The Final Showdown - The Moon Trilogy - Book 3

Chapter fourteen:

   "Glad you could make it." Ellie chirped her face melting into shadow, partly invisible. "If I'm being honest, I didn't expect any of you to show up." A smile curled over her face.

   "Tell us what you know about Eric Lance," Scarlett demanded, stepping forward ever-so-slightly.

   "Well, someone's in a bad mood." Ellie murmured quietly before taking a deep breath and continuing at a normal volume. "He was recently in this very building, actually. This morning, in fact. He blew everything up. On purpose. I don't know why, but he did it. He left via motorcycle immediately after setting off an explosion in this building. I don't know where he's off to, but I'll let you know as soon as the info comes in. I hope you're enjoying your suits, by the way." She said with a brief pause for a smile, a split second before disappearing.

   Clarity walked forward. Ellie didn't seem or look like a teleporter, so it didn't make sense for her to disappear. Clarity had been watching closely, and nothing had been visibly activated or pressed that could do the teleporting for her.

   On the ground where Ellie had been standing, there was a small butterfly. It was brightly colored and seemed to glow in the dim light, standing out on the scorched ground.

   It took off and disappeared into the night before she could get a good look at it.

   Clarity watched the darkened sky for any sign of either Ellie or the butterfly, but there was nothing there but the first twinkling of twilight stars.

   She sighed softly and turned to head back to the others when she suddenly felt a splitting crack of pain in her skull. And it was a heavy pain; It forced her to her knees, and her hands flew up to clutch at her head.

   She cried out, but she didn't know if any sound actually came from her mouth.

   Her head hurt... the pain filled her senses until nothing else was allowed in. Everything was the aching pain...

   She felt herself fall farther, though she wasn't sure how she could.

   Then everything was pitch black. She couldn't even feel herself breathing anymore. It was simply a big nothing, and that same, unyielding pain.

*********

   She opened her eyes, surprised to find the headache suddenly gone.

    She was on an endless prairie of grass. A storm seemed trapped in the sky, as if behind an invisible barrier. Along with the sight came a strong feeling of déjà vu. So strong that it was ridiculous.

  She had been here before. She'd never been surer of anything in her life.

     She wasn't paralyzed though, like she had been the past few times. Or at least, what she thought she remembered from the past few times. Had she really been here before? Shouldn't she have remembered?

   Whatever was happening, she was now free to move around. The storm seemed even more agitated and determined to break free than the last times she'd been in the strange dream.

   Was this a dream? She could remember waking up breathless... A foggy glimpse of a past lost in shadows.

   The rest of the memories flooded in with that last realization, and a thick sense of apprehension filled her throat. Would that happen again?

   She turned around, and just like she'd been expecting, she saw the white cottage.

  It was a second before she registered that something was wrong, and she physically stepped back in shock when she took in what it actually looked like.

   The paint was peeling and even completely faded in places. The little white fence was broken and just as faded as the house. There were only weeds growing in the previously perfect little garden. The door of the cottage was askew and peppered with tiny holes. From what she could see of the inside, there was mold growing on the walls, pots strewn across the floor, books ripped and scattered around. Absolutely everything was broken or dented or otherwise ruined.

   There was a sudden, loud rumble from the sky. She jumped and looked up, her heart fluttering in time with the lump of apprehension in her throat. The invisible barrier that she had imagined to be there before suddenly turned into a quite visible barrier. It shimmered with blues and purples like a sheet of transparent fabric.

   There was another rumble. This time she didn't jump, but her heart still skipped a beat. The violet barrier suddenly cracked, right in the middle. It was a long crack, but it wasn't wide enough for any of the storm to get through. All of those angry, trapped clouds were still stuck up there, so far away from the land they so desperately wanted to reach.

   She found herself feeling sorry for them until she reminded herself that they were just clouds. She was being ridiculous.

   Something white flickered across her peripheral vision. She snapped her gaze down to look, and she nearly jumped clear out of her skin when she saw that it was a human.

   However, the person, although clearly human, wasn't real. It was like looking at a television screen full of static, but the pictures beyond were just barely flitting around behind the blur.

   Upon close scrutiny, she saw that the person was none other than August. He was here.

   She had known all along that August had been the thing that was missing from the eerie scene, but she hadn't been expecting him to show up so suddenly.

    He spoke, but it was so faint and garbled that she could hardly tell that he was speaking, much less what he was saying.

   She stepped closer, but the apparition vanished before she could get close enough for any sort of contact. The great big crack in the sky's invisible barrier had been sealed.

   She looked around. The cottage was back to how it had been at first. Perfect and tidy. It was impossible for someone to have lived there. Even the cleanest people in the world weren't as perfect as the little white house.

   Something strange happened, although she wasn't sure what, and then she was sitting down, facing away from the little house, and unable to move. It was the exact position that she'd started in in the previous dreams. She sat there, unmoving, for a long while.

    It felt like forever, in fact, but unlike the dreams in the past, she remained there. She would never walk again... At least, that's what it felt like in the one, continuous moment of painful stillness.