly, the black butterfly takes flight and is quickly joined by countless others that appear out of nowhere. From behind him, Jake can feel other butterflies appearing out of nowhere, but these are orange and black. Monarchs from the Waking World. The two swarms stay separate, both of them undulating and shapeshifting, their synchronous flight sounding like a constant wind. He looks to his right and regards the enormous spire that is the Sapphire Tower and a slight smile begins on his face. From behind the tower comes another shapeshifting swarm of butterflies, but these are red. As the new swarm approaches, the other two gain altitude and begin to circle. At first, the swarms stay separate, but as the red swarm gets closer, Jake sees streaks of orange through the black and streaks of black through the orange. The sound of their wind morphs into the sound of a great waterfall.

“Jake?” The scream belongs to Jason, the satyr. “What’s goin’ on, mate?”

Jake doesn’t look at his friend, but he doesn’t need to. He knows that Jason is wearing an expression of wonder and fear. Jake laughs quietly.

Another scream comes to his ears, and he knows it to be the Lady of Hosts. “It’s all three worlds, my friend,” Kly answers for Jake. “Are you doing this, Jake?”

Kly and Jason crowd into Jake as the number of butterflies seems to rise exponentially, the sound of their wings nearly overwhelming. The entire open area of Harvey’s destruction floods with them. Their vision is a maelstrom of black, red, and orange. Left hand still raised to hold back the levitating armadillo, Jake removes his sunglasses with his right hand and stares, mouth agape, at the butterflies. He meets the eyes of his friends, giving Kly her answer. I am doing this, he thinks. I am bridging the worlds!

Every so often, the friends can see through the chaos for only an instant. What they see is incredible. The power of the butterflies (the power of me!) is rebuilding the shops and homes and streets. As the area rebuilds, Harvey the armadillo shrinks. But as Harvey diminishes, the orange within the butterfly maelstrom also diminishes. Kly had told him that Harvey represents Jake’s connection to the Waking World, the world he belongs in. If Harvey disappears, then so will my connection to the Waking World. I can’t let that happen, I’m already dying.

Jake channels his will into the armadillo, now small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. He strengthens Harvey against the power of the butterflies and prevents the creature from getting any smaller. Then he shifts his focus to the butterflies and their number begins to grow smaller. He doesn’t stop until there is only one of each of them, just enough to hold onto the bridges he has built within him.

Around him, the city is back to what it was, the wide street they are standing in once again lined with shops, pubs, and homes. The butterflies light upon Jake, the red and black on each shoulder and the orange clinging to his upper back. Just at the edge of his vision he spies the cottage where Julia’s velvet dress is hiding in a footlocker on the upper floor.

“We need to move,” Jake tells his friends. “My time is running short.”

“Jake!” Jason puts a hand on Jake’s shoulder, holding him fast before he could take off for the cottage. “Are you goin’ to tell us what’s happenin’?”

He turns around to face Jason and Kly, his eyes wide and his jaw set. “I’m bridging the worlds, Jason. Black for Death, Red for Dreams, and Orange for Waking. I am in all three worlds simultaneously. We have to hurry, though.”

“But Jake,” Kly begins. “How are you doing this?”

“I don’t know how, Kly. I just am.” He lets out a small huff and crinkles his brow. “This is what Julia wants me for… My power to bridge the worlds. But she doesn’t know that I can bridge all three of them.” He looks away from Kly and stares at nothing. “She only wanted to harness the power of Death for a reason I can’t yet understand.”

“What’re you goin’ to do, now? Will you still go to her?” Jason sounds nervous.

“I have to,” he answers. Still staring at nothing, Jake continues, “I’m not powerful enough to maintain the bridges.”

Jason’s face drains a little of its color and his eyes widen just a hair. “How much of her power do you need?”

Jake looks into Jason’s pale face, his expression grave, “All of it.”

8

“Why are you coming to see him, Mrs. Chambers?” The question was direct and devoid of empathy or sympathy. Doctor Allgeier was genuinely curious about Gwen’s decision.

Gwen tried to hold back her contempt, but she wasn’t completely successful in the endeavor. “Because of the ‘Mrs.’.”

The curiosity of Doctor Allgeier continued, “But your husband tried twice to kill you.” He stopped short of the closed doors flanked on the right by a Department of Corrections officer. Neither of them was aware of the officer’s presence. The doctor’s expression was one of unabashed, but clearly idiosyncratic, wonderment. “All over a woman in a dream?!”

