Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 37

---------Betty-----------

I’m in the dream again.

The sky is a bruised shade of lavender, thick with clouds that don’t move, like the air itself is holding its breath. The light is strange here, dim, but sharp at the edges, like a memory decaying in real time. The field stretches far beyond what my eyes can hold. Wildflowers, lavender, crimson, bone-white, sway without wind. They hum. Not audibly, not really, but in a way I feel in my chest, as if my ribs are vibrating to their silent hymn.

He is beside me again. That boy.
I still never quite clearly see his picture.
His hand is in mine, warm, familiar, too familiar. I don’t know his face, but I know the weight of his palm, the way his thumb brushes against mine. I know him like a ghost I’ve loved in every life. We never speak. In this world, words are unnecessary, almost offensive. There’s just the two of us, standing in an ocean of flowers that never ends.

Then, the shift.

It happens the way dusk turns to night, not suddenly, but completely. The petals twitch. The sky deepens. The hum of the flowers stops. All at once, silence. The kind that presses against your eardrums like you’ve slipped underwater.

I turn to look at him. But his hand is changing. The skin softens. His fingers narrow, taper into something lighter. Feathers? No… fur. Pale, white, silken fur. His arm splits at the shoulder. Wings begin to unfurl.

The moth. He’s becoming a moth. Towering, powerful. His wings stretch wider than the tree line, marked with eyes that stare too deeply, too knowingly. They aren't just patterns. They're watching me. Judging me. Mourning me. I want to reach for him, to pull him back into the shape I knew, but my hand passes through smoke. He’s not solid anymore.

Then the fire.

A great, gnarled tree near the horizon splits open with a deafening crack. Flames explode from its hollow center, golden and furious. The bark burns like paper. The sky turns the color of rust. Heat scorches my skin, even from this distance. I step back, afraid, but he steps forward. Or.... flies.

I scream.

“Don’t go..... don’t.... please.... ”

But he doesn't even hesitate.

The moth lifts from the ground with impossible grace, his wings casting shadows across the trembling flowers. He moves toward the blaze like it's his destiny, like it’s calling him home. I watch as the flame wraps around his body, hungry and merciless. For a second, his wings glow with firelight.... then they wither.

He doesn’t scream. He just disappears into it.

And I am left alone.
In the silence.
In the field.
With ashes falling like snow.

I jolt awake, gasping.

My skin is cold with sweat. The room is dark, lit only by the red blinking light of my charger. My throat feels dry, scraped raw by words I didn’t get to say. I grab my phone. 3:12 AM.

The dream is fading already, but the feeling stays.
The loss. The inevitability of it.
The helplessness of watching something you love fly into a fire and knowing you can't follow.

I couldn’t sleep again after that dream....  the fire still burned in my mind like an ember I couldn’t smother. So I slipped quietly out of bed and made my way down to the kitchen, the cool tiles chilling my bare feet with every step. The silence of the house wrapped around me, thick and heavy like a sigh.

I started the coffee machine, the rich, bitter scent soon filling the air, grounding me. I took two slices of bread, the soft texture warm in my hands, and spread mango jam over each.... sweet, sticky, a small rebellion against the bitterness of early mornings.