Shadows of the World

"Who are you?" Words coming clearer, everything focusing just a little bit sharper. The line between my dreams and my reality becomes fuzzier. I watch the woman carefully, she walks towards me. Took my hand, lead me down the hall. I can feel the ground under my feet a bit more than before. Clearer, focusing, clearing, defining. Less the like a film and more like a picture. "Please tell me..." words were fading into the darkness. She looked, stared at me.

"Look up." Looking up, stars blazing out over the sky. Shooting stars, a billion tiny little white dots, twinkling in, twinkling out. A large meteor flies across the sky. I reach up, try to grap. Far away. Looking at her, she smiles. "Clio." Yes, that is my name. "Look at these stars," she tells me, commands me. I watch them again. It's a blanket of night and it smothers me. The stars feel all around me, except on the hard ground that my feet walk against. Everywhere is stars, my feet touch solid ground. Where are we? "Clio, look."

"I'm looking." My words are exasperated. "What am I trying to find?" I ask.

The woman nods and looks up to the stars. She points one out. "We are all stars. Humanity lies in the stars." Cryptic messages. I don't understand. She takes my hands and looks at me. "You are special, very special. You must help me."

"How? How?" My only words, feeling lost, very alone. I can still see her, but she dims, as if she doesn't even really exist. "I want to help you. How can I?" Questions, questions. She flickers, like a flame. Here one minute, gone the next. Don't go, don't go.

She comes back into focus, like nothing was ever wrong. "Let them go, they must go. You must stay, help me. They are wicked, they are traitors. They have hurt me-" she doubles over, a shaking cough attacking her body. She leans back up and her hair has tumbled. Her skin is paler, her eyes, darker, her lips, red as blood. She looks wild and strange. She flickers out and then flickers back in, beautiful, the same, just an illusion. "They have hurt me, they will kill me. Clio you must save me. They lie, they lie."

"Who?" my voice, soft, pleading. An imagine next to the woman. Carson Knight. Smiling at me with green eyes, lovely skin, softness, blurry. My face breaks out into a smile and I try and shake out of the woman's grasp. "Carson...love...you..." My words, soft. Trying to touch him. Hands grab me tighter, Carson dissapear. I look to the woman, who looks strange and sick again, then normal.

"No!" Nails dig into my skin. "You must not let them deceive you. They are the wicked, they are tricksters, they will hurt you, just as they have hurt me. Do not let them hurt you. Do not let them take me...do not...do not..."

I woke up in a cold sweat. I opened my eyes quickly and looked to see Carson's silent, sleeping form. I registered that his body lay next to me and he radiated a heat that just made me shiver. I'd slept with my jeans on and all the clothes from last night. Now I was paying for it. I watched Carson, pulling the blankets up around my shoulders. He looked peaceful, he didn't look menacing.Trying to calm my breathing, I just stared. It was the first time I'd ever really been scared by a dream. I'd had bad dreams before this, but this one truly frightened me, like nothing ever had. I reached out to touch Carson carefully, and he felt exactly the same as he had the night before. I crept closer to him to rest my face close to his skin. He smelled soft and clean, like soap and sunshine. He was perfect in all his imperfections, and it was those imperfections that made me love him so much.

I stared at his face and saw the faint outlines of worry lines on his forehead and nothing along his eyes or mouth. He was worried too much and not happy enough. I traced my finger along the side of his mouth. I'd make him laugh, I'd make him smile. I closed my eyes. More time, please just give me more time. I'll prove to you that I need him, I'll prove to you that you can't take him away from me just yet. I opened my eyes and looked back at the beautiful sleeping boy in front of me. In his dreams, Carson's mouth twitched up. Suddenly, an image of the woman flashed through my eyes and my throat went dry.

I scooted back from Carson, because I couldn't stop myself. Suddenly I was afraid, and I didn't want to be. He couldn't be what the woman said. He and James, they'd done nothing wrong. They weren't going to hurt me, they weren't going to hurt her. She didn't know them...if she knew them, she'd know they were incapable of violence...unless to themselves. Or, in the case of their fight, to each other. But they wouldn't hurt her, they couldn't. Closing my eyes again, I recalled images from my dream, but they were fuzzy. I remembered her words but could only see her terrified face. Humanity lies in the stars. What did that mean? I didn't get it, and I didn't want to know.