She took a deep breath and tilted her head back slightly. Staring down her nose at Allgeier, she spoke quietly, but dangerously. “The door, doctor. Or you may start feeling what I felt…”

Doctor Allgeier’s eyes went wide and googly for a moment as his mind processed her threat. Though he was shorter than her, the man still had a good build. No dad bod for this chump, thought Gwen. And as the word ‘chump’ went through her head, her mind momentarily replaced the doctor’s neatly parted hair with crown baldness, put a pair of oversized glasses on his face, and threw a wad of gum in his mouth that he chewed like cud for a cow. A chump with a loser hidden inside, came the next thought. She had to stifle a chuckle as the doctor took on an air of deference.

“Of course,” he muttered and quickly opened the door.

The door that the doctor opened was a putrid green with simple, white stenciling: PRISONER WING, and beneath that, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Gwen had been given a visitor badge at the hospital’s front desk that showed where in the hospital she was going. The shame forced her to try and hide the badge by holding her purse in front of her as she walked the halls with Doctor Curiosity. Now that they were through, she let her arms hang freely.

The prisoner wing wasn’t really a wing at all. It was four rooms surrounding a modest nurses’ station. She looked back at the doors they had just come through. It was obvious to her now that the entire ‘wing’ was all aftermarket. Gwen could see that the wall for the entrance doors was much newer than those of the hospital proper. The desks that comprised the nurses’ station looked like last year’s Ikea specials. Even the computers and other devices at the station were powered from ceiling drop cords. She could see two nurses at the station as they entered, they were utterly bored. One stared at a computer screen, looking like a soon-to-be zombie from a cheap indie film. The other looked much younger and didn’t even hide the fact that she was on her cell phone. Gwen took no offense to the obvious breaking of hospital staff rules, though, since her husband was the only one currently in the wing.

“This way,” said Doctor Allgeier.

It was a totally useless thing to say, however. But she knew that he was simply being gracious following his admonishment. Jake’s room was the second from the right. Second room to the right and straight on ‘til mourning. Gwen instantly teared up and the lump in her throat felt like a boulder she couldn’t swallow. It was confusing for her. She had loved Jake almost from first sight. He wasn’t “hot”, or a “stud”. But he was “a man”. There was no mistaking that. Maybe he didn’t show it outwardly as much as she had desired, but that wasn’t a deal-breaker for her. Gwen knew that when push came to shove, Jake would be there to protect her and stand up for her. That was the deal-clencher.

But ever since he met the woman in his dreams, Jake had become lost. So lost, that he tried to kill her twice, killed two men in cold blood, and shot himself point blank with a shotgun. There was no history of schizophrenia or psychosis in Jake’s family. Nothing to give even the suspicion that he might do anything resembling what he’d done the last few weeks. And now he was dying.

Gwen paused by the open door to Jake’s room. She had to steel herself against the swirl of emotions that were flooding into her brain. All was quiet, except for the keystrokes of zombie nurse at the computer, the constant whir of the ventilation system, and the constant beep of Jake’s vitals. Then she entered.

Jake laid on the hospital bed, motionless. There was no expression on his face, just the calm of an induced coma. The blanket was pulled up to his neck to keep him warm. Three IV bags hung above him. The lights in the room were dim. He looked at peace, except for his eyes. Though they were closed, Gwen could see his eyes racing back and forth. He was dreaming.

“Why is he dreaming?” she asked quietly, trying not to disturb her husband.

“We don’t know, Mrs. Chambers. We’ve never seen a comatose patient with such active brain patterns.” Being in the presence of an actual patient seemed to have stemmed the tide of the doctor’s unempathetic musings. Allgeier was in full doctor mode, now. “As his wife, you have full power of attorney over Mr. Chambers’ future. And I must be frank, it’s bleak.”

“What is his condition?”

The doctor turned towards Gwen, his face as expressionless as her husband’s. “He is in complete renal shutdown. His kidneys are failing, albeit slowly. The right kidney is hopeless, it was damaged beyond repair by the gunshot. The other kidney took a hit from a pellet of lead shot. It appears that the pellet in question ricocheted off of your husband’s L1 vertebra and is still lodged within the kidney. We’re not sure how long until that kidney shuts down, and there is no availability for a kidney because of your husband’s legal troubles. Even if the chances of his survival were a little higher, we can’t be sure that he’d ever walk again due to the unknown damage to the L1 vertebra.”

