Rey tasted the pith of red wine in her mouth. It had created a film over her tongue and teeth, and it was acrid. It was as if she'd fallen asleep having swallowed mouthfuls of red wine and woken hours later, the vinegar clinging to her tongue. There was the furor of warmth on her face, and when she rolled out of the dust, using her arm to prop herself up, she knew it was fire. She could smell it, and the ash clogged up her eyes to a degree that she could not see. She was struck with the need to get out of the smoke, as it would kill her more quickly than the fire itself. She was unsure if she could feel her limbs, but had the vague sense of getting up and moving forward.
She moved towards something that she could make out, a vague dark spot that stood out among the burning pyre. He was there, and when their eyes connected she sensed all of the swirling emotions that seemed to amass around him. Hunger, hatred, confusion and...loneliness. He was dark, and every time their eyes connected she had the vague sensation that there would be nowhere to run.
Rey woke up with the sensation that she couldn't breathe. She was gasping, and she was so sure that there was real and solid smoke in her trachea and lungs. She started coughing, trying to right herself. She fumbled for the water on her night stand, sending her phone flying across the wooden floor. Finally, she had the glass within her grasp and she pulled it up, swallowing down all of it in a panic.
She reached for her glasses, putting them on her face and blinking in the dark. The room was empty, dark, and cold. She glanced next to her, finding her black cat 'Luci' blinking at her with wide, moon yellow eyes. He didn't seem to know what the fuss was about, but she felt relieved that he didn't alert to anything...even if she had the feeling that someone had been in here with her. She knew Luci would have reacted much differently if that were true, however.
She slid out of bed, trying to retrieve her phone. It had slid under her dresser, a pockmarked old thing made out of teak and washed to be a strange sea-water gray color. Her feet quickly became numb with the cold on the floor, and she bent down and got on her knees, reaching down underneath until she had it within her grasp. She pulled it out and released a sigh, glad to find that the screen hadn't cracked.
She didn't have much luck with phones. They often turned off in her presence, or refused to work at all - as if something about her disrupted their working completely. It was much the same with most electronics, which made life a bit difficult for Rey. She saw what time it was: 4:24 am. She didn't want to admit to herself that she had been waking up every morning at exactly this time. It wasn't as if she was capable of avoiding or ignoring prophetic signals. This seemed to be one.
She thought that if only she could get a glimpse of his face, a real and true glimpse of his face, the nightmares would stop. However, in the ever shifting landscape of dreams...she thought it was probably unlikely. She could only remember his eyes, cold and flinty black. Maybe in times of tenderness, they would glow amber. In her dream, they were always like obsidian stone.
Rey had the sensation that she had met him before, but when she shuffled through the catalog of her memories she could say that she had never met anyone like him.
She placed her phone back into a safe place, her fingertips brushing one of the crystals she had laid out atop her dresser. She heard Luci's soft paws hit the hollow floor, and she turned to find him sitting behind her. He was an odd thing, had been since he was a kitten. Silent and austere, she was sure that there was something other than cat resting there behind those eyes.
"Wet food?" She asked.
She smiled, watching him haul furry ass out into the kitchen. At least with food she could count on him to act like a cat. She followed, bending down to retrieve an old blanket from the heirloom rocking chair she kept. She threw it around her shoulders and shoved her feet into fuzzy slippers, glad for the warmth.
The small cottage she had come to occupy was attached to a small shop. It was right against the coast line, which meant that in the winter it got so cold that Rey sometimes couldn't stand it. Thankfully, this was just before the freeze, but Rey recognized the restlessness in the stormy crashing sea and read it in the froth. It wouldn't be long before winter came. She often wondered if she should rely on more modern methods to heat the cottage, but the thought of having a work man out to install a central heating system made her skin crawl just a bit.
She relied on her fireplace, and sometimes on her 'skills' to keep the place warm. Luci never seemed bothered by any of it, but that didn't mean she didn't catch him chasing the sunlight rays that seeped in through the curtains when the days were warmer.
She sold herbal remedies out of her shop. Most of it was medicinal, and it was all hand made. She sold tarot decks and crystals, and books about the craft, though none of them really spoke to the real craft. At least, not the craft that she had come to know - the kind that blessed her with an ability to change the air around her. The kind that often found her slipping, unnoticed, into others thoughts.
It made her business easier. She always seemed to know what people wanted without having to ask.
At first, the locals had hated her. Or rather, they had feared her. She had woken up to shattered glass, and rocks with messages tied to them. One particularly tough local boy had tried to set the shop on fire, only to be met with the purifying cleanse of a big, coastal storm.
Maybe she had been lucky.
Rey was used to being nomadic. She was used to not fitting in anywhere, really. She hoped that this place stuck to her. The more that she refused to leave, the more used to her the locals grew. She even began to have a steady customer base. Sometimes, though, they asked her to do things she should not do, or things that they should not know she was capable of.
Sometimes she charged so much money that they would change their minds. Sometimes she told them that there were certain bits that were beyond her meddling with. She didn't feel comfortable toying with love, and felt less comfortable toying with death.
Luci let out a plaintive chirp to let her know that he was waiting.
When the sun came up, painting the sky with pastel pinks and oranges, she got dressed in a pair of jeans. She wore heavy duty work boots over them, intending on going out into her garden and mucking around. The soil would be growing cold, and there were items that needed checking before the winter came on fully. There would be plants that would die and regrow in the spring, and there would be plants, hardier than most, that would survive the chill somehow. Rey always found herself amazed by it.
First, however, she had decided to take herself down to the super market.
The town wasn't so far behind that it didn't have it's very own mega-store, though Rey preferred the locally owned market that opened early and closed early. It was run by a soft old couple who had welcomed her from the start, though they had been reticent at first.
She hopped on her bike, taking a moment to say hello to a spider who was hanging in a dew-sparkling web. These critters, she could feel them pulsing out against the earth, an integral part of it. She didn't kill them if she could avoid it. The day was chilly, but Rey began to feel some of the warmth return to her limbs as the light bled out through the small town. She rode down the hill with exuberance, but was nearly unable to stop on time. She locked her bike up in front of the store, and entered it.
It was strangely empty. The neon lights were lit up, but there was no one at the register.
"Hello?" Rey tried. Something prickled at the back of her neck.
She ignored it, despite warning herself that she really shouldn't ignore these feelings.
She grabbed a small basket and went down the aisles, picking out biscuits for tea and eggs. She kept the trip small, considering she was going to have to haul it all home on her bike. It was in front of the dairy freezer that she began to feel that odd feeling again. It was a prickle down her neck, ice in her veins, and her chest tightening.
When she turned, it was like trying to capture a ghost in full view. The presence was not solid, dancing around corners. It was playful at first, but beneath this Rey could sense that whatever it was it meant her no good. In a blink, she saw a man she thought she recognized out in the middle of the road, his hair turned mahogany with the sun on it. She followed him, hopping onto her bike as he seemed to disappear like ink being dropped in water. She pedaled so hard up the road that she was out of breath, but she did not catch sight of him again...and the feeling was gone.
She was so discombobulated by the time she returned to the shop, the little old shopkeeper was aghast. She'd broken her eggs. Her face was so red that it was alarming.
"You look as if you've seen a ghost, dear," She said. "Come inside for a moment, I'll make you some tea,"
here we go again.