The Second Coming || Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi, David Bowie

The Second Coming: Two

I have spells all the time, at least twice a day.

Spells I call them, because I cannot control them. One minute I can be conscious, thinking and breathing in the present day, and the next I'll be consumed by my thoughts of Axl. The terrible wound he left by abandoning me is fresh again, I can still hear his words lingering in the air, I can feel his skin beneath my fingertips.

Usually, I realize it's just a dream within a few minutes. I blink a few times, Axl goes away, and everything is back to normal again.

So when I saw Axl Rose standing there, maybe a hundred feet from me, I closed my eyes. I opened them, and he was still there, so I closed them again. Surely he would disappear, and this cold feeling in my gut would go with him.

That definitely didn't happen.

My mouth was dry and sticky as I forced myself to study him, dressed simply in a black t-shirt and pants, a bandana, a baseball cap.

"Callie, get a hold of yourself," I whispered as the man who was frighteningly resemblant to Axl began to move in my direction.

"Oh god," I muttered. Adrenaline pushed through my veins; should I run, or should I stay and face this man?

He was growing closer, close enough for me to make out his facial features, close enough for me to know that this was none other than Axl.

He was twenty feet away, then ten, but before he could reach me Nina came flying out of nowhere and attached herself directly to his side.

Axl's facial expression would've been funny if I hadn't been thinking about chewing Nina's head off for touching him. Axl was probably thinking the same thing. He turned up his nose and held his arms away from his body, staring down at her with disgust.

"Oh my Lord, Axl Rose!? I may be half drunk, but I would always recognize that face!"

"Get the fuck off of me," he snapped, and I nearly fainted at the sound of his voice. Such a smooth baritone, and it was real. It wasn't a spell, and he was standing right in front of me. I somehow knew that this had to be some kind of cruel dream, and so I didn't get my hopes up.

He plucked Nina off of his body the way one would pluck a the sticker off of an apple.

She whined a little bit and took a tentative step toward him again, but I could tell he was in no mood.

"Oh come on Axl, don't be like that! I... I love you, and-"

"Nina," I said, and he seemed to jolt a little at the sound of my voice, or so I hoped.

"That's not Axl Rose, you must still be drunk or something, that's just a student."

Nina scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Nice try Callie, just because you constantly have these weird fantasies about Axl doesn't mean you can-"

I cleared my throat loudly, my cheeks were heating with embarassment. I jumped to Nina's side and steered her away from him by the shoulders, back down the path that lead toward her dorm room.

"You're delusional Nina, and very, very hung over. Just um... keep walking that way, you'll hit the dorms eventually."

"B-but-"

"I'll be there in a minute, I'm just gonna go get you another iced latte."

Luckily she kept stumbling down the path, already having forgotten about Axl.

My breath caught in my throat as I turned around again. I faced the man who I'd dreamed about for more than a year, who I presumed to be dead, who I knew I would never see again.