Gwen blinked back tears. She sought for the answers within herself as to why Jake would suddenly turn like this. Who is Julia? Of all the questions, this one nagged her the most. She knew Jake was helplessly and hopelessly in love with her. She was the one that kept him going. His work at the hospital, this hospital, was not what he wanted, and she knew that. He wanted so much more for himself. But he was happy enough to do it because it allowed her to live the life she wanted. Isn’t that love? Isn’t that the kind of sacrifice a little girl dreamed of when thoughts of marriage first popped into her adolescent mind? She got that! She got that dream! But it was taken away from her. From her and the children. By this Julia… Was it somebody that Jake knew before he met her? Was it a manifestation of what Jake truly wanted in a woman and couldn’t get with her? Was it a midlife crisis? It didn’t make any sense.

She looked the doctor in the eyes, her own eyes unyielding. “What are you saying, doctor, that Jake is as good as dead?”

Doctor Curiosity had completely left the building at Gwen’s question. He looked more like Doctor Sheepish, now. “There is nothing we can do. I am sorry.”

He started to make his way towards the door when Gwen’s voice stopped him. “Doctor Allgeier, I’d like to be undisturbed with my husband.”

Allgeier turned his wrist to see the time on his watch. “The nurses won’t do rounds on him for another thirty-five minutes. Will that suit you?”

“Quite. Thank you, doctor.”

When the doctor left, closing the door behind him, Gwen walked slowly to her husband’s side. She had never seen his face so perfect. There was not a speck of dirt on it, his skin was clean and not oily or dry. There was no worry, fear, or joy to make his countenance impure. She bent down, putting her face within a couple of inches of his. She could hear his rhythmic breathing and she could see the racing of his closed eyes. Gwen placed a hand to Jake’s left cheek, the way a loving wife should when on the verge of becoming a widow.

“Who is she, Jake? Who is this woman that has stolen you from me?” Her hand crept up his face so that her thumb could gently rub his forehead. “Are you looking for her now?”

He took a deeper breath, pushing it out of his nose in a short puff.

Sudden anger flared up in her. How could you do this to me, you son of a bitch?! She wanted to scream it from the rooftops. Instead, she bent closer to his ear.

“You’re lucky you’re not on life support, buddy. Or I’d pull the plug right now.” She kissed his cheek. Then, with her hand still cradling his cheek, she stood tall over him. “Let’s see if this makes it into your dream.”

Gwen cocked back her thumb that still rested on Jake’s forehead, the nail now pushing against the skin. She pushed harder. Jake showed no reaction as his dream continued. She pushed harder still. Nothing. She gritted her teeth at the strain of pushing the nail into his skin. Blood began to stream from the wound, and she stopped. Pulling her hand away from his face, she watched in bemused horror as the red stream hit his eyebrow and changed its course towards his ear.

Gwen scurried to the bathroom and wetted a paper towel. She caught the stream of blood before it could reach the pillow and its bone white pillowcase. Wiping the remaining blood from Jake’s face, she clenched the damp, blood-soaked paper towel in her hand as she sat in the chair next to his bed. Her tears flowed freely.

9

The street is just as crowded as it was when Jake first arrived. A sense of pride swells through him, he has saved people’s dreams. The irony, though, is not lost on him. A hero he may be in this world, but in the world he’s “meant” to be in he’s a villain. He has stolen and he has killed. And it wasn’t an object that I stole, but lives. Indeed, the lives of his wife and children are forever altered. He knows that, once this is all over, she and the children will not be able to stay in Edinburg. No, they will move as far away as they can get. Jake knows Gwen will take the kids to a San Francisco suburb. She will meet a man named James. He will be a good father for the children. Jake knows that Gwen will find happiness again. What will I find?

Jake has no idea where this will end. He only understands the next step. There is no going back. The die is cast, he thinks.

“Kly, take your host and surround the tower.”

“Whatever for, Jake? She is my master. I cannot act as though I’m holding her prisoner.” She leans back in her hovering as she speaks, a rather human reaction to not wanting to do something dangerous and stupid.

Jake turns to her, anger evident on his face. “She already knows about all that’s happened, Kly. You don’t really believe that she’s ignorant of Harvey’s trampling of part of her city, do you? Surround the tower facing outward, showing protection.”

“Why should I not protect her? What are you planning to do?” The accusation in her voice is unmistakable.

