From the Cosmos. [gxg]

xxxii. witch-hunt 2

The gates of the military base swung open, but they were anything but inviting. It wasn't raining at the base, but dark clouds blended with the night sky, blocking out the stars. The grey streets of the compound were illuminated by dim street lights. Marisol wondered if the base was any less unappealing in broad daylight. They had only gotten a few feet into the base when they came across a large vehicle blocking the road. When they approached, a man leaned a hand out of the window and gestured for them to follow, and so they did.

When the car finally stopped, they were at a three story building. It was made of concrete, simple windows lining the sides. When her and Mr. Schultz got out of the car, they were ushered in by some tired looking young men in uniforms - no doubt not used to being up at such an odd hour.

It wasn't long until they were in a conference room, somewhere among the sparsely decorated halls of the building. The room was long, and a table stretched for the majority of it, black leather swivel chairs distributed evenly down the sides. Two expensive looking laptops sat alone on the surface. At the head of the table was a slightly larger chair, and on the wall behind it was a whiteboard. A man stood near the doorway, immediately jutting a hand out to Mr. Schultz as they walked in.

"I'm General Nelson," he said as he shook Mr. Schultz's hands. He then extended his hand to Marisol, who took it. His hand was calloused and rough, much like his appearance. His face carried a hardened expression, and his hair was buzzed short. He was an older man, though he seemed to be in shape. A scar ran from near his ear to his chin.

"We've provided laptops for both of you, so that you guys may research into certain documents," he said, "Talia will be on a video conference shortly. She'll explain her expectations of you two in detail." He stepped aside, letting them walk further into the room.

Marisol slid into one of the chairs and pulled a laptop towards herself. As soon as she did, a cadet came up behind her, swiftly plugging a charger into the side. Mr. Schultz sat next to her and did the same thing. When she opened the laptop, it was already signed in. A folder was pulled up, and several other folders existed within. The amount of files was enough to scroll through for days. Marisol's head started to hurt.

A loud beep sounded near the back of the room and a projector screen began rolling down from the ceiling. The lights of the room dimmed and overhead, a projector turned on, shooting light onto the screen. The projection flickered, before the familiar face of Talia appeared.

"Hello, you two," she said, her face serious, "You two will carry on the investigation from here, using your own experiences to try and get us a lead on Colette. The laptops in front of you have been loaded with all the information from the United States Government's Witch Database. We have people combing through it over here, but we need all hands on deck, especially those of a fellow witch."

Marisol sighed. Obviously Talia meant Mr. Schultz. "What am I doing here, then?" Marisol asked, "I don't know the first thing about magic."

"You're here to talk to us if we need to confirm what you saw over that Facetime call," Thalia said, "But it doesn't hurt to have another person looking through the information, even if it doesn't really make sense."

Marisol nodded in agreement, though she was still unsure. With the government agents and Mr. Schultz combing through information, she doubted that there was anything she could do that wasn't covered already. She scrolled through the folders, the names blurring together. She didn't even know where to start.

She clicked on a random folder near the bottom, not paying attention to the name. Any starting point seemed like a good one when she was so lost. The folder she chose happened to be a small one. She read through the documents, finding nothing helpful. She continued, each document being walls of typed text. The difference came when she opened a file titled "Vicky" and clicked the first PDF, where she was met with messy, slanted handwriting. It was the only text that wasn't in a regular word document form that she had found. Upon closer inspection, Marisol could tell it was a diary entry. She didn't recognize the names mentioned. The scan must have been incomplete.

I only saw Lux one more time, years after they were taken from me. At first I thought seeing them was a dream. I encountered them after falling asleep in a crappy motel near Las Vegas. We were in an impossible space: a barren desert that went on for miles, the sky dark, the moon nowhere to be seen. The only light in the landscape didn't have a clear source, as it gently illuminated just enough for me to make out my surroundings. I hadn't dreamt of a place like that before. It was so empty. I would have rather not dreamed at all. I roamed around in the desert for a bit, and I don't know how long it was until I saw them.

Lux appeared in my periphery. I didn't know when they got there. When I faced them, they smiled, looking at me with earnest eyes. They looked older and more tired, but still just as radiant as I remembered. Their hair had started to turn grey, but the silver suited them, falling in a long braid down their back. Even in a dream, I needed to hold them, so I ran forward and hugged them. It felt so real. Their body radiated warmth in the cold dream desert, enveloping me. The hug made it feel as if we had never been separated in the first place. It felt just the same as it did in real life, all those years ago. I talked to them there. I babbled like an idiot about how I missed them, and how I still loved them, and I apologized dozens of times. They just held me.

We had been there for a long time. Lux whispered comforting words while I bawled my eyes out. When my breathing finally evened out, they pulled away. They told me that they had to go, that they were waking up soon. I grabbed them, begging them to stay. When I entered the dream, I wanted to leave, but then I never wanted to wake up. I told them that the dream felt so real, that they aged perfectly in my mind. That was when they smiled and said:

"This is real. I hope to see you again."

As soon as they said that, they disappeared, and I woke up, still in the disgusting hotel room I fell asleep in. My face was wet from crying and I was sweating. I felt like I was on fire.

Lux's words stuck with me. Even in my dreams, they'd never lie to me, so I believed them. That experience was real, and it sent me down a spiral. I had never been much of a researcher into witchcraft; it was dangerous and most texts were illegal to access. Still, I began searching for an answer, and every night when I fell asleep, I hoped to see Lux again.

I found my answer months later, after running into a witch while hitchhiking. The witch was a trucker named Delia. When she looked at me, she somehow knew I was a witch, and invited me into her semi on a ride to the East Coast. Her eyes were always shadowed by her dirty baseball cap, but there was a wise glow in them nevertheless. The first words she said after I buckled my seatbelt were "What are you looking for, fellow witch?"

My first thought was to panic. My second was to answer. I told her about my dream, and how I was looking for an explanation, how I was looking for Lux. After combing through what limited texts I had for months, a trucker was the answer to my questions.

She didn't know anything about Lux, but she explained that my dream wasn't a dream at all.

That night, I had entered the Cosmos. The term was coined by some ancient witches long ago. The Cosmos are a place that a witch goes when they're unconscious, a different plane. In the Cosmos, one can meet with another who they have a strong bond with, regardless of whether or not they have powers. Only one witch is required for the Cosmos to work, which is why I could see Lux, even after they had been sterilized. Lux and I had both been sleeping, and we had met there, in the Cosmos. The hug was real.

I can't explain how the Cosmos work. In the real world, your body stays where it fell unconscious, but everything in the Cosmos is still real. The touch is still physical. All of your senses are still working. It's complicated. The Cosmos look different for everyone, based on the relationship between the people there and the mood of the magic user. Mine was empty and barren because I was alone, and my relationship with Lux was long over.

Delia had talked to her daughter in the Cosmos once. She said that hers was a warm log cabin, with endless fields of wildflowers stretching from the windows.

Despite learning about the Cosmos, I never saw Lux again, though after what I had learned, I expected it. Lux knew that we were in something bigger than a dream, but they didn't tell me where they were, or how they were doing. They just hugged me as I cried. That last meeting in the Cosmos was a final goodbye, even though I didn't know it at the time.