Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
Joaquin and I crawled into the bed without even undressing first. We were so exhausted that it was a miracle that we made it to the bed before we collapsed. This was going to be a long day for us, but at least a little bit of sleep was better than nothing.
And I will admit, falling asleep next to Joaquin, with his arm wrapped protectively around me, was an amazing feeling. I loved every second of it. Still, I didn’t miss the irony of the moment and the conversation that we had all just had recently. We were talking about how lovey dovey and sweet that Joaquin was with me and here he is holding me in his sleep like I was his living stuffed animal, quite literally his Little Bunny.
I drifted off to sleep with a slight chuckle. I was able to find the humor in this, and I knew that he would as well.
****
Talia
****
The other day, I told my parents about the nightmare that I had. That nightmare was another vision, and this time I wasn’t going to let my friends get hurt. I couldn’t bear the knowledge of me being the reason that Ada, Leslie, Senna, Melissa and Jackie died. I needed to save them, even if the only thing that I could do about it was to tell someone what it was that I had seen. I needed them to know that I was trying my best to help them. That I was going to be able to stop this horrifically horrifying event from happening.
I didn’t feel like I had been doing much about it though. I was basically just waiting around to see if they were safe. And I wouldn’t know about that until the morning. I wouldn’t find out from my parents, Lex, Rudy, or anyone until I had slept and woke up in the morning. The only problem is I wasn’t able to sleep.
It usually took me a long time to fall asleep. I hadn’t sought help for it, not that I had I been officially diagnosed, but I was sure that I had a form of insomnia. The only problem is, mine wasn’t something that I could take medicine for.
In my case, I was usually plagued by the world. That was the only kind way for me to put it. I was usually up late into the night as I pushed away all the unwanted visitors that came to see me. And it’s not like they actually came to see me, more like they sensed that someone was near that could see and understand them.
…..
There were a few things about the dead that I knew for certain. They were usually distraught. And they were usually lonely. No one liked to feel unseen and unheard, not when they were alive or dead.
However, even though I had this problem I was used to it by now, so I knew that this wasn’t the reason that I was having such a hard time sleeping. I was usually able to get to sleep between one and two in the morning. Three at the latest when I am dealing with a particularly stubborn soul or something like that. Tonight though, that wasn’t the issue. And that was why it was about four in the morning and I was still pacing the room like I was wired with caffeine or something.
I just couldn’t calm down right now. And that was because I needed to know what happened. And that just led me back to the beginning. I knew that no one was going to tell me what had happened until it was the morning. Well, the morning wasn’t getting here fast enough.
I had already resigned myself to not sleeping at all. I knew that the likelihood of me dozing off was about one millionth of a percent. And I couldn’t sit still long enough to do anything. I couldn’t draw, play music, do my homework, read a book, nothing at all. I was way too antsy about it all.
“UUUGGGHHH!” I screamed in frustration as I threw myself on top of my bed for a moment. I was taking a break and hoping that I would fall asleep. I wasn’t hopeful though. “If I sleep then time will feel like it just went by in a flash. Come on! I need to sleep! Sleep! SLEEP!”
I was pressing my hands to my eyes at the moment. Forcing out all the light that was streaming in through the window. It was closed, of course, but the curtains weren’t, and that meant that I could see the mountains and the sky in the distance. It was a lovely view that I had burned permanently into my mind. I would always remember this view, and that was why I was able to see it perfectly, even with my eyes shut and my hands pressing against my eyelids.
“SLEEP!” I growled the word at myself again and surprisingly, I started to feel tired. Very tired.
This wasn’t right. I was instantly so tired that I was unable to open my eyes. It was like something was pulling me into sleep with brute force. And even though I was wanting to sleep, I was scared of what was happening to me. This was not normal. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to have this happen to me. I know that I asked for sleep, I begged for it really, but I didn’t want this kind of sleep.
