Getting Home

Part Twenty-Three

I saw it.

My Civic.

The car sat alone on a patch of the empty and flat green-satin landscape—it was so striking to see, such a crazy juxtaposition that it intensified that feeling of...

Not being myself.

I felt a sudden faint breeze lightly dancing across the skin of my arms.

As I watched, a wave smoothly poured out through the low emerald grass plains, rippling and ringing throughout the field like a pebble dropped into a still pond, the ground itself seeming to flow and move as one giant organism, all coming together in a hypnotizing, leisurely tide that swirled around the Honda Civic's tires.

Then everything became still again.

"Not good," Henry said.

"Henry, this isn't real, right?" I said, suddenly grabbing his arms and turning him to me. "I died, right, and this is like... heaven, or something, right? Or I'm dreaming—I have to be dreaming. Tell me this is just a dream, Henry." My voice was pleading. "Please."

"It's real, Ava," he said calmly, holding my arms lightly in return. "As real as your home is. I know how hard it is to believe, and believe me—obviously I know exactly how you feel right now. But it's real, Ava. I do have my own question though..."

His hands lightly shook as he held mine tightly.

"Are you real?"

My jaw dropped.

"Henry," I whispered. "You—you can... you can talk."

His eyes suddenly widened in surprise, and I noticed that his eyes had changed back to what before I had only seen in flashes:

Silver.

That thin rim of silver that slowly rotated around his pupils like before, moving at a lulling, mesmerizing pace as I watched.

So relaxing and calming... just to gaze at...

And beautiful.

Oh my freaking god, Ava—are we really going to do this right now?

Henry slowly raised his hand to delicately touch his throat, his beautiful eyes still wide in shock.

"I—I never..." He touched his perfect lips, seeming to marvel in wonder at them as they opened and closed underneath his fingertips.

"I'm sorry. I've just..." His voice was low and amazed. "I've never spoken before."

It was like my brain had fractured again, how striking it was to me to hear him speak so fluently, so easily. Every word flowed effortlessly from his tongue, each one as sure and smooth as the next.

Compared to how he had been, anyways.

He suddenly squeezed my hands.

"Ava, pleas,." he said suddenly, his face worry-stricken. "Just tell me you're real. Please be real."

"I'm real, Henry," I said, trying to get my thoughts together. Think. "As real as any of this, I guess—but what happened? The last thing I remember was running through the garage at the police station."

Henry nodded. "That's the last thing I remember too. Maybe we..."

He trailed off, his eyes drifting to my arms, his voice turning to shock.

"Ava... your skin..."

God, please, slow down, I need a freaking break.

I didn't see it at first—I had to really squint... but it was there, alright.

My arms were covered in tiny, miniscule glass flakes.

I mean really covered—as in every-square-inch covered. Thousands of little, tiny invisible specks that gave off a very dull glint from whatever sun lit this world. It was most noticeble when I moved my arms. It was almost impossible to see, but...

They were there.

No matter what part of my arm I scrutinized, I found those gray, glittery specks.

What the hell?

It wasn't only on my exposed skin, either—I could see it on my shoulder underneath the torn sleeve of my Rory's First Kiss T-shirt. I pulled up the front of it, looking down at my stomach.

Glass.

"How?" I said, thunderstruck. "How in the hell can there possibly be—"

Then I remembered the windows from the office I had been held at in the police station. The ones that had exploded.

When I was with Sean.

But all that glass missed me—and even if it didn't, how could it get UNDER my clothes? That's not possible.

The glass from those windows had somehow all missed me, and gone into Sean's—

Oh my God! Sean!

I felt my blood run cold—I'd always heard that term in like movies, but for the first time I really understood what it meant... sudden terror. Sean had been in the station, too. Hopefully he had gotten out? Maybe only the part of the building we were in collapsed? The garage?

Hopefully?

Then I thought of that dark, terrifying blob.

Of what Henry called the "dark entity."

What if Sean got caught? Caught... caught and absorbed into that—

"Henry," I said, my voice suddenly terrified and my eyes going back to him. "The police station, Sean, that thing you called a dark entity—I need to—"

Henry had frozen like a statue.

He was completely still and focused, looking past me and paying no attention to anything I was saying. I turned quickly to follow his gaze—

There was a figure standing next to the Civic.