Shadows of the World

After the initial shock of everything that had just happened, I called my mom and told her I was staying over at Helena's house. She was a little worried until I told her that Ant and I might be going out on a date, just the two of us. Then she let it all drop, just cause she was excited that I might start up an actual relationship with Ant. I didn't care though, I wanted to let her dream. I'd never date him, not in a bajillion million years, but whatever. Carson's grandmother, who insisted we call her Nana, made us late dinner (a second dinner for me, actually, but I didn't care, I was hungry) of Chicken Pot Pie, which she said was Carson's favorite. He didn't eat much, but started to regain color in his cheeks.

We were all very quiet, though. It was the first time James had heard about my dreams. As we ate, I told him about what I'd dreamt and how I'd dreamt about him before I met him and how I knew what I'd seen in my dream. He didn't cry when I said that both him and Carson were doomed to death, but he looked shaken, so I didn't say much to him. It was an awkward evening, but I refused to leave Carson's side. My conscious wouldn't let me just leave him there. And everytime I looked at him, he looked at me, and we stared at each other and it almost seemed like we knew exactly what the other was thinking. Our fear and our determination to change his fate. I knew there had to be something I could do. There was a reason why I'd had all those dreams- I just needed to figure out what the reason was. And I figured that maybe if I knew what the reason was, I could do something to prevent the two boys' fate.

When we were finished with dinner, I crawled up to Carson's bed. James got up and sat on the edge. I looked at them both, and we all looked like frightened little children. Who would save us, when we couldn't save ourselves? We couldn't save each other anymore. Somehow, I knew it was up to me, but I didn't know what to do. I wanted to help, to do something, but I wasn't sure what. I took a deep breath. "There has to be something we can do. I'm not going to just stand idly by while you two die a slow death," I told them both. James tensed at that comment and Carson looked away. I cast my eyes down. "I'm not giving up on you two."

I felt a hand on my arm and looked up to see James's blue eyes staring at me intently. "We can't do anything. There is no hope for us."

His words made me sick and angry and I shook out of his gentle grasp, looking at him with fierce eyes. "There is always hope," I replied and looked to Carson to back me up. He wasn't looking at me though, he was looking down at his hands, which lay in a heap on top of his quilt. Tears once again pricked at my eyes. "So you're just going to give up, then?" I stared at Carson, and I knew he felt my eyes on him. He was avoiding my face now, now that I was trying to force some hope in him. "I thought you said you wanted to live?" I choked out.

I heard Carson's strangled sigh. "I do want to live." His words were small. He still did not look at me. "I just don't know what there is to do. I want to figure out why this is happening, but I feel like I'll never know. Now that it's happening to me, I feel like I'm getting pulled under a strong current..." He reached out and took my hand, entwining our fingers. I stared at our fingers.

"I think I'm going to go now." I looked up to see James looking at us uncomfortably. It wasn't like I wanted to kick him out, besides the fact that this wasn't even my house. But maybe if I was able to just talk to Carson alone, just us, I would be able to explain that he couldn't just give up, couldn't just let everything take him over like that. But I didn't want to make James feel awkward.

I looked straight in his eyes. "I am not going to give up on you two. I will figure out what's going on. There is hope."

James nodded and smiled briefly. "Thank you," he said quietly and turned to leave.

"James," Carson said. James turned back to him. Carson swallowed. "I'll see you on Monday." James only nodded and left, closing the door behind him. The room was deathly silent after he left. Carson put his dinner plate with the mostly untouched pie on his nightstand and turned back to me, kissing me softly. I returned it quickly, hoping it would let him know just how much he was loved. Maybe if he knew he was loved, he wouldn't feel hopeless.

Like before. When he'd tried to kill himself, because no one had been there for him. Maybe I could help him. Maybe I could make him happy. When we parted, I put a hand to his hair, tucking some of it behind his ear. I sighed. "That day, when you saw my dreams...I saw some of yours."

Carson blinked and looked very shocked. I had suspected he hadn't realized, and I was definitely right. His emotions changed quickly from upset to nervous to embarrassed. "What did you see?" he asked. I looked away, sort of wishing I just hadn't brought this up.

"Your parents." A strange noise came from Carson's throat when I said that. "They were burning...it was terrible."

"They died in a fire. We used to have a barn here, but it caught fire with them in it," Carson told me quickly, his voice getting tighter and tighter by the syllable. I cast my eyes down.

"I felt all of your emotions...it was terrible, like nightmares. You were so sad, and you felt so alone. You had no one that was the same as you, everyone else was different than you and you felt so alone...I saw when you tried to drown yourself. I'm still haunted by that image. All of your loneliness, all of your anger, I hated feeling that, but mostly because I feel so guilty that I didn't do anything to try and stop you, that I didn't do anything to help you feel like you were loved. I didn't even really know who you were." Carson put a hand to my chin, pushing my face up to meet his. His eyes were soft and a little bit sad. It made me hurt just to look at him, but I knew I couldn't look away.

He sighed carefully. "The day that you saw me, the day that you caught me changing things..." his voice became quieter. "I was about to kill myself again. I had a rope. I was planning on going into the forest and hanging myself." The entire idea made me so sick that I turned my face away from him. I wanted to throw up and the room felt suddenly too small. The idea made my eyes hurt and my throat burn. How could he think about doing it again? How could he have done that to me? What would have happened if I hadn't gone that day? What would have happened if I'd never had those dreams? He'd be dead. He really would be dead. I couldn't look at him, it was too upsetting. Carson's arms came around me. "But then you saw me and something inside told me to stay. For at least one more night. And that night, when I was told to tell you about what I was...it just threw me into something so big that it made me suddenly and brilliantly love life..." I hadn't realized I was so tensed when I finally realaxed in Carson's embrace. "So you see, you did save me."

