Some resolving plot stuff in this chapter. Warning/promise: next chapter is Bethan slash, which I am planning to post 7/16/16.
Thanks to all my readers who keep me going :-D
MBAV fan66: I can only imagine how hard it would be to have kids and know they were in danger and not be able to do anything about it. So this is my attempt to keep Mrs. Morgan interesting/realistic. Rory, however, pure comic relief. It's always interesting to read your take on my chapters! thanks for reviewing!
"Jane?" Ethan pleads in disbelief. "Jane! No no no nono." Ethan's voice dies out.
Bloody glass shards protrude from Jane's forehead, her eyes unequally hooded. Ethan wedged a flat hand under her shoulder to move her out of the wreckage, but the broken way her body bends makes him think better of it. He bitterly remembers reading the prophecy that told him this would happen, that was supposed to tell him how to prevent this. Prevent his sister's death.
His peripheral vision darkens as Ethan cannot tear his eyes her bird-boned corpse. Some vague sense of self-preservation tells him he should not loiter in a crashed car.
kwiwzzz-stitsss. The hissing static cuts in through Ethan's conscious. Blinking, he finds that he can see another picture overlaid onto the smashed car seat and… his sister. It's not a vision. In visions he completely checks out from real life.
It's… The overlay is a cooking show? Some bizzare and outlandish sandwich is being made. This is… Chocolate syrup is squeezed generously over bacon slices. Why is that familiar? Benny's dream sandwich! That isn't a cooking show and this isn't the horrible future his prophecy was unable to prevent. This is another seer dream, and Benny's REM cycle is another channel that Ethan can apparently switch to.
The sudden elation washes out the queasy horror. While at least the horror. Ethan focuses on the surreal sandwich tower, willing the seer dream to fade. Benny's hands are smoothing peanut butter onto another piece of bread. Both sides.
"Ethan!" Benny enthuses, looking up from his masterpiece. Consistent with Ethan's theory, the sandwich, the counter, and the various sandwich ingredients visually diminish when Benny's attention is drawn away. Ethan watches as the items not only bleed color, but lose detail. In fact, Ethan's perceives the word 'sandwich' superimposed over the object, as if Benny's mind stored the object as a word when he wasn't actively imagining it.
"Are you hungry?" Despite the massive sandwich, Benny is holding out a Twix bar.
Ethan shakes his head, as much conveying that he doesn't want candy as adjusting himself to this new reality.
"Uh… I think I'm inside your dream?" Ethan responds instead.
"Oh, you haven't been able to do that since the lucifractor explosion," Benny replies. Judging by the way the kitchen scene dissipates from existence, he's already forgotten about the dream sandwich.
"Do what?" Ethan has never entered someone's dream before. Maybe Benny's subconscious is making some random non-sensical jumps.
"The go-inside-people's-heads-when-you-touch-them thing. That's what you're doing right?" Benny asks.
"I don't know how I did it," Ethan replies as a way of half agreeing, half presenting a counterpoint. "I was in a prophecy dream, right after Jane died, and then I appeared here."
"Where were you?" Benny asks. At this point, the boys are just floating in a nondescript void.
"In a prophecy dream," Ethan repeats, wondering about the difference in Benny's comprehension while asleep.
"Where were you when Jane died in the prophecy?" Benny asks instead.
"Oh…" Ethan strains to remember where he was. "The school parking lot. I think."
"Okay so not on patrol, but in a car. Who was driving?" Benny asks.
"I was," Ethan answers. "It was just me and Jane in the car." The words choke him up a bit.
Benny hugs him without moving to close the distance. The brief hug feels only partially corporeal. Afterwards Benny blinks away to a more normal distance.
Actually he's sitting on his bed. The void cut away by four walls, wallpapered with the word "wall." It's a bit odd knowing that both boys are currently sleeping on that bed.
"What day was it? Was anyone outside the car? What did you crash into?" Benny continues trying to reconstruct the events in the prophecy.
"Not sure what day it was," Ethan answers honestly. "A car rammed into the passenger side. It was silver. Didn't see who was driving... I didn't hear sirens. That's weird, right?"
Ethan looks to Benny who shrugs. "Maybe, but I mean if no one was around then there was no one to call an ambulance."
Ethan bites his thumbnail willing more memories to surface. "I heard hooves."
