The visions came randomly one night.
It had been a long day. After graduation, things seemed to settle down for a while. Everyone was unified in the fact that they had done it, had defeated the evil in the house and had, at the same time, graduated with high honors, at least for Fabian and Mara. It seemed that all the drama and anger had dissipated and was replaced by camaraderie. Everyone was in high spirits.
Everyone except for Eddie.
In a way, he was glad that his Osirian powers were gone; the feeling of total responsibility for another was gone. He didn't feel the supernatural strain on his body anymore, allowing him to act like a regular teenager, with no confinements or restrictions. But another part of him urned for his connection. With his abilities, what was his purpose in life? He wasn't smart like Fabian and Mara and he didn't have a career path set in mind like Amber had when she left school. He felt empty on the inside, but tried to conceal it on the outside as best as he could.
As he laid in bed that night, that emptiness engulfed his body as he recalled the previous events of the day, his mind calling out for something to mend, or at least fill his broken heart.
"It's for the best," Patricia whispered, reaching a hand out to stroke his face.
He angled his body away from her. "How could this be for the best?! Please enlighten me, because I'm so confused."
"We're going in different directions," she began, "and I don't even mean metaphorically. You're going back to the states, and I'm going to Wales to attend Uni there. After the summer, we're going to be on different sides of the planet. I just don't want to do the awkward breakup a couple days before we all leave Anubis House. Can't we just enjoy our time here together as friends?"
He turned away from her completely at this time. Friends. That's all she wanted to be, even after all they'd been through. Friends. It was as if a silvery knife had been plunged into his side and been twisted brutally.
"I was willing to try long distance," he responded finally, his eyes no longer sad but angry. "I was willing to fly to Wales whenever I could just to be with you because I care about you that much! I care about you and you do too, or at least you used to. So what changed Patricia? What changed?"
"You're a totally different person now, Eddie! I know you've been going through a hard time, from the sinners to losing your Osirian bond. But that doesn't mean you have to change everything that made you who you are! I know that you're trying to act like you're okay, like everything's fine, but we all know it's not. You're not the same guy you were when we first started dating. And now, I just want to move on!" she shouted.
"And there it is," he murmured, his voice flat. "You're using me as an excuse but you know what, Patricia? I see the truth too. You want to get out of this house and start fresh, without all the baggage behind you. You want a new life. And you don't see me in it."
"Eddie," she started but he held out a hand to stop her.
"Get out of my room."
"Eddie, no, I don't want to leave it like this!"
"That's your fault. I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to hear your voice, I don't want to see you, hell I would prefer if we were never in the same room again."
"That's impossible, we're all staying at the house over the summer."
Eddie glared at her. "Then you better find a way to make it possible."
A tear slipped down Patricia's face. "Can't we at least try to be friends?"
"Friends?!" he shouted. "I don't want to be friends! I loved you Patricia and I would've gone to the ends of the Earth for you! But you obviously didn't feel the same. Have you been faking it this whole time? Has any of this been real?"
"Of course Eddie, things were great for a while, but I think it's time we let this thing go."
He looked at her one last time, as if memorizing her face. Then his eyes grew hard and he turned so that his back was facing her. "I'm not going to ask you again. Get out of my room."
The only sound for a moment was their breathing; it was as if time had stopped working. But as quickly as she came into his life and left, Patricia opened the door and was gone.
And he was alone.
Fabian tried to comfort him that night. "It'll get easier, mate. I know it's hard right now, but you will move on."
"But do you ever really move on?" Eddie questioned. "Is it actually possible to move on from someone that you cared about with every ounce of your being?"
Fabian sat in silence for a minute before responding, his voice sounding oddly dispatched from his body. "There's not a day that goes by where I don't think about her. There's not a day that goes by where I don't miss her smile, her laugh, her eyes. And more than anything, I wish she had stayed at the house for our last year, that she hadn't broken my heart and stayed in America to protect us all. But she did, and it's hard, but it's getting easier. Just stay strong and it'll all work out in the end."
Eddie thought about Fabian had said whilst lying in bed, about everything working out in the end. As his mind pulled him into a restless slumber, he thought about her and how everything didn't work her way.
That's when the first vision hit.
She was sitting in a bookstore cafe, an iced coffee held tightly in her slender fingers. Her light chestnut hair was swept up into a braided up-do, her usually alert and bright green eyes seemingly dark. Two people sat at the table with her. The first was a girl, with long blonde hair tied into a knot and dark blue eyes. The second, a guy, had brown hair that was so dark it almost seemed black and sported a water bottle in his left hand. The three of them seemed comfortable with each other, as if totally at ease being in each other's presence.
