Anya opened her eyes. She was on her side, one hand under the pillow, sandwiched in the cool spot against the mattress. The other arm was curled around, the hand on the end of which was limply hanging off the side of the bed under the comforter.
She saw nearly nothing, only the ghosts of her furniture called to life by the ambient light of her alarm clock. Her eyes flicked to the source of the mild blue shadows. The little hands put the time at around 3:30. AM.
Eyes. All she could ever remember from the dreams were eyes. Burning, yellow, sunken, rimmed with red. The same set of eyes, set against darkness or flames. But they didn’t scare her. They were menacing, and she was afraid whenever she woke, but in her dreams, they never scared her. In her dreams, she stared back. She was ready. For whomever they belonged to, she was ready.
But not when she woke.
She cowered whenever she woke. She had to snuggle down, deep in her bed. She had to pull the covers around her, covering her head just to go back to sleep.
But tonight wasn’t like that. This dream had been different. The eyes were set against blood, a new backdrop. But the biggest difference was that after a while of staring at the eyes, she felt a hand slip into hers, gently squeezing at her still fingers.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” said a voice next to her. Even as she tried to relive her dream, Anya had already forgotten the sound of the voice that had made her heart flutter.
“Yes I do,” she had said. “I have to. It’s my job, my duty.”
“It’s mine as well.”
“It’s my destiny.”
“As commanded by whom, might I ask?”
She hadn’t replied. The final words of the one holding her hand had lingered, echoed in her mind and the eyes had faded, blurred and spiraled.
And then she had opened her eyes.
Anya took a deep breath and rolled slowly onto her back. She held her right hand in the air above her face. She still felt the warmth and comfort lent to her by the anonymous new companion in her dream. Closing her eyes, she curled her hand into a loose fist, holding it against her chest.
Her heart fluttered once more.
She reluctantly opened her eyes again, knowing her dream was over. It was only about three hours until she normally woke herself up. No one knew about the dreams yet. She hadn’t had a reason to tell anyone.
So, quietly, Anya folded her hands over her stomach and, patiently, waited for the sun to rise.
…
At the exact same time Anya opened her eyes, on a ridge overlooking a valley and a large house standing alone on a heavily wooded estate, a spark was lit. The spark came from an old style Zippo lighter, the card suits, spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds, decorated the sides.
The lighter was held several inches from the face of the one holding it. He had a cigarette in his mouth. He had brought the lighter but a few centimeters short of the tip of the cigarette. He didn’t light it, merely stared briefly at the flame and glanced quickly left and right. He didn’t smoke, never had, and most likely never would.
He just wanted to throw off anyone that might be watching.
He looked back to the flame and grinned, smugly. His eyes reflected the small fire as it shifted back and forth in his hand. The paper of the cigarette matched the tone of his skin, in sharp contrast to the mop of midnight that leaked down to cover his brow.
With a swift, fluid motion of his hand, he closed the lighter, and turned himself, for all the world, back into a silhouette. He leaned back against the car behind him, parked on the side of the road. He kicked a rock that had been lying next to his foot; it glanced off the top of the guardrail, careening over the edge of the cliff into the sea of trees below.
He took a deep breath, letting it out as a sigh, and glanced back down at the house in the valley. One of the windows glowed with a ghostly blue light, as it had since the occupant had switched off the overhead. He detected faint motion.
He looked away, knowing that even his enemies wouldn’t attempt anything this late, or early, rather. Tilting his head back, the young man’s eyes now reflected the stars, flitting quickly between constellations. Orion, Gemini, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Corona Borealis, Hercules, Scorpio, Libra, Cancer, Leo, Taurus, Pegasus.
They were the only things that had yet to change.
But only for a moment was he able to gaze. The phone in his pocket now rang, providing the only noise to be heard for miles. He slipped his hand in and out, bringing the phone to his ear before the second ring sounded.
“Hello?”
“Yo, Nightstrike, anythin’ new?”
“JJ, I told you no codenames,” he said, flipping the lid of his lighter open and closed, open and closed…
“Whatever, jeez.”
“Whatever your mom, now what is it?”
“You get the profile I sent you?”
“Yes, and I deleted it.”
“Dude! Alistair’s gonna be pissed!”
“I told him I’m not lying this time.”
“Yeah, and he told me to send you one anyway. So why the hell are you not frickin’ using it!?”
“I’M NOT LYING TO HER, JJ. Introducing a different reality is shocking enough, but I’ve found that if they discover that the person they thought they knew isn’t who they thought they were, it gets just the littlest bit worse!” He closed the lid of his lighter a final time, and gazed firmly down at the window again. “And we need this one on our side.”
JJ was silent for a long while, “Fine, I’ll get Alistair to call you tomorrow, you guys can discuss it then,” he said, sighing often.
“My actions will remain constant.”
“Yeah, I know. Bye Riley.”
“Bye,” JJ hung up, and Riley snapped the somewhat old phone closed. For another moment, he watched the window, hopeful that his presence wouldn’t be needed after all. But, quietly, he walked around the hood of the car, opened the door, and drove the rest of the way into town.
I mean, he did have school in the morning