Benny mimes banging two coconut shells together, to which Ethan nods confirmation.
"Grandma said you wrote about a water-based horse-shaped shapeshifter in your last prophecy. Water-based could mean either like mostly lives in the water or has water spells. I mean we could try charming everything with water-resist spells."
Ethan blinks. Ethan blinks and now he's at home twirling the car keys on his index finger. The day has started over in his prophecy then. Before Ethan gets too emerged in this reality, he calls out "Someone has to help me with water-resist charms."
When Ethan's eyes open to the pitch black, it's with a sharp clarity.
Benny's pleasant warm gravity rests in the bed alongside Ethan. Despite the artificial distance of the memory, Ethan knows where his laptop is-in his backpack under the desk. Why did I ever use a pen? He wonders as he folds back the covers and swings his feet onto the floor.
Ethan pads softly to the other side of the room, foxstepping around scattered obstacles hidden in the dark. He settles onto the trundle bed, pressing the start button on the side of the laptop.
Elated from a sense of accomplishment, Ethan feels energized, calm, and giddy. For the first time since the dreams began, for the first since any of his seer powers materialized, he feels like he knows what he's doing. The startup chirp of the computer rouses Ethan from reverie. It apparently also rouses Benny, who shifts in the bed.
"Need help?" Benny mumbles, his mouth pressed into the pillow.
"No, I'm good," Ethan replies. He opens up Word and begins to type a summary of the night's discoveries. This time he begins with the actions he knows will save his sister's life, and then follows up with a bulleted list of any clues he has about the perpetrator. And the horse. He records any time he saw or heard a horse.
"Good." The single word is thick with sleep. He flops onto his back, and seems to fall back asleep. Ethan makes a new section for the theories he and Benny came up with. A second later Benny sits up and peels his shirt off.
"It's hot sleeping with another dude." Benny falls back onto the bed heavier than he needs to, making the springs creak. He's quiet for a moment before the implication hits him. "Not like that."
Ethan snorts. Benny starts snoring before Ethan finishes the report. He emails it to himself, Benny and Evelyn. After the conversation at dinner, he considers sending it to his mother. Ultimately he decides against it, considering the amount of speculation he included in the email.
He's about to shut the computer off, but he can't shake the nagging guilt. Ethan opens his report up again and creates a considerably abbreviated version: "Hey mom, good news! In my prophecy tonight, I found out that charming the car tires, Jane's math book, and Jane against water will prevent the accident I saw previously. Already told Evelyn the details. Love you mom!"
Ethan's truly nightblind when the screen turns off. He's also completely unburdened.
Ethan considers where he should go back to sleep. He's already in the cot and he's past the point where he would normally have had a panic attack. Warm enough, he could sleep on his own bed-trundle bed. He wouldn't wake Benny again.
Ethan closes the laptop and flops back on the cot, his legs still hanging over the side. Not really expecting a response, Ethan laments, "I'm so tired but my brain won't stop thinking."
Benny grunts and shifts on the bed. He might be gesturing at Ethan but it's too dark to see his own hands in front of his face let alone Benny's across the room. "E come back. You can dream with me." Benny manages.
Ethan stares at the darkness in Benny's direction, not sure what he means. He isn't sure Benny knows what he means.
"I'm really good at falling asleep," Benny clarifies, "Get inside my head and ride me to dreamland." After a pause Benny chuckles, "not like that."
Ethan outright laughs, immediately slapping a hand over his mouth to keep quiet.
He's still giggling when his shins hit the bed frame. Benny's arm snakes out from the bed to wrap around Ethan's waist and pull him onto the bed. Ethan falls onto the bed awkwardly, faceplanting into a squishy part of his best friend's autonomy.
"Shhh, sleep time," Benny admonishes as Ethan climbs into the bed properly.
Benny must be lying at an angle because Ethan can't find space for his legs. Space becomes altogether a luxury when Benny wraps sleep-heavy arms around Ethan's chest and pulls him closer. Human space heater Benny quickly overheats Ethan, but with his arms pinned all he can really do is kick off blankets.
Ethan waits until Benny's breathing evens out and turns into soft snoring before he lets his consciousness enter Benny's mind to see what's waiting for him. More sandwiches as it turns out.
Well I already told you what next chapter is about ;-)