After much deliberation and sneaking around, Rod managed to hotwire a car using gum and a paperclip. He explained that his hat was still on the fritz, recharging his bullshit meter the more he talked. But I wasn’t about to argue with him, as it would get me nowhere and he’d keep pulling excuses out his ass. I was also fairly sure he was using a car because he knew I got carsick and was seeking passive revenge.
Layla, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem with the shrieking metal traps. She slipped inside, turning to me with a confused look. “You coming?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. “Sure there’s no other way?” I asked through clenched teeth.
One of the rear windows rolled down and I heard Rod say, “during the day, it’s the fastest. Unless you want to try and Shift right this moment… ?”
I snarled a little at him, but opened the rear door and slid in.
Along the way, Rod would find a rest stop and pull over, Layla would get some food from a vending machine. While I would try to make my stomach stop flipping, Rod would find another car to steal. Couldn’t make things too easy, could we? Keepers have an eye on all police reports, as a sort of secondary measure in tracking criminal activity. You’d be surprised how many crimes are committed by non-humans.
I glanced out the window of our third death machine, a sleek red beast. Every time we found a new car, Layla insisted she be up in the front. She’d watch the scenery go by with intense interest, even if she was struggling to act with reservation and dignity. I stayed mostly in the back seats, trying to fight between anger and nausea. The other two cars hadn’t been comfortable for me, and this one wasn’t much different.
Not that my new outfit helped any. Rod managed to swipe me a new set of clothes from our first stop, but somehow a coat and some sweats were all he could manage. Greatest thief in the world my ass. More annoying was that he could have easily produced something better and easier to move around in, which meant he was doing it on purpose. Again.
Whatever. I’d shake a new outfit from him once we stopped if it meant holding him upside down until better clothes fell out his coat pockets.
I glanced out the window to the setting sun. It was growing closer to the horizon. Closer to safety. The thought made me a little more comfortable. Helped me to settle down into the leather seats and push away my sickness.
I threw a question into the already-moving conversation in the front, asking how much longer it was going to be. Rod interrupted himself to answer back that we were still a number of hours away from our destination. I stretched against the back seats and twisted sideways, pushing my head back against the window and trying to settle my knees sideways against one of the backseat headrests. A sudden fatigue swept over me, the drone of the engine and spin of the wheels against concrete becoming white noise that eventually evaporated into nothing. The sun on the horizon flared, growing from yellow to orange to white, colors streaking across the sky above like colored streamers made of cloud.
It took me a minute to realize the roof was gone, evaporated into dust. No wait. The car was gone. The drone of the engine had been replaced by a buzzing drone of unseen insects, the leather replaced by a cotton hammock, and the road vanished into a sea of tall grass and weeds.
I sat up, adrenaline pumping. I was in a car. What the hell had happened?! Where was Layla and Rod???
The white light above began to spread out, pure white eating the colors across the sky and turning everything into a strange environment, colors everywhere gone. Only the blinding white light remained, and I had to shield my eyes and turn away as they began to burn, jogging away to find some sort of shelter, road, anything to help orient me.
Dust began to plume at every step as the grass whithered and shriveled, heat beginning to rise and warp the senses. I needed…water? Shade? Something other than this. Anything other than this. My throat went dry and my skin began to curl as I increased my pace, now stepping on the crumpled ashes of the field.
I wasn’t sure how long I spent trotting before the white began to fade. The sky became a dull pink before slipping into an orange-red, blue clouds spreading back over the sky like purple bruises slowly creeping into view. I paused, feeling a vague sense of familiarity…and dread. I looked up to see two moons. One red. One blue.
The terrain had turned uneven. I glanced down at my feet. The grass had turned to bones, one of them dry and cracked under my foot. I looked up. The field was now a graveyard of battle, bones and ash scattered out in every direction. As far as the eye could see.
I knew what this was now. This was a dream. A subconscious haunting of my past.
A tower rose from the horizon, silhouetted against the blood-red eye of the moon and began coming closer. I couldn’t tell if I was moving towards it or it towards me, but either way I wasn’t sticking around for this.
I screamed “NO!” and spun on my heel, bolting away as fast as possible. A spark ignited at my heels as I ran, stumbling and crunching the bones of fallen creatures, looking away from the empty eyesockets staring up at me. The spark grew, spreading to the other bones and lighting up into a small burst of fire. It followed me, licking at my heels and morphing as it grew, turning into a towering specter.
I am not doing this again. Never doing this again!!
I plowed even faster, plunging head-first into a wild run as the fire raged and towered above. I didn’t look back, couldn’t look back. I already knew what it would look like, who it was. A body of fire and ash, towering with a pointed beak and long claws, tail of flame and wings of heat beating itself into the air. She came at me, taking flight to keep up with me as I ran, spinning spirals and circles to my left and to my right. I burst into a scream as my body morphed, four legs shaping into being as I shifted my form into a faster, stronger choice and I headed on with another burst of speed. The scenery flew by me in a blur now, colors and shapes woven into the nightmare that was my being.
She stayed with me, even in the blur, the streak of fire and flame. She was a part of me, no matter how far I ran. Because I was a stupid cubling. Because I didn’t understand legends and words. Because I didn’t respect power. All because I found that cave, all because I touched the thing I should never have touched.
The fire loomed in front of me, surrounding me on all sides now as she condensed herself into a single entity, a single item. All her power and being collapsed into a thin strand of thread, twisting and weaving itself into a new form, flat and wafting. A thin piece of woven fabric, with colors that twisted and turned like magic along the surface, a shimmer that danced of flame. She wanted me to accept her once again, to become one again.
Never.
I couldn’t tell if I screamed it or not. But this dream would end the same way it always did. Raising both paws and rearing back, I slammed all my weight, all my being into the fabric and tore it into the ground, digging and twisting and shoving until the flame-cloth was gone, tunneled under the bone and rot she created, the devastated field she left behind now smothering her. I left her in the Nowhere Place, and there she would stay until time itself died.
I screamed and shoved a final punch into the earth, the earth spraying me in the face with water.
I froze. Stared.
That…never happened. The dream usually ended when–
More water shot from the hole, spraying me in the face. I backed up and stared. The hole was gurgling and spitting now, the earth beginning to turn into mud and swamp. The water continued, speeding up as it began to shoot and twist with life. I turned, took one step in order to run, and the ground cracked.
