Symbols Of Intuition
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The first night he woke up in the middle of the afternoon, he knew. His mind was full to bursting with information from a thousand different sources and there simply wasn’t enough space for him to absorb them all so his brain just shut down while it sorted out which bits were important.
The second time, he felt someone sitting beside his bed. There had been no one else on the ward that he knew of when he’d woken up that morning; he hadn’t even noticed any doctors or nurses. He sat up carefully as whoever it was moved away.
It took him a few seconds to register what she looked like. She was very small, dressed in white from head to toe—from her short blond hair to her toes. Her face was narrow but pretty and her eyes blue like his father’s; he couldn’t quite remember if they’d been green before or not. But there was something about her.
“Are you really my mother?” he asked, although he already knew that much, somehow. “Am I really here?”
She nodded gently. “I’m sorry for the other people who’ve visited you, dear,” she said. “There hasn’t been anyone to look after me.” She put one hand on his shoulder and he could feel a kind of energy coming off her skin.
“You’re here because I wanted to see you again, darling,” she told him. “It’s taken a long time. I thought it would never happen. Now don’t worry yourself over your brother, my love. When you need him, he will come around. And he’ll be okay.”
She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “He knows we want him back. We know it is difficult for him now. We understand.” Then she was gone and the next thing he remembered was the voice asking him how he felt about dying.
The third time, he realized it wasn’t someone, it was him. He could still sense a lot of different things: the presence of his family; his own fear and anger at being left alone and abandoned by his parents; his curiosity about what had happened to him since he’d been born; the way everyone else on the ward seemed to hate each other so badly; how desperately frightened he was that something was going to hurt him soon.
But most of all, there was the knowledge that there had been a fight and it was coming for him. The more he tried to push it away, the harder the feeling grew until his thoughts became so confused that he finally gave up. He didn’t think of anything except that it was coming for him and that it was big—a monster.
He imagined it leaping onto his bed, crushing him to death as he slept; or dragging him outside as he lay there unaware, then killing him with its teeth and claws as he screamed. He pictured it tearing into him, opening his guts, and eating everything inside, leaving nothing but a bloody mess behind.
When the monster got close, he opened his eyes and found himself staring straight at a large black dog’s head, only a little taller than his own. Its yellow eyes shone brightly in the light coming through the curtains of his hospital bed. The beast’s muzzle was wet, almost glowing with its own heat.
It stared at him with such intensity that he started trembling in terror, thinking that it must have read every awful dream he’d ever had about being eaten alive. As the creature leaned forward slightly, panting loudly and drooling a thick stream of warm saliva across his chest, he began to shake so hard that he couldn’t stop.
It was too late for him anyway, he knew—he’d already been taken over by this horrible beast. All he could do was wait for it to kill him.
Then someone grabbed the dog’s head with both hands and pulled it away just enough for him to sit up, looking into the face of a woman with dark hair and a kind expression. She smiled and reached up to kiss his forehead gently. “You are safe,” she whispered. “Don’t be afraid, darling. It won’t hurt you.”
He shook his head. “Why aren’t you dead? It killed you!” he shouted.
The woman sighed quietly as she looked away, then looked back to him again. “Do you really want to know why you’re still alive?”
His stomach turned upside-down as she leaned forward, reaching down to stroke the beast’s neck as it growled and snarled. She spoke so calmly that he could hardly hear her words at all: “Because I love you, baby.”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “You?” he managed to say.
She nodded gently, smiling sadly as she wiped away some of the dog’s slobber with her fingers. “My daughter. You look just like her. Just like us. But when we died, we were reborn.”
“Reborn,” he repeated in a small, shocked voice.
She put the dog back where she’d found it beside the bed and sat back on the edge of the mattress, leaning forward. “Come to me, dear,” she said softly. “I can tell you many things. You need to know them if you want to live.”
“Live?” he demanded angrily.
She took his hands, placing one of hers on top of the other. “Listen very carefully, darling,” she said softly. “We are not what you see. Not anymore. When we die, we leave our bodies behind and become something much better, much lighter.
We take on new names and new faces. Your family may call us spirits, demons, or angels. Don’t believe anything they might tell you. They don’t understand. There’s nothing to be afraid of, my love.”
She leaned in closer, her dark eyes boring into his own. “All you have to do is choose. Are you going to stay here forever? Or are you going to come with me and learn all your new abilities? Can you do that for me?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Not yet! No matter how nice you are to me, I’m still going to fight you!” He thought desperately for something else to say before she left him again and he had another chance to escape her, but he couldn’t find any lies, nothing he wanted to hide. “I’ll go,” he admitted in a small voice. “But I’ve got something to ask first.”
“Of course,” she replied gently. “What would you like to know?”
“Can I still see her?”
“Your mother?” The woman laughed briefly. “Oh, no, sweetheart. That will never happen again. Once we are reborn, the old ways of seeing are gone.”
Still, he held tight to the hope. He didn’t want it to end there. “Will she always remember me?” he asked.
