It was strange, this feeling. Like someone had taken his life, ripped it to shreds then glued it back together in a disorganized collage. Yet all his memories told him this was how he had always been. Bobby's life had always been as it was. There was no reason for the fear he felt remembering his first kiss with Courtney, and that despite how much he felt that someone was going to interrupt them the memory remained that after the kiss he had rushed to his basketball game.
There were no reasons as to why he felt guilt when watching old clips of the Hindenburg, as to why watching the Olympics made him feel sick. Bobby had no explanation for his fondness for black cats when up until the kiss he had been strictly a dog person nor could he explain his hatred of blue Jell-O, when he had enjoyed it earlier in life. Bobby could not explain why one day he had walked into a bar and asked if they served sniggers, that was when he truly began to worry.
It was the memories that didn't fit that scared him the most, somehow he could remember the taste of the fictional drink Sniggers, could see someone falling from an old fashioned hotel, could see a man leaping into the path of an oncoming subway train, could feel thousands of stinging bug bites all across his body. Worst of all was the laughter, cold, menacing, and dripping with malice.
But there were others that soothed him, the smell of sweat and hardened leather made him feel light. The smooth feel of a wooden rod in his hands gave him confidence. Even bruises from being hit in the dark caused a smile to rise onto his face.
Sometimes Bobby saw faces, ones with no names. They were friendly, though some seemed to bring sad feelings with them. An older black man who always seemed to be smiling, a young slightly tanned man in dreadlocks, a blond teenage girl in glasses who looked like she never smiled, a face hidden in the darkness though he thought they had cat eyes, a teenage boy whose eyes sparkled with mischief, an older woman whose expression seemed sad and apologetic. A middle aged man with glasses, and a teenage boy who seemed innocent. Then he saw her, he could tell she was a warrior, it was just the air she exuded. Her face was stern, though not unkind. She had bronzed skin that seemed to glow and a magnificent black braid. When he thought of her, he could feel a sort of longing, regret and pride as if in some past life she had been more than simply a nameless face.
It was when he lay next to Courtney, dreaming that those faces were no longer nameless. Certain names stuck out most in his mind. Spader his friend, the boy with the dreadlocks. Gunner, the war veteran, the older black man. Kasha, not a face hidden in shadows rather a pitch black humanoid cat, the first death of his generation. Then there was Loor, the warrior queen. Every time she came up in his dreams his chest would clench. In his dreams she was so much more than just a face from a memory, she was his everything. His motivation to save halla, it was all so that they could live together. Sometimes his dreams of her were happier, the parade in the rain, as he had leant in to kiss her. Other were less happy, the guilt he felt at having put her in danger, he had after all, been the one who pushed her into the water assuming she could swim.
The worst dream came only on his happiest of days, ones when he would realize how lucky and how happy he was to have Courtney in his life, how much better his life was with her in it. Those nights he would head to bed with a smile, pull his wife in closer and hold her as he drifted off to blissful sleep, he would linger in a sort of limbo for a while and then…
Oh god, oh god, oh god. I can't stop seeing it again and again, Saint Dane killing her, damn he killed her, actually killed her, she is bleeding and slipping from my grasp, her life slipping from my fingers and I can't do anything to hold her here because I can't stop seeing it over and over. I want to cry and curse and die and most of all I want to kill him. I want him to die for what he has done, but even more than that I want to know how to stop this, how I can fix her even as she slips farther from life. I realize that I must have started crying at some point because my vision is blurred, I lean down and kiss her. She doesn't even twitch and I pull away sobbing, hoping, praying, daring the universe, all of Halla itself to show to me what it all means. If travelers have any sort of powers what good are they if they can't stop something like this from happening? I fall back, throw my head back and howl as Loor slips off the edge-
That is where he wakes for the first few minutes he mourns the loss of his friend, then the memory becomes a dream, and even less than that. His final thoughts on it are to wonder what became of the girl, before it fades from his mind till the next night he dreams it. He dreams of her just as often as not, often time he dreams of his other friends.
Kasha is trying to tell me that she finally believes in travelers and our missions, that she finally believes in her dad, in Boon, in me. She apologizes for not being a traveler like we needed, for not helping us like she ought to. I try to tell her that she will have time to make it up, that she can continue her work but the only one I'm fooling is myself. Kasha is aware that it is over for her, that she gets no second chance. I can't stop my eyes wandering up to her head, the blood running down her face from where the boulder struck her. She weakly blinks the blood out of her eyes and the flume's noise is getting louder and I realize she won't even a burial on her home territory I can only hope second earth is a suitable resting place.
But sometimes, on the worst nights he dreams of someone else, someone he can feel the loss of even now, even here, as if he was meant to be in his life, despite having no actual memory of him.
I can hear a rattling, and he is seizing, his body violently shaking as the bullets tear through his flesh. They pierce his body and I can see his eyes, focused on me. He just saved Spader but he is looking at me, and I can't bear it. He is my first loss, Loor and Spader? They lost their territories's traveller already, but Uncle Press wasn't dead, he had survived Denduron and Cloral, only to die in the entrance to the Flume. That was when things got real.
He would wake from those dreams in a cold sweat, the rattling of the machine gun echoing in his mind. But in the end it was always just a dream… or at least that was what he had thought. But Uncle Press… one day he simply walked through the door to his hospital room. This mystery man from his dreams, who was dead, was standing before him. In his hands were pages, many of them varying in different colors and there even appeared to be a few flat boxes. He handed them to Bobby.
This time when I see her, I know exactly who she is and I know exactly why I am seeing her. We are returning now, each and every one of us. I will be leaving Courtney behind, and it saddens me to know that I will never touch her again, never kiss her again, it also is thrilling to see Loor again. I love them both, so much. I spent a lifetime and a half with Courtney, now I will spend an eternity with Loor. I wish I could be with them both… but I can't. I will see them all again, Spader, Patrick, Gunny and all those who died before me. Aja… the thought of her makes me oddly happy. Does she know, how much of a legend she became for her territory in its future? This is something I want to ask, but I will wait, stepping instead into Loor's arms and releasing my final grip on second earth.