Redemption (20 page)

Rebecca drew a
deep breath.  “I don’t know… this is the fifth day.  Maybe it’s a reminder that
time’s almost up.”

Isaac took her
hand and they turned as one to stare up at the sloping, arched rooflines of
what looked like a Japanese temple, perched on a rise in front of them, near
the summit of the mountain.  He took a deep, bracing breath.  “Shall we?”

Rebecca answered
by moving forward.  This had to be where the key was hidden.  Soon they would
overcome whatever obstacle the dream had in store for them, and then they’d
finally wake up.  She squeezed Isaac’s big hand.  And then what?  Would they
ever see each other again?

They made their
way down a wide, pebble-lined path, the crunch of their footsteps loud in the
unearthly stillness of the place.  “Hey, Isaac?”

“Hmm?”  His eyes
were glued on the temple with a sort of desperation, and she thought looking at
it was the only thing keeping him going. 

“Do you… do you
think we can find each other… out there?”

His blue eyes
delved into hers for a moment, then darted back to the temple.  “What do you
think is in there?”  He acted as if she hadn’t spoken.

Rebecca stared
up at the beautiful building, a sense of dread bubbling to life in her
stomach.  Apparently, Isaac didn’t want to talk about what would happen when
they were free.  They really were strangers.  People from two vastly different
worlds who happened to get caught up in something strange.  Of course he wasn’t
thinking of looking her up when this was over.  She was deluding herself into
thinking they had a real relationship, when their entire knowledge of each
other was based on a dream world that didn’t really exist.

They climbed the
temple steps, hand in hand, and stood before the ornate red doors.  Rebecca
struggled to grasp some sense of herself.  She wasn’t dependent on this man. 
She was her own person.  Soon, very soon, she would go back to her life, and
this would all be just a memory.  She grabbed on to the fire that she had been
steadily growing inside her since this whole mess started.  Squaring her
shoulders and grasping onto the newly born confidence that this world had given
her, she let go of Isaac’s hand and pushed the temple doors wide open.

The inside of
the temple was dazzling, all ornate, carved wood and gold leaf.  They stepped
inside and the doors swung shut behind them with a boom.  They stood just
inside a wide-open space, bordered on all four sides by dozens of wooden
pillars that formed a hallway of sorts.  In the very middle of the room, on a
tall dais, was a glowing wooden box.  Light poured from within the box,
dazzling and alluring.  Rebecca knew that the key to leaving this dream was
there in the box. 

Without
thinking, she took several steps toward the dais.  The floor trembled and the
rumbling they had heard before shook the temple.  She gasped as a huge yellow
eye opened in the darkness to the left of where she stood.  It was shimmering
like gold, with a narrow black slit of a pupil.  It blinked at her, then it
shifted, and she sensed massive movement in the shadows along the side of the
big room.  She had woken the guardian.

Glinting red
scales reflected the light back at them as the thing moved in and out of
shadow.  Rebecca backpedaled, bumping into Isaac, who clutched her shoulders
with crushing force. 

“Dragon…” he whispered,
afraid to move, to blink…to even
breathe
.

The thing
roared, setting the temple atremble.  Emotion washed over Rebecca- she was
brimming with it.  They had come this far, endured this much, only to be stopped
now when the goal was clearly in sight? 
Like hell
, she thought.

Rebecca wrenched
herself away from Isaac and made a mad dash toward the box.  Flames billowed
from the dragon’s gaping maw.  It didn’t move from the shadows, but a long
reptilian tail, covered in sharp scales, lashed across her path, nearly
crushing her.  Rebecca slid to a halt.  Her skin was hot and stretched tight,
scorched by the heat of the dragon’s flames.  She feinted to the right and the
tail crashed down, just missing her.  She darted to the left and was nearly
burnt alive.  She wasn’t daunted.  Impatient anger crowded out rational
thought.  She was fed up with absolutely everything- her life, this dream,
everything!

Isaac grabbed at
her and dragged her backward out of harm’s way.  The dragon hadn’t moved from
its place, clearly able to stop them from reaching the box without entering the
main room.