"-and he said to me that he never wanted to see me again, even though he said that the last time we broke up," the unfamiliar girl said. "Sometimes life is so hard.
The boy shot the blonde girl a harsh look.
Her face turned from annoyance to mortification. "I'm so sorry, I'm being so insensitive."
The girl he instantly recognized from when the vision started looked at her friend, her eyes impassive. "Don't be sorry, Karlie. You're just venting about your day, like we always used to do."
"But with everything that's going on-"
"I'm fine," she said quickly.
"Saying you're fine and actually being fine are two different things," the boy replied, his hand reaching out to touch hers sympathetically.
"Carter, I'm fine, honestly."
"I'm sorry but you know and we know that that's total bullshit," Karlie replied not unkindly. "We all know what happened, and it's horrible, but it seems like you're pretending it didn't. I'm scared for you. You're acting like everything's fine, but it's not. Why can't you just let us in?"
The girl turned her head away. "Because if we talk about it, then I will have to acknowledge that it's true."
Karlie grabbed her friend's other hand, and the three teens sat at the table in the cafe, lending support through physical contact.
The vision ended suddenly, and Eddie shot awake, his breathing irregular. Fabian, concerned by his friend's actions, stared at him with worry. "What's wrong, Eddie?"
Eddie looked at him, confusion and sorrow written all over his face. "It's Nina."
And that's how it all began.
"That's not possible," was the only thing Fabian was capable of saying at the moment after Eddie retold the story of what he saw in his dream. His hands were wound tightly around each other, an action he always seemed to do when he was nervous or sad. His blue eyes, usually light and happy, burned relentlessly at Eddie, his mouth pursed into a straight line.
"Fabian, I'm not going to tell you this again," Eddie replied frustratedly. "I saw Nina in my dream! And it wasn't like a regular dream; it felt so real. It felt like before, when my Osirian bond was still intact."
"And that's just it," Fabian rebutted. "Your Osirian bond is gone. It's been gone since graduation and it's not coming back. So, that makes whatever theories you're conjuring up about this supposed dream utterly and completely impossible."
Eddie raked a hand through his hair angrily. "You're not listening to me! I know there is not legitimate backing to what I'm saying, but you know me, and you know that my intuitions are almost always right. This was not a dream!"
Fabian stood up from his messy and began to anxiously pace the confined area of their bedroom, his hands flying around in wild gestures. "I am listening to you, and I am telling you that you're wrong. There is no bond between you and Nina anymore; therefore, you couldn't physically be seeing her life."
"How do you know there isn't a bond between us anymore?," Eddie started. "I know that our Osirian and Chosen One bond is gone, but what if there's something more? We know little to none on the ins and outs of Egyptian mythology, and we're constantly bombard with new surprises that we would've believed to be impossible if brought up to us prior to the event. So what is so unbelievable about this?!"
The little shred of self constraint Fabian had held before snapped and he shouted, "Because it just isn't god damn possible, okay?!"
Understanding suddenly dawned in Eddie's eyes. "Oh, I see what this is all about. You don't want it to be true. You don't want me getting glimpse into the life of the girl that broke your heart and hasn't contacted you since her departure."
Fabian could't meet his eyes, his body angling away from Eddie's.
"Shouldn't this make you happy?" Eddie questioned, approaching Fabian slowly. "I thought you would be ecstatic that there's a chance we might be able to know what's going on with Nina. I mean, that's what you've wanted all year, right?"
The room was engulfed in utter silence for a couple of moments to the point where Eddie almost didn't think Fabian was going to respond. However, Fabian's clear voice instantly pierced the air in a flat tone.
"I just thought, that after all this time, she would've reached out to me. I know that she couldn't come back this year because it would've put you in risk, but how hard was it to respond to my emails and calls? I tried so hard to get a hold of her and I got nothing in return, and it slowly broke my heart. And now you're telling me that you're seeing her? You're telling me that you're seeing her with all these new friends and a stable life that doesn't include me in it?! How am I supposed to be okay with this?"
Eddie finally reached his destination and lightly placed a comforting hand on his best friend's shoulder. "You know why she hasn't responded to you, Fabian. As much as you've been trying to deny it, it would've torn her apart to talk to you, knowing there was nothing she could do to be with you. And the dream wasn't a happy wonderland either. She's hurting, and from what that dream showed me, she's hurting bad. I'm guessing that's why I was allowed to see it, without the Osirian bond. This is the world's signal that she needs our help, and I can't do anything about it without your help."
Fabian finally met his eyes, a rogue tear escaping his eye and trailing down his cheek. "So what are you suggesting that we do?" he practically whispered.