My breathing returned to normal and I just watched Carson like that for awhile. Then his breathing changed, he shifted, his eyes opened and he looked straight at me. There was surprise on his face at first, I didn't know why, but then it changed to happiness. "Hey," he said quietly.

I laughed a bit. "You looked so surprised."

Carson hesitated for a moment, looking indecisive, but there was a smile in his eyes. "I thought it was a dream." His voice was breathless and he touched my hair softly, before leaning over to me and kissing my head. "You're not," he whispered into my hair, and I wasn't really sure if I was supposed to hear that. I smiled anyway, all thoughts of my own dream now just dust in the wind. He rolled over and then rolled back to me. "It's almost nine," he commented.

I sighed. "Does that mean I have to go home?" I asked, not really wanting to go back home where my mom would just want to discuss what happened last night with Ant half to death. I couldn't tell her I'd denied his offer to go out on a date. Besides, that whole part of last evening had meant so little to me in comparison to what had happened after...what had led me to where I was, right now.

Stretching, Carson grinned. "Why would you have to go home?" he asked and then sat up. "We should go have fun. You know, before I die and stuff," he told me.

My eyes narrowed. "You really had to bring that up, didn't you?" I questioned, watching Carson sit up.

He shrugged and looked down to me, putting a hand through my hair and smiling gently. "I want to do this right, okay?" he said quietly. I blinked up at him.

"Do what right?" I asked just as quietly. Carson leaned down to me and kissed my jaw.

"Fall in love right." His words were a buzz against my skin. I felt the tingle all the way through to my insides and up to my heart. My heart thumped and squeeze, my stomach fluttered, and I felt like a silly, blathering idiot. Why did he have to be so perfect to me? It just shouldn't be fair. Carson leaned up again and smoothed my hair with his large, strong hand. "I don't want to miss any part of you." His words were even softer then. But then he laughed and got out of bed. "Come on then, don't just hang around, let's go do something."

I got out of the bed then, or more like rolled out of bed. Carson stared at me. I looked down at myself and realized what I'd temporarily forgotten: I was still wearing last night's clothes. Carson chuckled softly and turned to his dresser, pulling out a dark, long sleeved teeshirt I'd seen him wear before. He threw it at me and it hit my face. "Hey!" I exclaimed, pulling it off my head.

"Wear that...you can wear one of my sweatshirts, too, if you'd like," he told me, picking out another teeshirt and some jeans and dissapearing through a door next to his bed that I assumed was his bathroom. I sighed lightly and turned around and really looked at his room. Pulling off my own shirt that was wrinkled and cold from sweating last night, I looked out one of the three windows in his room to the forest that lay beyond the meadow of golden grass. I had Carson's shirt clutched in my hand, but I was watching the outside world. The wind made patterns in the bright golden wheat and the trees swayed back and forth. It was mesmerizing and then, all of a sudden, I thought of my dream once again. You must not let them decieve you. But they weren't deceiving me. Carson would never lie to me. Carson wouldn't lie.

Arms came around my bare waist and I was pulled against a strong body. All thoughts of my dream - and all thoughts in general - flushed out of my brain as I registered that Carson was holding me to him, and I'd forgotten to put his shirt on. His warm arms, which were cooler than last night but still hotter than normal, gave my skin goosebumps everywhere that he wasn't attached to me. Leaning down, Carson kissed where my neck ended and my shoulder started, and held onto me tighter. "Don't let me go," Carson whispered into my ear and I leaned my head up to meet my eyes with him.

"You're holding onto me," I reminded him quietly. Carson nodded to me quietly and kissed my lips. It was soft and sweet at first but changed suddenly to something much different. Carson's hands were moving up my body and my arm came around his neck to pull him closer to me. Carson finally pulled himself away from me.

"I think you should get dressed," he said in a voice that was a lot unlike his normal voice. He let go of me and I pulled on his shirt. Carson cleared his throat and threw me a sweatshirt of his that was on the back of the wooden chair to his desk. I pulled on the dark blue sweatshirt, another thing I'd seen him wear before. It was too big in the shoulders and too small in the chest, but it smelled like him, so I didn't care. Carson smiled to me and held out his hand. I took it and he entwined our fingers together, so we were interlocked.

