Destiny's Revenge (Destiny Series - Book 2) (3 page)

It was a dry heat, well over the hundred degree mark. As I looked in the distance, I could see the heat in the air with its ripples trying to trick me, trying to make me think even the heat itself was a mirage. I was standing on the side of a mountain, near the top and well above the shrubs that could offer some form of shade. I could see fires and smoke in the distance and nothing but fields of rocks and spiny desert vegetation around me. I’d never been here before. I’d never seen terrain like this. It looked nothing like the lush forests enveloping the mountains on the east coast or even the snow covered caps of the Rockies.

I looked in all directions trying to figure out what I was doing there. There were no people, nothing was happening; it just felt as though I were in an oven, slowly baking.

Off in the distance where I saw the heat waves emanating from the rocky ground, I could see a black plume of smoke. As I concentrated on this solitary vision, I looked to the left and right and saw a few other plumes of smoke. I stood there for a long while. I tried to force myself to wake up, but I was unable to. As I stared again into the distance, I could still see the smoke, but not what caused it. I didn’t see a fire, but smoke doesn’t just appear without a reason.

I took in a deep breath and could smell death all around me. The stench of rotting flesh, coupled with the absence of a breeze to dilute it, was overpowering. The stench made me feel faint, as if my legs were unwilling to hold me in place any more. This dream was vivid, making me question whether I was truly there, wherever
there
was.

Hearing footsteps behind me, I wheeled around quickly, only to see a family of mountain goats making their way to what little shade this mountain could offer. I watched them, but they paid no attention to me, my presence insignificant to their mission. The longer this dream continued, the more vivid the sights and smells became. I began to question what would happen if I attempted to touch the goats. They looked so real, but I knew I was still in the nursing home, still gaining strength before I could go out into the world again.

A dust trail appeared at least five hundred feet below me on the mountain. I looked down the treacherous terrain to see what had disturbed the earth. It was a man in full-combat gear, dragging another man up the mountain. I called out to them, but my voice was muted. I tried to clear my throat to yell again, but I made no sound at all. I squatted down to the ground and ran my fingers over the terrain. I felt the smoothness of the rocks, the warmth emanating from the ground and the sand all around, but I was unable to disturb it. It was surreal.

I continued watching the two men. One was injured, lying on his back as the second man, wearing two packs of gear on his back, was dragging him one step at a time, up the mountain. This scene went on for what felt like an hour before the men were close enough that I could hear one talking to the other.

“Hold on, Ski, almost there, just a little bit further.” The man doing the talking was hunched over with his back to me, but his voice unnerved me the second I heard it. I listened closely for another couple seconds. I could hear him grunt each time he pulled the other man’s weight. He paused for a second, stood upright, removed his Kevlar helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow. His back was still facing me, but even at fifty feet and only seeing him from behind, I knew exactly who I was looking at.

I screamed with every bit of force I had, “Max!” Again, no sound escaped me. I sprinted down the mountain to where he stood. He drank water from a canteen then leaned down and poured some in the other man’s mouth. Max replaced the canteen into his pack and again reached down to the man and began pulling him up the mountain.

He was really here: Max was right in front of me. He didn’t see me, and he couldn’t hear me. Could he feel me? I reached for his arm closest to me, and just like the rocks and sand I had touched, I could feel him, but my touch didn’t so much as ruffle his shirt sleeve. I foolishly tried again to talk to him, but no sound came out.

I realized it was no use. I was dreaming. I had known that from the very beginning. This was such a realistic dream. I walked in lock step with Max the whole way up the mountain. He was moving to the shade that the goats had occupied. Every couple minutes I could hear him speaking words of encouragement to Ski. The man’s leg was caked with dried blood and soaked-through bandages.