"I think it's time that we get the band back together."
The attic had always been a safety space for the Sibuna group, but for the first time, there felt like a tangible sense of distrust and awkwardness surrounding them. Fabian sat down on the ground, his eyes never leaving his lap. Eddie and Patricia sat as physically far away from each other as they could get. Finally, Alfie and KT kept nervously looking around the room, unsure of why there was so much tension.
Breaking the awkward silence, Eddie stood up from his seat and began to address the group. "Look, I know that there's not an Egyptian mythology to solve at the moment, but this group is specified in solving problems, no matter the content or relevance. And I know that all of us aren't on the greatest of terms right at the moment, but I couldn't think of anyone better to help with this issue. So, for the purpose of getting stuff done, can we promise to try to the best of our ability to push away our personal problems with one another and instead work together as a team?"
Slowly, every head in the room nodded in agreement.
"Great. So here we go. Last night, I had a dream about Nina-"
"Isn't Nina the girl that used to go here? The Chosen One, right?" KT interrupted.
Eddie looked at her with annoyance. "Yes, yes it is. So, I had a dream-"
"What, did you really think it was necessary to call us up here just to discuss your little dream with the original newbie?" Patricia sniped.
"Are you seriously jealous, Patricia? Because if I recall, you were the one that broke up with me-"
"-so what? It's been like what, a day, and you're already fantasizing about someone else?!"
"When did I ever say that happened?!"
"I feel so left out the loop guys!" Alfie shouted, adding onto the pile of noise.
The voices continued to rise into a crescendo, overlapping each other violently, until everyone was silenced by a booming voice.
"SHUT UP!" Fabian hollered in order to quite the masses. Four incredulous pairs of eyes blinked back at him. "Eddie, please continue from where you left off."
"As I was saying," Eddie began again, his voice holding a tint of exasperation, "I had a dream about Nina. I would of shrugged it off completely if it was a normal dream."
"I knew it was a sex dream," Patricia muttered under her breath.
Eddie glared at her. "But it wasn't a normal dream. It was as if I was watching her life. This wouldn't be so unusual if our Osirian and Chosen One bond was still intact. But that was severed at graduation. So as of now, we don't have any explanation of why I was able to get a glimpse into her life somewhere else.
"In my dream, or more accurately, vision, she was sitting with one boy and one girl at a coffee shop somewhere insignificant in New York, which is where she lives. It seemed like a normal day, but there was something so off about it. Her friends kept referencing this major event that apparently was pretty terrible because Nina couldn't even speak about it. And Nina, who we can all remember as a fairly positive person, looked dead on the outside. Her eyes had no traces of happiness or positively in them, and that is what scares me the most.
"I wouldn't have seen this vision if something wasn't terribly wrong. There's a reason for everything, and there has to be a very big one for this to happen. And we need to figure it out."
KT bravely spoke up first. "So what are you suggesting we do?"
"The first logical thing to do would be to contact Nina again. I know we've all tried to do it to no avail, but it's been a while since we've tried again. Maybe she'll pay attention to it this time. Secondly, we need to research. Maybe we can find some feasible explanation for why this is happening, and that might be able to shed some light on prior and future events."
"I thought we left all the mysteries behind after the events of senior year," Alfie said.
"I did too, Alfie. And who knows, this might not turn into anything larger. But all something needs is a spark to ignite a fire, so I think we should stay on the safe side of things and really figure out what's going on. So, are you guys in or are you guys out?"
Fabian was the first to stand. "I was in from the beginning, you know that."
Alfie stood up next. "What else would I be doing?"
KT followed suit, although with a little more hesitance. "I know that I don't know Nina, but I do know what little things can evolve into, so I want to help."
The remaining person sitting on the floor was Patricia. After a brief pause, she brushed the dirt off her pants and stood up next to her fellow Sibuna members.
"Nina was one of my best friends," she proclaimed. "And I think I owe it to her to do this, no matter what's happening to me."
A slight smile graced Eddie's face as he brought his hand up to his left eye. "Sibuna?"
Although it seemed like no one could agree on anything at the moment, they could still stand together in the face of fear. As their voices joined together to speak, ringing loudly in the emptiness of the attic, Eddie knew it was the start of a new dawn.
hi guys! I'm trying out a new story, and bare with me, it will get a lot better. I apologize if there are several grammatical mistakes. Please review with theories on where this story is going to go and what you want to see happen! Constructive criticism is always welcome :)
Chapter PlaylistL
Distance by Christina Perri
Another Love by Tom Odell
Belong by Cary Brothers