Deja Vu (The Wealcere Chronicles)

Chapter 5 - Fear and strength

I thought I knew what fear was.

When I thought of fear I thought of spiders, darkness or the possibility of being alone in the world. Of watching my mom leave for work early in the morning and thinking about what would happen if she didn't come back like my dad didn't at some point. Or in Eva so far away from home, not telling us how she's doing, keeping up her feud with mom even though she no longer lived at home.

But this is a new kind of fear.

It's not just fear of the unknown, of the uncertain. It's fear of being killed in a reality where I don't belong. It's fear of no longer seeing those I love because of a power I didn't choose.

And here, lying on the floor, putting my hands on my head, I can't help but tremble with fear coursing through my veins.

Astoria blows out all the candles that illuminated us and lies down next to me, holding her finger against her mouth, gesturing the request Gabriel had already made to me.

What are we hiding from? 

From whatever it is, it must be very bad by the expressions on their faces.

My hands begin to shake wildly and any attempt to calm down is nullified by not being able to breathe. I feel like if I breathe, they will hear me.

But who?

I hear only the noises that would be heard in a forest at dusk, crickets and small sounds of branches breaking.

'There must be something,' a voice is heard in the distance, but it resonates enough to increase the level of fear.

'Are you sure you saw something? I just see branches and more branches,' another voice replies. Thinking that we are so high up in a tree, I realize that everything is in perfect and total silence so that something can be heard so far below us.

'A light, a red light, that's what I saw.'

'And did the light talk to you?'

'Shut up.'

'I don't want to waste my time, this is not our way, let's go back. We have work to do.'

The words are drowned out in the complete and utter silence that follows. I think maybe we can move now, but seeing that both Gabriel and Astoria remain like fallen statues on the ground, I stay the same way.

I try to take my head elsewhere, but I feel more and more that I have no escape from this.

I have to accept that this is my new reality, at least for now, until I can go back, until I find a way.

I think about Eric and what he would say to me if he saw me now. I guess he would mock how weird this situation is.

What is he going to say about me getting close to his other version? Would I be cheating on him? In theory we broke up, but I don't want to think about that.

I don't know how many minutes we lie motionless until we hear what sounds like whistling.

Astoria gets up and goes to the candle, picks up a rock and a piece of wood and does the necessary rubbing to light it.

Gabriel stands up and holds out his hand to me.

'Are you okay?' He asks me sweetly, with a tenderness with which my friend only reserves for his girlfriends, and which he now dedicates to me considering the circumstances. Although a part of me rejects it completely, I guess it feels good to have someone treat me that way.

'No. What was that?' I ask fixing my dress, trying to distract myself from the feeling of my friend being in love with me.

'Vampires, I'll go see that everyone is okay,' Astoria replies and gets ready to go down the same ladder that took me to the tree house.