Death Call

twenty-four | our family's legacy

Luke's memories were still jumping around like crazy, the sounds of reality blurred and muffled into something that was akin to listening to noises through glass. He could hear the pitches of voices, an odd vowel here and there. But never a word. And certainly not a comprehensible sentence. A sea of green was holding him under, tauntingly bringing him up to the surface for a few moments to gasp for air before dragging him straight back under again. His lungs were burning with the need for oxygen, for some kind of release from this endless torture. He was in a prison of his own making, everything he had ever said or done rolling around and around in his head like some sort of scratched record, warped in some places where the music occasionally changed pitch.

If he focused hard enough, he could feel blood trickling out of his mouth.

Another wave sucked him under, its salty spray stinging his eyes and poisoning his mouth until his throat began to burn from the constant attack. He fought and clamoured to stay up towards the surface, but there was nothing to hold onto except the volumes of water that slipped right through his fingers as if it weighed nothing at all. As if it had no power or strength. Which was an incredibly deceptive notion, because that same element was sucking Luke down right into its gaping jaws, its captive struggling and resisting all the way because he knew. He knew what memories he was about to relive. And they were too bittersweet to be enjoyable.

It was seven years ago; he had been fourteen at the time, entering his first year at The Royal Academy of Arts. It had been a brilliant year for both him and everyone he knew. He was studying music, one of the things he loved most in the world, and he had Bronwyn, who had somehow managed to convince him to take art. She had remained to grow in kindness and beauty every day, teaching and helping Liam through his visions all the while. She had shown him how it was best to never keep what he saw inside but to let it out, if not through words then through art, music, or even sport if it helped to let out the bottled up energy.

Luke had been best friends with Bronwyn for a long time now, four years to be exact. They were practically inseparable. And he wouldn't have it any other way. He remembered the time when he had found her crying because of her mother's cruel words, pressuring her to prepare to join The Counsel of Elders. She had been distraught, weeping over how her parents seemed determined to take her life away before it had even begun. It had broken his heart to see her like that, and he couldn't bear the thought of her leaving him to join some dumb government of dictators. 

So he had taken her away from the school building to his favourite place in the whole wide world. It was situated in a secluded part of the school gardens, one where hardly anyone went because it was too far into the forest to find. It was a beautiful place, really, especially in the autumn when the overhanging ceiling of trees was painted in the glowing colours of fiery orange and gold, leaves of scarlet dancing to the ground all around them as he attempted to cheer her up, playing a cheesy song on his phone and placing it on a small rock, teaching her to waltz as he had learnt from his mother whenever he was feeling down. "Dancing can make anyone happy." He had echoed his mother's words, and gotten so lost in her eyes that he fell into the small stream cutting through the clearing. They had fallen together. Laughed together. Gotten completely soaked to the skin. But they had also shared their first kiss. And it was everything he had imagined it would be. Short and sweet but still leaving them both blushing as red as the leaves falling to the ground around them.