“What the hell
are you doing?”  Isaac’s voice shook with repressed emotion.  “Are you trying
to get yourself killed?”

Rebecca rounded
on him, ready to burst.  She was trying to save them, and he was sitting back
on the sidelines criticizing.  “I’m
trying
to get us out of here,” she
all but shouted.  Why was he always so passive?

Isaac waved his
hands theatrically.  “By getting yourself fried?  Are you blind, Rebecca? 
That’s a freaking
dragon
in there!”

Rebecca clenched
her fists at her sides, overwhelmed with the sudden urge to hit him.  “Who
cares?  It’s not real.”  She gestured at the room around them.  “None of this
is real!”

A couple of red
patches burned high on his prominent cheekbones.  “Really?  Because it sure as
hell feels real when your skin is torn and your bones are broken.”  He sneered
at her.  “Oh, wait- you wouldn’t know that, would you?  It’s always me who’s
getting attacked when you do something stupid!”

Just then, the
dragon’s tail lashed out, missing him by mere inches.  “See!”  He stumbled
backward.  “Maybe I should let you go out there.  See just how much this not
real shit hurts.”

You’re just
scared,” she accused.  “You’re a coward.  Someone who hides from his problems
by getting stoned so he doesn’t have to deal with the world.”  She crossed her
arms over her chest as he spluttered at her words.  “I can’t expect you to know
what it means to fight for something.”

They glared at
each other in hostile silence.  Rebecca was completely out of control. 
Emotions swirled in her like parasites beneath her skin, roiling and
squirming.  She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth, and the blood pounded
in her head.  She stared into Isaac’s ice blue eyes, wondering how she had ever
been sad that they might not see each other again.

They moved at
the same time, each trying to beat the other to the goal.  The dragon’s tail
lashed out, but Isaac’s long legs cleared it as he hurdled toward the goal. 
Rebecca was knocked aside and she hit the wooden floor and rolled away from a
jet of flame.  Isaac’s pant leg caught fire and he roared with pain, stopping
to beat out the flames.

Rebecca darted
past him, her heart pounding as she dodged yet another burst of flame.  The
dragon was agitated now.  It paced around the outer corridors, belched flames
and roared, pumping the place full of anger and desperation.

Rebecca could
see herself as if she was moving in slow motion.  She and Isaac were both so
close to the box, but neither one of them could reach it.  The dragon was
always there to block their way.  She watched from outside herself, seeing the
subtle rhythm to their dance.  Everything seemed to slow until time stopped. 
She remembered thinking that she would be glad to be rid of Isaac.  Glad for
this to be over.  Then she remembered everything they’d been through together. 
And the way he had soothed her when she was on the brink of giving up and being
swallowed by grief. 

Stillness glided
over her.  She stopped running toward the goal, stopped fighting.  She stood
her ground.  “Stop,” she called to Isaac.  “Stop, I figured it out!”

She stood in the
middle of the room, just a couple of feet from her goal.  Taking a deep breath,
she spread her arms wide and stopped fighting the anger and frustration,
letting it wash over her like water, feeling it but letting it roll off her
like rain drops.

“You have to let
it go,” she said to Isaac.  Her voice was soft, but she was sure he would hear
her.  “You can’t hold on to your anger and blame for the rest of your life.” 
She thought of it all- every hurt she had suffered, every loss, every betrayal,
every lie she had ever told herself- Cloe, Raman, everything- she let it all
wash away.  She met his eyes.  “Everything that hurt you.  All of your
regrets.  Let it go.”

Isaac stopped.  He
stood rooted to the spot and stared into her eyes.  She saw the rage there
slowly fade, and tenderness creep back in.  She knew what he was feeling,
because she could feel it too.  Closure.  Acceptance. 
Peace.
  It felt
like slipping into a new skin, one that was deliciously clean and light.