Our hands fit so perfectly, and I watched them as we made our way downstairs. "Where's your grandmother? Are you sure she was okay with me staying with you? In your room?" I asked quietly and Carson shrugged.

"She didn't come upstairs to say anything, so I really doubt she cared. She's in her garden this time of morning anyway and I don't like disturbing her. I'll just leave her a note saying that I went out, and she'll see that my car is gone and yours is still here. It's really no big deal." I said nothing more on the subject as I watched him write a quick note to his grandmother on a sticky note that he put on the refrigerator door. Carson then squeezed my hand and we went outside.

The wind was just as it had been when I'd been looking out Carson's window. It whipped at my hair, blowing it into my face and lips. Carson's hair was messed up in his eyes and he was smiling. The sun shone brightly, but the air, especially with the wind, wasn't warm. It wasn't unpleasant though, but by the time we were in Carson's truck, our faces were red and his eyes were wrinkling at the edges in a smile, just the way I wanted them too. My mouth broke out into a grin and I leaned over to kiss him. When I pulled away, Carson was all business. "All right. Let's go get something to eat." I nodded at that and he started up the car, backed up out of his driveway and drove down the long road that led away from his large house. I looked at the white farm house in the rearview mirror as it got farther and farther away from us.

For a second, I thought I saw the lady with red hair. Shuddering, I closed my eyes and looked out the front windshield. "You all right?" Carson's voice was filled with worry and I looked over at him. His eyes, which only a moment ago had looked so happy, now looked anxious. I smiled, but I knew it looked forced.

"Yeah." Carson didn't press it. "You know how you were saying that you...and James, too, belong to this society, and there are these people, the higher ups, who tell you what to do?" I asked him.

"Yeah..." came his reply. "What about them?"

I sighed and shrugged as he drove quickly through the bright streets. "I guess I was just wondering who they were," I told him.

Carson slowed down at a red light and leaned back in his seat. "I don't know much about them...no one does. All we know is that someone comes to us in a dream to tell us things, to give us messages. They're always very important people, I know that, and I know we must follow their orders."

I couldn't help but think again of my dream. I swallowed hard. "Have you ever...disobeyed an order?" I asked.

From the driver's seat, Carson laughed, which was definitely not the reaction I was expecting. I guess I was sort of expecting a silence and then I solemn, 'Yes. One time I...' and some terrible story about what he'd done that would explain the dream I'd had last night. "Are you kidding me? That would be like signing my death warrant. I would never cross them. They give me orders, I follow them. Sometimes I don't like what I have to do, but I always do it. The only time I've ever done something that they called forbidden was talk to you in that dream. And that was fine because I was still following an order they were giving me," he explained. I did not feel at all better.

"What if..." I stopped and looked out the window for a second. "What if the people who are giving you orders...what if they have something to do with what's happening to you and James?" I asked. Now Carson was silent. I groaned silently. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."

"No," Carson answered. "It's a legitimate question. I've heard stories about what has happened to people who disobeyed an order...they all end very badly." He was quiet again. "But I don't know what I've done...or James. No, it can't have to do with them, I would have had to done something wrong, I have never disobeyed an order. I've always done what they've asked. Always. Unless she...no, but she wouldn't..."

"Who's 'she'?" I asked him.

"The woman who comes to our dreams. She's the one that gives us the orders. She represents all the people who govern our society." I felt a sour taste come to the back of my throat. This would be too weird, too creepy.

"What does she look like?" I asked.

Carson looked at me, obviously surprised I would ask that. "She's very tall, pale, with red hair and an old fashioned blue dress...why do you want to know?" he asked, obviously suspicious. I coughed.

"No reason," I replied quickly and looked out the window. What if Carson, and James for that matter, had done something wrong? What if they'd disobeyed whoever was giving them orders? What if Carson was just telling me he'd never done anything wrong just to make himself feel better, or to keep me from the truth? The truth that he'd done something so bad that...whoever...was in charge of him felt the need to kill him. What if he and James had done something together? The entire idea made me feel sick. What if Carson had lied? What if he was lying to me, right this second?