All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 15: Fastest Shooter (Part 2)

I continued pacing in my little circle for many more minutes after that. And then I must have somehow wandered off track, because I felt this slight twitch along my cheek as if I had brushed up against fabric. I felt the smack of cold air hit my face and I opened my eyes to locate where I had wondered off to. I caught my breath in my throat and gasped at what I both saw and felt.

I was standing in the middle of a dark street with wet cobblestones under my feet and a lamppost off in the distance. I could barely make out the colour of my hot pink porno heels. Hadn't I taken off my shoes? And hadn't they been a dark velvety blue to match my dress?

Wait! There was no way I managed to actually wonder off and find myself outside! I must have fallen asleep. Had I slept-walked here? Or was I still dreaming?

The cold air burned my throat and I felt gentle rain fall on my shoulders and cheek, but when I went to brush my face dry, I realized my hand was entwined in another's.

"Why are we stopping, Emma," said the soft-spoken masculine voice attached to the hand. My eyes tiptoed from the man's hand to the face that it belonged to:

The hipster. From the market.

No. Not him. The same face, and voice and everything, but this man was... confident in himself. Self-assured. And dressed in a lean, dark, black, swank suit that seemed both vintage and new and snapped up his spine at atten-hut. He looked stronger, healthier, with meat on his bones. He was debonair almost, handsome even.

Now I knew I was dreaming.

I must have been gaping because he suddenly looked at me with grave concern. "Are you scared?" he asked. "It's normal. This is your first time." Even his voice had a different... timber to it. Like before he had been an over grown boy, but now he was a fully grown man.

He patted my hand soothingly, and whispered, "We just need to keep the pretense up to the post, and then we can both go our own separate ways. You're doing fine. People will not forget what you did here tonight."

He smiled softly at me, and his warm brown toast eyes crinkled at the edges. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and gently pressed me forward. "It would help if you sang. Let's sing," he said and with that he pressed his weight onto me as if he was suddenly heavy with drink. With his arm slung round my shoulders now, I could breathe in his heady scent, and it made my head swim. He smelt of cedar and cinnamon and rich earth and a long, hard day's work.

Since this was obviously a dream, I decided to go along with it. What choice did I have? The hipster... well, I could hardly call him that now, could I? It barely fit the person whose hot breath was caressing my neck. The man with the soft brown eyes started to sing a song of lyrics I had never heard before, but he pinched my shoulder to encourage me to sing, so I tried my best to follow along with him a beat or two behind. "There is a tavern in the town... and there my true love sits him down... and drinks her wine as merry as can be... and never, never thinks of me," he sang, and I followed.

As we weaved our way slowly along the street, I could see we were getting closer and closer to a gated post at the end of the road, with guards dressed in strange grey uniforms inside. Such a strange uniform for campus parking lot security – really going for the militia look here, I guess. The closer we got to the post, the louder and more belligerent the man with the soft brown eyes sang, "He left me for a damsel dark... each Friday night they used to spark... and now my love who once was true to me... takes this dark damsel on his knee."

He was becoming so heavy in my arms that even I began to think he was indeed drunk. I saw movement inside the post and a guard looked up at us with a grave stare. My stomach tightened and then I realized it was because he had a rifle slung round his shoulder. That's intense, I thought. And then I reminded myself: this was only a dream.