Once Max and Ski were both in the shade, I sat on the ground next to Max. He was exhausted, his hands covered in dried blood, his face unshaven for a week. I kept trying to touch his face, tracing the lines of his face, touching his lips. I tried to hold his hand, but there was no recognition that he even knew I was with him. I stayed with Max from the time the sun blazed directly overhead until it had passed over the mountain. He had dozed off a few times, only to wake himself up a few minutes later. As the heat of the day began to subside, I found the clear images of everything around me beginning to fade in front of my eyes. I reached out to touch Max’s face: my fingers felt the coarseness of the stubble on his cheek, the warmth of his skin, and the dryness of his chapped lips.

My vision of Max in the middle of nowhere on a desolate mountain faded into nothingness. I awoke in my room at the nursing home. As I looked at the clock, it was 7:00 a.m. - time to start my day. I thought about my dream of Max for several minutes before I forced myself to get up and get moving. It felt like I had really spent several hours with Max, but I reasoned that I had just watched one too many war movies, and so desperately wanted to hear from him, that I made myself believe that I was with him in a war zone.

The morning of the forty-third day the nursing home administrator stopped by and told me rather than them keeping me in my current room, they were going to move me to the assisted living wing. This didn’t seem like much of a difference, but, boy, was I wrong. This was where all the old retirees went to hang out. Joe requested the same move, and we were both routed to our new rooms.

Although not as lavish as a cruise ship, this assisted living area was awesome. There was only one nurse in the entire wing, everyone else were just staff members. These staff members could be compared to that really cool babysitter you had when you were a kid. We played shuffle board, there were two jazzercise classes each day, a book club, bingo, backgammon tournaments, and endless choices for entertainment. The residents were much more upbeat in this area, and most still had their own cars.

Joe was really in his element here. If he had not had me tagging along with him everywhere, there were at least five women who were all pretty sweet on him. My novelty still hadn’t worn off with my family, but they all had jobs to get back to, so my string of visitors was limited to evenings.

Rewsna was the only exception. She arrived every day promptly at eight a.m. I had my first real milestone before her arrival on the forty-fifth morning. I had woken up, showered, dressed, gone to breakfast, and brushed my teeth without any assistance. I had seen Joe at breakfast, but there was a lady, Ruby, who was desperate to spend time with him, so I made my way to a table off in the corner in lieu of my usual seat beside him.

Rewsna seemed genuinely glad to see me and just as thrilled as I was with my progress. We settled into the pseudo living room in my mini-apartment. Neither of us were tremendous at small talk, but it made me feel good all the same that she would come to see me and pretend that she was interested in the weather and the Riverdogs baseball team.

Rewsna casually took my hand and caught my eye when she asked, “Have you heard from Max yet?” I could hear a hopefulness in her voice that made my heart spasm. She always seemed to know way more than she let on, so I had hoped she would be able to give me some information on him.

I shook my head that I hadn’t, “No, I wish I could just know that he was all right. I understand being in the middle of nowhere, but at some point he has to come back to his base, right?”

She nodded in agreement and told me how sorry she was, but she was sure he would contact me soon.

It was easy to be open with Rewsna; whether I said things out loud or just thought them was irrelevant to her. That dream I had of Max climbing up a mountain had haunted me, and I thought it was worthwhile to share. “The funny thing is that for years I always had the same dream about Max. You know the one, where he comes to me and tells me he’s my destiny, that I have to be courageous to find him?” She nodded that she knew what dream I was talking about. “A couple nights ago I had a really strange dream, completely different. I could see him but he couldn’t see me. I could feel him but he couldn’t feel me touching him.” Rewsna eyed me carefully but didn’t interrupt. Remembering the dream so vividly, I’m sure I was broadcasting it to her, “It was kind of comforting in a weird way, because it did seem real, but it was frustrating, too. I mean, if I’m going to dream about him, you would think that it would be a little more rewarding.”

Rewsna cocked her head a little to the side and furrowed her brows. It looked like she was confused when she asked, “Lauren, what do you mean you could see and touch him?”

“Just what I said. He was with another man on the side of a mountain. It was so vivid that I could feel the stubble on his cheek, feel the heat from his skin, smell the stench of death all around him, but when I shouted out to him, nothing came out of my mouth; it was as if I were a mute.”