“Th..this feels like..” I was unable to finish my sentence before the dream took me. I was going to say that it felt like a vision. Something that was powerful and frightening. I didn’t want to have a vision right now. I didn’t want to be stuck in a dream that was likely going to show me more people that I loved getting hurt.
My last conscious thought before the dream, or vision, started, does that mean my parents must have failed? If there was another vision, then that must mean that my parents hadn’t stopped the girls from being killed. I shed a tear as I fell asleep. The tear was for my lost friends and classmates. They didn’t deserve to die like that.
Well, I was right. This was going to be another vision. It had the same feel to it. I was just suddenly standing somewhere as I tried to find out what was going on. This place was familiar though. I knew where I was. I was at home. Well, not home home, but close to it.
I wasn’t in the royal tower, nor was I in the castle. But I was on the grounds. I was just in the back part of the property that went on for so long until you got to the outskirts of Riviana Falls. This was all part of the land that I grew up with. I would run in this area when I was little. I would run around and train in different things. I remember hiding from Lex when I was seven and making him find me. He knew where I was every single time, but he would pretend that he was having trouble locating me. That was nice of him and all, but I told him that I would never learn if he coddled me like that and I wanted him to accurately find me and give me the chance to improve my skills and not my self-esteem. He had agreed with me that he was pretending and agreed that he would never do that for me again. And he hasn’t.
“HELLO!” I called out in the vision. I knew that no one was able to hear me in them. They never have before anyway. Still, I called out to them just to be on the safe side. You never know when one of the visions was going to be different than the one before it. I mean, I have only had two visions before this one and they were both so profoundly different. Like how that man had managed to grab me in the second one. He said that he had known that I had been there the first time too, and that was news to me. I didn’t want that to happen to me again. The bruise was gone of course, but I didn’t like the fact that he had been able to hurt me.
“HELLO!?” I called out to the woods again. Yes, I know, it was useless and all that, but I didn’t care.
When I didn’t get a response this time, I started to look through the area. The visions never took me far from where I needed to go. So, I knew that whatever was going to happen in this vision, it was going to happen near this spot.
I started to look around in the forest around me. I was looking for people, animals, items, anything that I knew was not supposed to be there. Or even if the thing was supposed to be there, but was still out of the ordinary. For example, I could see my parents. They were allowed to be out here. There would be nothing wrong with them being out here. However, it wouldn’t be something that is normal, and therefore it would be out of the ordinary. And that would also mean that it was what I was looking for.
I didn’t see my parents nearby though. Nor did I see anyone else. I didn’t see anything at all, except for the forest that was darkened by the early night. If I had to guess what time it was, I would say that it was just around seven in the evening. It was just a few moments before full sundown, but there was just enough of that in between light left that I was able to see everything clearly.
I started to head back toward the castle. I figured if I was having a vision that had to do with my home, then heading there would be the better option. If something was happening right now, then someone over there would know what it was.
I was running as hard and as fast as I could. I needed to see what was happening. I needed to see what it was that this vision was showing me. I needed to see it and then just get the hell out of here. Get the information, go back to reality, and then tell everyone what I saw. That was my plan.
****
Talia
****
I found it a little funny. I mean, I was running in a vision, not in real life, and yet I could feel myself getting physically exhausted from it. And that was strange. I wasn’t the type of person that got tired just from running through the woods. I was decently athletic when I was out and about, not to mention that I was a damned werewolf that was able to outpace a human in no time at all.
This felt different though. And I guess that it was. Especially when you consider that I was only here in a spiritual sense as opposed to a corporeal form. It was my soul that was here. As we had learned recently, I was projecting my soul when I went to these visions. I was seeing parts of the future by literally sending myself into the future to see it.
That made even less sense to me then. If I was getting winded and tired, did that mean that my soul was tired? What happened when your soul was tired? What would happen to me if my soul couldn’t catch its breath? There was just so much for me to try and figure out.
Moving past that though, I was getting closer and closer to the castle. I could see the towers and large windows that were shining in the distance.
…..