“I don’t have a plan, Kly,” the contempt dripping from every word. “Just do it, please. I don’t know how this is going to play out. But I do know that nothing will be the same. Not even Julia Dream. You may see her dark side, and that’s why you should be prepared.”

“Very well, Jake. I will heed you on this matter… for now.” She turned away from him and flew towards the Sapphire Tower, her host of fairies following close behind.

“Jason,” Jake begins as he turns towards the satyr. “You look live you’ve seen a ghost.”

Jason can only stare at Jake. “You’re really goin’ ta change ev’rything, aren’t you?”

“Why does that scare you? You were all pomp and arrogance when we first met, remember?”

He shakes his head up and down and says, “Aye, I was. But that’s when I knew things. You’re gonna change the whole game, mate. You’re gonna change the purpose. What will be your purpose once you’ve won? What will you do with Julia? With Jeron? I belong to the Dream World as it is now. Will I belong in your new version of it? I am the keeper of the dress, mate. And when I wasn’t needed for that, when there was no suitor for Julia, then I would spend my days outside the city. I would play, Jake. Play! I’d play with the dreamer children and their dream friends. You may not do anythin’ intentionally to my home, Jake. But how will the unintentional affect it… and me? I haven’t seen a ghost; I just hope I’m not lookin’ at one.”

Jason sweeps his left arm in an arc over the Sapphire City when he speaks his last words. It tugs at Jake’s heart, and he knows that nothing will be the same. And he can’t predict what the “new” will be. He thinks back to when he met Julia Dream. How beautiful she was! Beautiful enough for you to ruin your life back home! To this moment, Jake still has no idea what Julia was able to do to him. What spell had she woven over him? He doesn’t know. But he can also feel the tug of the velvet dress. If he was to close his eyes, he would find the dress as though his eyes were open and unblinking. The butterflies, red on his left shoulder, black on his right, orange on his back, also pulled at him. Not in the tugging manner of the dress, but more akin to stretching SaranWrap over a baking dish half-full of leftovers.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, Jason. I’m not sure I want to know.” Jake sighs and turns his gaze to the cottage in the distance. “But I won’t leave you behind. I won’t leave Kly behind, either. Not if I can help it.”

The satyr’s eyes soften, and a smile creeps up on his face. “I appreciate your reassurances, mate. But you mayn’t be in a state of mind to give much of a shite about us. You’ve no idea what living in all three worlds will do t’ya. You’ve no idea what it’ll do to us.” He lays his eyes upon the blue spire where his queen awaits Jake, and a doom she is not expecting. “Best to keep your promises to yourself and let events unfold as they will.”

Jake realizes Jason’s point and nods. He takes a deep breath and pushes it out of his nose in a short puff. “Nothing will unfold if we stay here,” he says.

He winks at Jason and begins to walk towards the cottage. A sudden, piercing pain blooms in the middle of his forehead. It feels like a needle boring into his skull, and he screams and buckles to his knees. His ears fill with a horrible ringing. The butterflies do not move, but the orange on his back begins to flutter its wings. After a few moments, the pain subsides. Jake stands and pulls his hand away from his forehead. The blood has soaked his hand and drips to the cobblestone below. His hearing comes back to him.

“Jake! What’s happenin’?” Jake feels Jason’s hand on his lower back. The red butterfly’s position makes Jason’s concerning stance somewhat comical. “You’re bleedin’?”

He raises his unbloodied left hand to Jason’s concern. “Christ! What the fuck was that?!”

Jake flicks his bloody hand towards the ground in an effort to get rid of the blood. It doesn’t do much good. He can feel the blood pouring out of the wound and down his face. He raises his arm to his forehead to stanch the bleeding. Jason moves around Jake to stand in front of him. It’s another awkward moment, but he doesn’t focus on it. His mind races trying to figure out what happened. Gwen, he thinks. She’s in the hospital with me. And she’s obviously pissed off. Of course, Jake can’t really blame her now, can he? She probably wishes I was on life support so that she can pull the plug. He snorts with derision.

Pulling his arm from his forehead, Jake says, “Let’s go. We have no time to waste.”

Jake takes off at a sprint and puts his arm around Jason’s waist, picking him up off of the ground. Then he picks his own feet up from the ground and begins to fly through the crowd of dreamers and the dreamed. It wasn’t but an instant and they were in front of the cottage.

“HA!!!” Jason screams. “Bloody hell, that was wicked!”