She gave a sad smile and brushed one hand through his hair gently as she spoke: “It will be different for each of us. For us, though, the memories won’t fade. Our children will never forget who we were and what happened to us. We are immortal, darling—that’s what makes us so strong.”
He closed his eyes as she touched his cheek. “Please,” he begged as tears spilled from his eyes, “please let me see her once more.”
For the first time, the woman seemed uncomfortable as she hesitated, then finally shook her head: “I can’t promise you that. I’m sorry.”
That was all he needed to hear. “Let’s go,” he cried.
A moment later, the dark mist surrounded him again, swirling in an instant, taking him with it into a new place. A strange place with walls that glowed with a pale blue light, as if made of ice. It wasn’t cold inside, but it did seem frozen, like the air contained within the walls had somehow been trapped.
Everything was quiet except for the soft sounds of running water coming from somewhere nearby. His eyes adjusted slowly as he looked around him. It reminded him of being underwater. As he moved further in, it became harder to breathe.
Water swirled up over the floor and walls, making it hard to see. The only light came from the glowing blue walls, which shone through a glass-like substance. The sound of splashing grew louder and he began to worry as the water rose higher, rising past his knees and soon welling over his ankles.
He stepped back out into the open as he saw it rise high enough to drown the woman, leaving her gasping for breath.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, looking at him anxiously for several long seconds before she spoke, her voice shaking: “You can’t stop it now! It’s too late! Go, before it’s too late!”
As he reached down toward the water to pull her free, she screamed: “Stop! Don’t touch me! Don’t hurt yourself!” She struggled weakly against his grip, but he pulled her upward until she was sitting beside him on the stone-covered floor.
“Why not?” he asked quietly.
She gasped for air as she coughed out water and spat on the floor. “Because I can’t lose you,” she whispered. “I don’t want this anymore. You’re the only thing that matters.”
He looked at her helplessly for a few moments, trying desperately to think of something to say that would get her to change her mind.
“If you really mean that,” he managed in a trembling voice, “then give me some time. Let me prove myself to you.” He turned to look away. “Go ahead. Just run. Leave me. Please.”
For the first time since he’d met her, she smiled bitterly. “Darling,” she said gently, “you are already lost.” Her hand came up to rest on his shoulder and he felt her fingers slip through his wet shirt. He stared at her, not daring to move.
Then she kissed his cheek softly, very gently as if he might break apart at the slightest touch. When she moved to press against him, he grabbed onto her, clinging to her as he buried his face in the crook of her neck.
The warmth of her body washed over him, soothing him; but as much as he wanted to hold her, as much as he longed for someone to love him, he knew she couldn’t be his true salvation. He was already dead.
“We’ve got to leave,” she whispered after a while.
“How?”
“I’ll lead you outside.” She pulled him to his feet and they walked side by side through the watery tunnel, stepping carefully so they wouldn’t fall off the floating blocks. There was no wind or rain to speak of, but the temperature was noticeably cooler.
After a short distance, a faint, glowing path emerged before them, leading into the dark night sky above, lit by a bright green glow. It led straight up, disappearing beyond the topmost edge of a towering wall.
“This is where we must go.”
They climbed steadily upward until the ground beneath their feet disappeared entirely. A narrow ledge appeared before them and they continued up until they were able to look down into the darkness below.
The light from the glowing walls reflected upon the endless depths below. They could hear the rushing of falling water far below as if the entire world had fallen into the sea. In the distance, a black tower rose from the bottomless abyss; it was so huge he thought it might have been part of some ancient ruin left behind when the world was first created.
“What’s down there?” he asked curiously.
“It will come naturally to you once you reach your destination.”
The path ended in front of a great gate set into the wall of a massive palace that stood tall and proud against the vastness of the surrounding desert. At first glance, the building appeared completely abandoned, but upon closer inspection, he realized it held many secrets.
He saw more than just a palace: a forest of spires and towers, a wide expanse of rolling hills and valleys with small towns scattered along the edges, each one different from those around it. He caught sight of buildings that reminded him of ancient ruins, like something out of a forgotten civilization.
And all across the landscape, he saw people running, shouting, crying, and screaming.
The gates were open. An old man dressed in an ancient robe sat atop a marble throne in a large room filled with books and scrolls, surrounded by a dozen elderly men, women, and children who were chained to various pillars throughout the chamber.
They squinted nervously at him but made no moves to attack. As he studied them, he realized they seemed to be nothing more than prisoners.
One of the old men raised himself slightly to speak. His voice sounded frail yet commanding; he spoke clearly despite the fact that he’d lost most of his teeth years ago.
“Who dares enter my domain?”
His eyes widened in surprise. He took a step back. He glanced at the others in the room. None of them answered, but then another older woman stepped forward, holding a baby.
“My name is Serenity,” she said calmly, bowing her head. “You are known to me.”
A hush fell over the crowd and everyone turned to look at her.
Serenity bowed again, looking at the old man standing on his throne. She didn’t look scared or worried like the others. She didn’t seem afraid of anything except the child she carried. “Master,” she said quietly, “we bring you word from the Oracle.”
The End