To describe the stag standing before him would be... difficult. Ephemeral in appearance, would be the simplest way of saying it.
Its coat was like a faintly lucent cloud, colored by latent rain, its eyes somehow bright white and a dark black at the same time. The horns on its head were elegantly shaped and not large, unlike its similarly elegant tail, which reached almost to the ground.
Whenever Cyrus fixed his gaze directly upon it, it caused the apparition to fade, nearly to the point of disappearing. If he glanced away, the apparition became clearer again, making it difficult to trust his eyes that it was real. Yet, there it stood before him, looking back at him, its intelligent eyes making contact with his own. They, from what little Cyrus could see of them, gave a melancholy expression to its otherwise stoic face.
Somehow, the obvious "What are you...?" didn't seem appropriate. Not knowing what else he could say and fearing that he was already dead, Cyrus simply said aloud to the creature, "Hello."
The stag blinked once and was silent. Or at least, it seemed to be silent. Cyrus thought at once that he could hear something, the beginnings of words, but he couldn't make out anything from them.
The stag blinked again, Cyrus blinked back.
Finally, Cyrus heard a wavering "Hello," in return, seemingly coming from in front of him, inside him, and from nowhere, all at once.
The being made no other movements. It seemed as cautious and fearful of him as he felt of it. That notion was reassuring, somehow.
Cyrus then began to take notice of his surroundings. He was sitting on a stump, surrounded by dark trees. The forest he sat in rested atop a small hill, from which he could see the thousands of lights from the nearby city. They glowed like normal, which bothered him.
It was still nighttime, or perhaps early morning, by the looks of it. The sky was blanketed as far as the eye could see by a canvas of clouds except for directly above where he sat, creating a hole through which the stars were visible, if faintly.
The city below him was filled with light as it always was, setting the night aglow, contrary to what he had witnessed only moments before. Was anything he saw real, he questioned. Was any of this happening?
He stared at the ground, suddenly under the impression that it was spinning, slowly. He was scared, but somehow not terrified. He couldn't be sure of his own mind anymore, but he didn't feel that he was in any immediate danger. Everything that was happening was unbelievable, but when he raised his gaze again to look at the stag, still standing patiently by, quietly, it felt only reasonable that he should trust in his mind. There was no pressing danger or urgency in this encounter, only disbelief and unfamiliarity.
"What happened?..." He asked the white stag, his voice quivering a little as he spoke.
It cocked its head to the side almost imperceptibly before answering, "You don't remember?"
The voice it spoke with was soft, ethereal but human. Cyrus shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the form before him, causing it to fade back into a translucent grey ghost. "Last thing I remember... jumping off my roof..." He mumbled. "with fire everywhere. Everything went dark..." Cyrus tried as hard as he could to recall anything after that point. For some reason, his mind felt foggy, like he was trying to remember a dream that didn't want to be remembered. He pictured himself leaping and landing upon the roof of the other house, trying to bring out the memories of what happened next. All he could remember was darkness and falling, except...
Suddenly, he saw in his mind's eye a white light and recalled the feeling it had given him. His eyes and mind had filled with light, blinding his sight and soon his very thoughts as well. He must have fallen off of the roof, he realized. That could explain everything he saw and was seeing now, but there was more after that, he was sure.
"Wait..." Cyrus said at last, looking back up to the stag. "I saw you."
"I saw you, too." The stag replied, earnestly. Cyrus tried to recall what happened after that, but he couldn't. The memory continued to elude him. "Then what?..." Cyrus asked the stag, at length.
"I asked you to run, because the fire was all around us. You agreed, and we fled here."
Cyrus looked back at the city they had left behind, miles away from them. "All the way here-?" He sputtered, aghast. The stag simply nodded its head. Cyrus couldn't possibly believe that. He had never run so far in his life, and he didn't feel exhausted at all now. Exhaustion could explain why he had blacked out, but it didn't explain why he felt perfectly fine- rested, even. He would have to accept it for now, though. He was clearly here, however he had managed it.
Was the stag a hallucination, then, or...
"Where did you come from?" Cyrus asked it, quietly. It seemed to have no trouble hearing him.
"I'm... not sure, either. Everything's hazy for me, too." It answered, its sad gaze now fixed on the ground. Its voice was soft and had a cadence to it Cyrus had never heard the like of before. As otherworldly as the creature before him appeared, the way it spoke was undeniably human. Cyrus wanted to ask it another question but he hesitated. The thought of it disappearing came to him, then. He imagined his mind clearing and the apparition before him leaving, never to return. Cyrus suddenly found that, more than anything, he didn't want that to happen.
The realization of where he was, what had happened, and what could very well happen again, finally began to hit him. He could feel oncoming panic threatening to clutch his mind and destroy his reason. He didn't know where he was, what was happening, or where to go.
With nowhere else to turn, he looked forward, to the stag. "Wh-what do we do now?" He asked, unable to hide the fear in his voice. The stag looked out toward the city of Chicago before responding in a similar tone, "We can't go back there... I know that much..."
"But the fires, my Aunt- she's still down there," Cyrus said, rising to his feet, "I can't just... The city looks fine now, right?" They both turned and looked out towards the city then.
"I don't see any smoke," The stag intoned. It was right, Cyrus suddenly realized, there wasn't smoke anywhere to be seen coming from the city or its suburbs, which should have been impossible after a fire that big.
Cyrus quickly looked back at the stag, his heart pounding. He had the horrible feeling that he couldn't trust his senses anymore. He was alone in the cold and the dark. There was no one around who could help him. The only thing that he could be even a little sure of was the stag, standing beside him. He looked at it, and it looked back at him. It seemed to understand exactly what Cyrus's thoughts were and what he wanted from his distraught expression alone. The apparition was more solid now than it had been, Cyrus was able to see it more clearly.
He wanted its help, and the stag understood.
It blinked once, then spoke again.
"We'll go back, together."
