Burntout

"Blood and Stars"

Prologue

I was drowning. The water was rising higher and I struggled to keep my head above it. I tugged myself upwards, my hands still chained.

It was above my head now. My vision was blurring, my chest closing up. Black. Nobody there. Regulus? I need you.

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Andromeda Claire Holloway

I slid into the vinyl seat of my favorite coffee shop, cradling my steaming cup of coffee as I pulled my novel out of my bag. I had lost my ever-loving mind over the month, straying thoughts in my mind as I waited for the day of the month when I would get to re-read my favorite book.

Getting through college was one thing but the premonition that one day I would be running a bookshop downtown soon, maybe in the coming weeks, was another. In my last year of college intending to get a teaching degree I knew I would never use, I had used the last of my savings to buy out the little store with its aisles and aisles of stories to hopefully run a successful company. It was too late during my choice of the degree to change paths after the idea of teaching had worn off. Instead, the investment in a profitable company sounded like the next best thing so I had taken the risk and made a bid on the auction for the business. 100,000 dollars worth of dreams went in, beating out the 80,000 dollars someone else made.

I pictured my name painted on a sign that hung above my hopefully-soon-to-be shop: Andromeda's Book Nook. Maybe I would need to work on the name but for now, that was the least of my worries as I opened the first page. Burntout, my favorite book of all time always held a place in my heart because something always felt oddly familiar about the names of the characters or the places in which they were. It might've just been the writing style but it always felt like I somehow played a role in the story. The name of the main character was Andromeda as well so that might've been it, the kinship that I seemingly shared with her.

I felt the familiar crease of the pages as I read the dedication- to a person named Sammy. I took a sip of my coffee as I flipped the page to reveal the first chapter, the one titled "Blood and Stars". The odd chapter names got me every time. No matter how many times I read this book, every month without missing a day, I couldn't help but love the story and it felt like a brand new tale every time- almost like the characters were evolving.

I stirred my coffee lazily, keeping my eyes on the page. I heard the sound of the bell hanging on the entrance door as someone pushed it open. The sounds of that person's footsteps echoed throughout the café, louder than the quiet, stereotypical "coffee establishment" music playing softly in the background. An aromatic scent lingered in the air, not exactly overwhelming, more of a spicy kind of smell; and it filled the space where I was sitting as the person sat down in the seat across the table.

"Excuse me?" a man's voice came from the figure in front of me. I glanced over my book to look at the person, an oddly familiar set of steel-gray eyes looking back at me.

I cleared my throat, "Do I know you and, excuse you?" He frowned slightly.

An awkward silence passed between us as I studied his face in an attempt to figure out where I had seen him before. Gray eyes, curly blonde hair, and an elfish kind of air around him made me think of a movie star that I couldn't quite place. The movie may have been a fantasy plot because his expressions resembled a look of carefully practiced royalty.

He fumbled for words, " Theodore Alexander Laurier but you used to call me just Theo."

Theo? The name sounded familiar to me, like a memory that had been washed away over time. It was also the name of the love interest in Burntout so I found it funny that he seemingly matched the description the author made. He also happened to be my favorite character. I was so sure now I had met him before, almost like he was from another life I had had.