I hated the idea that he had tried again and it made me angry at him. But I knew I had to pick my battles about it. At least I'd helped him. At least I'd been able to do something, even if I didn't know it then. I closed my eyes and put my arms around his shoulders. "I'm going to save you again, I promise. I refuse to give up."

It was quiet for a few moments, but for once, a good kind of quiet. Carson's breaths were wheezy, but he was still breathing, which meant we still had time. "Clio," Carson whispered.

"Mmhmm?"

"I love you." Despite everything, the corners of my mouth went up. "I think it was inevitable. I didn't try to do it, it just happened. There's just...something about you..." with that, Carson started coughing again. He parted from me to get a tissue from a tissue box that lay next to him. He coughed into that and I saw the dark red speckles of blood that flecked on to it. He grabbed onto my hand as he coughed and I tried not to burst into tears. I knew I just had to make it through this. This would be how it was, from now on. Finally the coughing subsided and when Carson regained his breath, he pulled me towards him violently, colliding his lips with my own. He covered me, and one of his hands came to the back of my neck, pulling my closer. His skin was burning and it sent chills through my entire body. The other hand went to my shirt, pulling on it hard that I knew it would stretch. I didn't particularly care.

I grabbed Carson's body, not caring that his skin felt like fire. He was there and he was real and he was alive and oh my god, that was all that mattered. I wanted to hold on dearly to any time we had left, grasp onto it and never let it go. I knew that today was not the last day but eventually it would be, eventually he would go. For now, though, everything was okay. In this tiny little space of this tiny little time in our tiny little lives, I suddenly felt that same feeling that I'd felt in all my dreams. Everything just clicked. It was like all the gears were in place and the mechanism was working, it was like I'd flicked on a lightswitch and it had run the power to the lightbulb that was suddenly burning brightly. Everything fit, the puzzle of my life seemed to come together in that one instant. I felt made for this, made for this moment, made for this purpose. What would I be when he was gone? I had no idea.

"Carson..." I didn't even realize I'd said his name for a few moments, just letting everything but my mind take control. Carson laid me down on his bed, the hand that was on my shirt suddenly slipping under the fabric and onto my bare stomach. His touch gave me goosebumps, and not just because his hands were so hot. But Carson frowned a bit against my lips.

"You're freezing," he said to me, pulling me even closer to him. "Come closer." I pulled myself even closer to him, wrapping my arms around him. Carson pulled the blankets of his bed around us and looked at me softly. "Please don't go," he half-whispered.

I smiled. "I won't." I put my forehead against his. "Is it okay if I just stay up here with you?" I asked quietly.

Carson nodded. "I think Nana is just happy that people came to see me...that somebody besides her cares..." he laughed a little bit, very softly. "She loves me so much. I think that sometimes I take her for granted. I try not to, but I just miss my parents so much..." Carson swallowed. "I'm sorry. I didn't meant to bring that up. You're here, you're real and I love you."

I smiled and reached across him, turning off the overhead light. The only light that was left in the room was a small desk lamp that bathed the room with dark orange light. I returned back to Carson and the warmth. "You know I love you too," I answered and kissed him once last time before I closed my eyes. We didn't talk after that. It was late and we were tired and so much had happened today.

It took me a long time to get to sleep. I could hear Carson's even breathing which meant that he was asleep and I found myself just wanting to be awake while Carson slept. He sounded so much better, healthier, when he was sleeping. He wasn't wheezing, he was actually breathing normal, which made me feel better. I watched his silent and sleeping face and the soft orange light that made his pale skin look exotic. I traced the outline of his eyebrows and his eyelashes, touched his lips and hair, just feeling him in my fingers, trying to remember always what that feeling was like. I couldn't forget, I was making myself keep everything about Carson in a little box in my mind. I would not forget. I would not.

Eventually though, my eyes closed and I felt the weight of the world on my body. I felt more distant with the earth until I was completley disconnected with it. And then sleep, wonderful, blissful and terrible, came over me like a soft blanket.

A black place. Darkness surrounding, covering. A stifling night that made me feel sick to my stomach. The strangest feeling of someone next to me, someone close to me, but being alone. All alone. No one. Nothing. Looking at my fingers, my hands, my arms. Translucent. Something making me feel as if my ears were pounding. A pressure on me. Something was there, where? Where was it? Walking on something solid. Looking down, no ground that I could see. I was still walking. Looking for a light, looking for a light at the end of the end of the tunnel. Nothing.

Then finally, light. Walking into a dim room. Dank walls, dirty floor, disgusting ceiling. No way out but back. No, have to go forward. Always moving forward, always moving. Walking forward, a long hall, a dim hall. Walking, walking for miles, for days, for hours, for seconds. Time had no meaning. Something coming. Something walking towards me. Fear. No way back, the hallway suddenly becoming darker than black behind me. Had to keep going forward. Meeting whatever it was that was coming up. Had to keep walking. Looking at the thing nearing me. Phsyical shape forming, it's a person. Tall woman, red hair, dark blue dress. Old fashioned, beautiful, proud, tall.

Joining her and looking at her for sometime. Who is she? Why is she here? What does she want with me? Don't know. Her face, contorting into a smile. Bizarrely beautiful smile. "Hello, Clio. I've been waiting for you."