Okay, I had mercy on you and posted earlier than I planned. :) Have a blessed Good Friday.
VVVVVVVVVVV
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"Bittersweet and strange
Finding you can change
Learning you were wrong."
-Beauty and the Beast
Time slowed until it seemed it did not move. I sat there, staring at the lines of the sonnet, unable to see them. My breath came to a standstill. And for just an instant, a vision flashed in front of my eyes.
I knew it was not prophetic. Neither was it false. Instead, it was a possibility—one that I had refused to consider or even imagine. But it would not be put off any longer. It raced before my eyes with vivid, terrifying, truthful clarity.
It was my life.
My life, stretching on and on in front of me. I walked through it as I would walk through a narrow path between the headstones of a graveyard—unable to halt my steps to linger beside any of the markers. Only here…the headstones were people. And events…and decades…and centuries…
Wars. Revolutions. Scientific discoveries. Journeys to Mars and beyond. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Floods. The rise and fall of great nations. The births and deaths of hundreds of people. Kings and peasants blooming and thriving only to wither and fade in the time it took me to merely pass by.
And there I walked, unscathed, unchanged, in the midst of all of it…
But belonging to none of it.
For though many of those near me called my name, and reached for me, I had no power to go to them, to comfort them, to be with them. Because I was not one of them. And if I hesitated at the sound of their voices, if I tried to draw near, then all that would result was my being forced to watch as the rosiness vanished from their faces, and they wrinkled, and decayed, and vanished as if they had never been, all the while resenting me for the youth I would always possess.
A single set of footsteps sounded on this path: my own. I glanced behind me at the distance I had traveled. Eons stretched out in my wake. Eons of solitude.
However, far back—far, far back—I could still barely see a fork in my path. It was the only one. It was marked by ash and burned earth. It was a turn I had chosen not to take, and thus it was barred by an unmoving iron gate. But I could still see beyond the gate.
Beyond the gate, I could see a person. A person who had done something wrong to me, long ago. I couldn't remember what it was—too many years stretched between—but it only amounted to a pinprick compared to the decades of suffering I had experienced since. The person was a man—a young man with limitless black eyes and a gentle smile. A young man who would walk beside me, faithful and steady. And beyond that gate, with him, I heard the ringing of laughter.
There were children. Dozens of them. Some had brilliant golden hair, others jet black. They followed behind the young man and me on a wide path, giggling and playing. Some of them had my ability, and trailed along right behind us as a band of immortals, beautiful and lively, like elves and sprites. Others did not possess immortality, but branched off from the path, bore families of their own, and created great legacies in medicine, technology, discovery, and faith. They became the pillars of nations; strong, good and brave.
The young man and I, leading our brood, traveled together through sun-bathed meadows, savoring the laughter of our children and breathing the open, windy air. Centuries stretched out behind us and before us, but we had eyes only for each other, and the darlings dancing behind us. Beyond that gate, I had learned that I was wrong: Being with him was infinitely better than being alone.
But I watched these phantoms from a great distance, as I stood amongst the silent graves. And the meadows and children and sunshine vanished like smoke in the wind. For that possibility was dead, and the gate that led to it was locked. Because when I had first come to that fork in the path, centuries ago, I had let that young man burn alive in a barn.
Because of a pinprick.
I jolted back to reality, gasping, tears brimming in my eyes. A car door slammed. I whipped around to stare out of the limo window. Flynt and his men were climbing into their cars. One of them was heading toward me, to get into the limo to drive me into town to find Peter and Emma.
Stuffing the sonnet into my pocket, but leaving the backpack behind, I scooted over and opened the car door closest to the forest. I slipped out onto the ground as silently as I could, backed up and pushed the door closed. Then, I turned, lay down, and rolled down the slight hill into the underbrush of the woods. I froze.
The limo driver came around the front of the car, got in, and started the engine. I ducked my head, holding my breath, silently praying he would not notice I wasn't in the back seat.
He didn't. He drove away.
I eased my head up, and watched the other government cars speed off.
And finally, the only thing that stood before me was a towering, consuming, savage fire that chewed and clawed at the barn where Sylar lay.
"A fire? That's it?" I growled, climbing to my feet. "Bring it on."
VVVVVVVV
Peter's boots thudded against the paving as he ran, side by side with Emma, straight up the road in the direction Claire had told him. His breath came in painful gasps and his heart ached, but he pushed his muscles harder. Emma kept up with him. He could feel them both weakening.
He skidded to a halt. Emma stopped beside him, her breathing labored.
"What's that?" he panted, pointing. For against the sky, a light had bloomed—a hellish, orange glow against the low clouds.
"It looks like a fire," Emma said, squinting. Peter raked his hands through his hair as terror choked his veins.
"Oh, no." He snatched up Emma's hand and pulled. "No, no, no."
TO BE CONTINUED