The dragon gave
one last rumbling call.  It blinked in and out, like the bridge had earlier. 
Then a huge piece of the ceiling let go with a massive crack, and came crashing
to the ground.  Rebecca lunged back out of the way, tripping over a large rock. 
She glanced down to see the floor disappearing.  The illusion of the temple was
fading, leaving behind the rough ground. 

She scrambled to
keep her feet as her surroundings changed.  The temple walls kept crumbling
away.  Once they were gone, there was only mountain.  And then even that
crumbled.  It was several moments before she realized that she was standing
inside what had once been the polished Spirit Co. warehouse.  It was now
dilapidated and crumbling, abandoned.  As she looked around, a hooded figure
melted out of the shadows and stood before her.  The ground continued to
rumble, even thought the dragon was long gone.

Rebecca cast
about, her eyes searching frantically.  “Isaac?”  Panic welled up inside her as
the ground shook beneath her feet.  He was nowhere to be seen. 

“
Isaac
!” 
Her voice cracked as a piece of the wall split and tumbled down, revealing grey
stone and earth again.  The place was falling apart, then re-forming, only to
fall apart again.  Where was Isaac?

The hooded man
took a few more steps toward her then stopped.  “He’s not coming,” the voice
rasped from behind the wooden crow mask. 

Rebecca hugged
her elbows, but stood her ground, treacherous and shifting though it had
become.  “Where is he?  Where is Isaac?”  Her heart clenched and it was hard to
breathe

The hooded
figure tilted its head to and fro.  “Where do you think he’s gone?”  The thing
rasped.  Rebecca stared at him, a growing suspicion making her chest ache and
her throat constrict.  There was a loud
snap
and a piece of the wooden
raven mask tumbled to the ground.  The dark figure didn’t react.

“What do you
mean?  He was right here!”  Her voice broke.

The hooded
figured drew a deep rattling breath, making her shiver.  “Funny isn’t it,” he
rasped conversationally, “how the dream seems to have different parameters for
your friend than it does for you.”

Rebecca’s eyes
were fixed on the hooded figure, even as the world continued to crumble around
her.  Soon there was nothing but rock and blackness.  And still she stood there,
staring at the hooded man.  “What do you mean?”

There was a
wheezy noise like laughter.  “Sweet little
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
,
haven’t you noticed it?  The dream acts differently on him, doesn’t it?  He
turned into a beast.  And he was a child that time near the stream…”

Rebecca shook
her head in denial.  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

The hooded
figure took a small step closer as the ground shook.  “Why is it,” he rasped
softly, “that the hydra merely caused you pain, while it tried to devour him?” 

The ground
rumbled and there was sudden upheaval beneath her feet.  A fissure opened,
cutting them off from the pedestal where the glowing box still rested.  “Why he
saw through the succubus while you succumbed?  Why he was broken and bleeding,
while you-even now- are unscathed?”  Flames shot from the fissure, but the
hooded figure of death paid it no attention. 

“How was it that
you could pull the sword of courage from his chest to defeat your fear?”  The
voice was growing more and more cruel.  “And why was it that his rage and resistance
fueled the dragon, yet it was gone when you calmed him?”

“No,” she
whispered.  “He’s real.”  She had feared it before.  Even told herself once
that he was just a part of her dream.

  Death
chuckled.  “Yes and no.”  He lifted a pale hand, and she thought it was more
skeletal than before.  “But why is it that this world is less restrictive to
him than it is to you?  How has he always known the identity of every monster
you face?  How can he disappear at will?”  The bony fingers reached within the
shadowy hood.  “And …where did he go?”  The wooden mask clattered to the stony
ground.  Rebecca knew that she was about to look into the face of death. 

“Your Isaac is
as imaginary as I am…but some part of us is real.”  There was a heartbeat of
hesitation.  Then the white hand threw back the hood.

Familiar blue
eyes stared back at her- familiar yet altered, hazed with pain and something
else- set above pale, sunken cheeks, framed with lank, lifeless black hair.  Over
bloodless blue lips that could not ever smile.  “You helped me fight every one
of my demons … and I had to help you overcome yours in order for you to do it. 
I think my soul can move on now…to wherever it is meant to be.”