Blood of Eden
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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"Aaahhh!" I scream, bolting upright in bed. Instantly I see my pictures scattered about the room. There are dried tears on my face. I realize i'd had a nightmare. I'd cried myself to sleep and dreamed a very real dream, something that seemed so real but wasn't.
I am hyperventilating, trying to catch my breath. The dream, so...I don't even want to remember it. It was terrifying--petrifying.
Moments after my outburst, the door opens quickly and Mom peeks her head through. Seeing me, she goes ahead and opens the door the rest of the way, ignoring the mess, and steps into my room. "Where the hell did you go last night?"
Woah! Hey--What? I stare at her blankly, blank and bewildered by her outburst.
"We were up all night calling people and--and even the cops! Damn it, Marian, why the hell--? Where'd you go?" She's extremely angry. Her face is even red.
"What? I didn't--I was asleep!" I say. "If I'd gone anywhere I'd have had to been sleep-walking!" I know the dream wasn't real. Dream are never real in that sense. Besides, living shadows? Give me a break! So not real...Arcway? Whatever. Definitely not real. And shapefhifter...Stupid.
I've never seen Jeana angry in my life. She even swore! That's one thing you never hear from her. A swear-word. She'd have to be angry enough to blow up the moon and shove its blasted contents down your throat, ram a boat up your ass, (excuse me), and tie you to an anchor and drop you in the middle of deep, shark-infested water, to ever swear. State the obvious? Scared to death that I'd run away again, that what happened to me and lasted nine months, could happen again...or worse--me ending up dead, which, as a reminder, almost happened to me last time.
She stares incredulously at me and then shakes her head angrily, "Then obviously you sleep-walked your ass out of this house and away from this premisis!"
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Oooh. Yep. She's REALLY ticked.
"You're grounded to your room. If I have to, I'll put a padlock on the outside of your door."
"Which side? My side or your side?" I grin, not being able to help myself. "There's more than one outside--"
"Don't freaking sass me, damn it!"
I shrug. "Well, I mean, think about it. Inside hte door you can't see, outside is--"
"I ought to beath yor legs out form under you," she hisses, turning and slamming the door behind her as she stomps out of my room and down the hall.
Moments later, I've picked up all the pictures and dropped them on my desk, and I've gotten my recorder out to say a few more things to try to get up-to-date. just when I begin, Dad opens the door, quietly knocking and waiting for my permission to neter first. he seems sad, even tired, and he doesn't open the door all the way.
"What's wrong?" I ask him, hitting the stop button.
"You used to sleepwalk when you were little, you know, but whatever your excuse was, next time could you at least leave a note or something? You had your mother and I worried sick."
Whoa. Dad being nice...and yet he looks so sad, which I feel from him and see upon his face.
So I tell him honestly, almost brought to tears, "Dad, I--I had another dream...These dreams and visions are all starting to make sense to me now--Last night it--Michael is not an innocent. His real name is Leviath. Everything was lies because he just wanted to play with my mind...Dad, he scares me..." I suddenly begin to cry without ever having intended to in the first place. I try to stop it, but I can't stop sobbing.
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Dad crosses the room, hurt because i'm so distressed. he sits by me on the bed and I lean onhis shoulder as he puts his arm around me and rests his chin on my head. "you mom didn't mean to yell at you like that."
"I know," I manage to say, my crying calming down. I continue, "He's searching for someone so he can open some stupid arc way-whatever to some other world. It's dumb. But I'm one of the ones he thought might be it...that's why he didn't leave me alone, that, and he likes torturing me because...it amuses him...." My voice trails off. Why would he want to hear this?
"Go on," Dad says. "For once I'm just listening. I'm not jumping to any conclusions about anything. Just tell me and I'll listen. After all, I'm your dad, not your real dad, I guess, but I'm still your dad. I should've listened a long time ago. Maybe it would've kept what happened from happening to you. I don't exactly find it in my best interest to lose a daughter because I couldn't listen to what she said. I already almost lost you once because of it, Marie."
"That's certainly new," I try to laugh falsely, wiping my tears. He also laughs the fake, weak laugh. "It's actually kind of scary."
"I'm listening. What of this bad guy?"
I hesitate and then speak. "When I was at the hospital I had a lot of weird visions...Most of them were related to some twisted war scene I saw way before anything bad really happened."
"War scene? What kind--you mean like a future war, or--"
"No. Weird...Twisted. A lot of cold and a lot of fire...What I saw and what happened to me at the Kilbournes' before I ran away was related to it. I keep seeing from some woman's view. I think her name is Aidenn. She got taken by the enemy, escaped, and was tortured by her own people as punishment for her just because they hate her so much. They just weren't allowed to kill her...I don't know. Well...in the visions, I was her."
"What else?" he says after a moment of silence.
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"That's the world he wants to reach...i don't know why, but I think to kill someone, or certain people. He calls the person that's supposed to be able to take him there 'The Blood of Eden.' But he says he just wants to take her power and kill her, and then...and then take me."
"Why take you?"
I feel the honesty in his question, but I still get angry, knowing he believes absolutely nothing about any of this despite his attempts to appear to be accepting. "Why do you think? He wants to make me his wife and like he said, 'hopefully the mother of his children!' I don't want any freaking part of this!" I yell, clenching my fists in hopeless, defeated anger as I begin to cry again. I feel John's surprise, his utter shock and disgust, his dismay at what I've said about Leviath's intentionss, ane yet I know he will never believe...Then again, these were only dreams, so why should I act like it's real and treat it like truth?
"Marie, it's alright, ok? It's like you said, it's just dreams, nothing else."
I again stop crying, slowly calming myself to be able to speak. "I know," I reply. "I know, but I can't help it. I hate him. I don't want to know what he puts in my head or what he doesn't. He came last night, too, in a dream. He took me to see his home, but the shadows...I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep again, or even turn the light out again in my life, not after seeing that. I din't see his home because I kept passing out because of the fear. I stayed unconscious and just barely woke and fell back again...I think I sleep-walked out of the house, and I guess, back in. In my dream he just took me through the wall." I motion to the wall with my hand.
He starts laughing and then I do, too. He stands, patting me on the back, “If there’s more, tell me later…I think I need to check on your mom again. She was bawling her eyes out a minute ago after she left your room. I’ll listen to whatever you’ve got to say…Don’t exactly see how it makes sense to you, but if it does, I guess that’s fine.”
“Nah, nothing else that I know of,” I reply. “That’s all I know so far…and a thing or two I’ve either already told you or don’t want to tell anyone.”
“Alright.” He leaves.
Once he shuts the door, I begin talking to the tape recorder. Diane will never makes sense of all this, but hey, it was her idea and she’s just trying to help, right?