Moving as Neo from the Matrix, Jake leaves the satyr breathing heavy at the front of the cottage and bolts into the house and up the stairs. There before him sits the rough wooden chest that holds the dress of his velvet bride. He considers the last time he laid eyes on this chest. It seems a lifetime ago. So drawn into the conversation with Jason, back when he was more pompous than serious, that Jake had never taken notice of the chest itself. He takes that moment now.

The wood is graying and splintering. Apparently, lacquer doesn’t exist in the Dream World. It is a nonsense thought, but aren’t half of the things we think about nonsense? What else would you expect from a biological organ that never shuts down? The clasp and lock that holds the chest shut is in the shape of a butterfly. Once painted red, only flecks of paint remain over the black wrought iron. Jake sees fading scenery painted on the sides and lid of the chest. Cocking his head to one side, he squints a little to better see the painting on the lid. His heart jumps when he recognizes Jason. And on the opposite side, the character that is bent over what can only be the chest itself is him! But this portrait of him wears period garb of royalty. It’s a hard pill to swallow to see himself in puffed shoulders, tights, and an ostentatious hat. There it is, though. Then Jake looks at the paintings on the sides of the chest. Each one contains Jason, but each character opposite of him is different. Each of the three men painted there have similar clothing, but Jake knows that they are from time periods far removed from his own.

“Past suitors,” says Jason from behind him. “The one on the front is Gaius Falco, a Roman praetorian from the early 5th century. He was a gruff man, hard and lean. He had never known a woman, if you know what I mean, and he couldn’t understand what he was feelin’ for my queen. His totem turned out to be a crocodile. What a mess that was for the city. Gaius never found the way to control his totem, and it ate him.

“On the right side there, is none other than Louis the 16th of France. I will never come to terms with Julia choosin’ that man. But he was the one that came closest to fulfilling her plans. Louis had made it as far as the wedding, sure. His cougar totem was sittin’ silent and menacing. Louis, though, during the entire ceremony, was sweatin’. Imagine it, Jake, a dreamer sweatin’! I’d never seen that before. The ceremony ended before it could finish, though. Turns out that the man was beheaded. His visage fizzled right before our eyes.

“Finally, on the left, is the suitor who came before you. His name was Tate-ho, or Howler in the Wind. He was of the Lakota tribe of native North Americans. Howler’s totem was a hawk. He was a really cool dude, sure. But, despite the hold Julia was able to have on him, Howler never fell in love with her. He walked away from the Sapphire City and was never seen again. That was two centuries ago.”

Jake laughs silently when Jason finishes speaking. “Louis the Sixteenth? Seriously?” He laughs a little more. “And here I am a lowly IT professional.”

“You’re not a lowly anythin’, my friend. None of these three had the power you have now. You’re the dog’s bollocks compared to them.” He nods to the chest.

Jake’s expression becomes serious. The satyr flinches slightly at the change and his eyes widen into saucers.

“Let’s get this done,” says Jake.

He turns and opens the chest. There is the dress, folded as neatly as it was the first time that he saw it. Its prismatic sheen glimmers in the sunlight streaming through the window on the other side of the room. Jake reaches into the chest and picks up the dress, standing as he does so. The velvet is soft on his skin, the blue beneath the sheen is brilliant. It is a gorgeous piece of clothing, and his heart jumps at the thought of seeing Julia in it. It will be a beautiful death for you, my love.

The epiphany shocks him to the core. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to acknowledge what must happen? Regardless, whether it’s an epiphany or a suppressed realization, the thought makes it tangible. Jake may have started this journey as a lowly IT professional with a penchant for lucid dreaming, but now he’s attempting something that he is sure nobody has ever done before. Can a mortal really end the life of a demigod?

Jake gives the dress a rough-shod fold and slings over his shoulder. He turns to his friend, Jason, and sighs, knowing that this may be the last time he sees the satyr. Taking a step forward, he holds his hand out to him. Jason can feel what’s coming and grasps his forearm. Just like in those fantasy films, he thinks.

“See you on the other side, my friend,” Jake says solemnly.

“You sure ya don’t want me to go with ya?” There is an air of relief in Jason’s words, because he knows Jake wants to go alone. But it won’t be right if he doesn’t offer to help.

Jake gives him a smile, tightens his grip momentarily on Jason’s arm, then takes off into the sky, blowing a hole into the cottage’s roof in his wake. Jason looks at the hole in the roof and raises an eyebrow.

“That’s goin’ to hurt the resale value.”

Click Here to Continue to Part 8