Rewsna studied me cautiously. Rather than speaking to me, she used her clairvoyant voice and asked, “
Lauren, were you dreaming or were you really seeing him, reaching out to him
?”

“I was dreaming, I think, I mean it was nighttime, so I thought it was a dream. It felt real, like I was right there with him. I touched him and could feel him, but he couldn’t feel me touch him. He dragged some guy up a mountain; they were both sitting in the shade.”

“Lauren, this is very important. How did you find him? Did you find him right away or were you waiting for him?”

An odd question, what’s the difference if I found him or if I was waiting for him to appear? Regardless, it felt like I spent the night with him. “I was waiting at the spot near the shrub where he found shade. I could hear the two of them coming up the mountain. It was a long time before I realized it was Max. When I did, I ran down to him, but he was clueless that I was right there. The whole dream, it was really one-sided.”

“Lauren, I believe you have the power of sight.” Her voice was excited and her eyes wide.

I wanted to say: “Well duh – I have two eyes.” Rewsna frowned at me - it isn’t much fun being sarcastic with a clairvoyant friend.

“Lauren, what were you thinking before you had your vision?”

I rolled my eyes, “I’ll give you three guesses.”

Rewsna’s response was stern when she asked, “I am not playing games with you. What were you thinking about?” I knew I’d better find a way to keep the sarcasm from entering my thoughts for a while. She was not in the mood for it today.

“I was thinking about Max, wishing I could see him. But I think about him all day, every day. What do you mean the
power of sight
? Is that like you? Where you can read my mind?”

Rewsna shook her head, “No, it is a far greater gift. The power of sight allows you to focus on whatever you want to see and move yourself to that location.”

My heart sped up with this prospect. So, I really was seeing Max? He was on a mountain with a dying man?” Horror gripped me when I wondered if he was still there. It was so hot, how much water did he have? I grabbed Rewsna’s shoulder, “I have to go back there, I have to see if he’s okay. How do I do it?”

She shook her head at me, “Lauren, I do not have the power of sight. If I did I could have rescued you from the Beast when your
accident
happened. I do not know how it works. No one on the Council has that power. Our last seer died years ago.”

My hand began to shake and my pulse beat faster. Max could be dying right now in the middle of nowhere. I had to get to him, to help him. Images raced through my mind in a haphazard replay of my dream from last night.

“Lauren, relax yourself. Replay what you saw more slowly for me.” I did as she asked and replayed the entire dream. Her eyes were closed, but I could see beads of sweat on her forehead when I felt and replayed the heat of the place. The goat’s hooves behind me startled her as well, and I could see her muscles tense at the unknown. It was as if she were experiencing the entire thing with me.

When my vision had played itself out completely, she took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She took my face in both her hands, “That was amazing. Our last seer was Reese. She frequently shared her visions with me, but none were so vivid. I could smell the foul odors, I could feel the heat from the earth, I could see with such clarity, I thought I was there. Lauren, I need to notify the Council.”

She had mentioned them before. I had this vision of something like an archaic Roman Senate when I asked, “Rewsna, what is the Council?”

“They are human, but you could equate them to complete souls. You could loosely regard them as guardian angels, but they are protectors of the universe’s secrets. The Council knows you are special. Your life is more special than most, but it was not known that you would be attacked by a beast and defeat him, nor that you would gain the power of sight.” She hesitated for a second, then added more slowly, “This may have been a power that the Beast transferred to you, accidentally.”

“Transferred to me?”

“Yes, when you escaped him, you may have taken with you some of his powers. If he had the power of sight, that would explain how he was able to find you at exactly the moment you were most vulnerable. By you taking his sight away, he is likely blind and not able to find you. If this is the case, it may be what has saved your life. He will not be able to find you again so easily. Lauren, this is incredible news!”

Less interested in the whole Beast hypothesis and still reeling from the idea that Max was stuck on a mountaintop with no food or shelter, maybe out of water, I all but screamed, “I need to see Max again; I need to know he’s okay. If you don’t think this was some crazy trick that my sub-conscious was playing on me, if I really was there with him, I need to go there again. I need to make sure he’s okay.”