Spirits and Sorrows

Hannah gaped at Peter, trying to process what he was saying.

He started to rush toward the door. “C’mon! We have to go to the woods now -”

“Wait!” She grabbed his arm and jerked him to a stop.

“Wait for what?” he snapped and yanked his arm away. “We need to go now! Laura said things have gotten worse and we can’t waste any time! We -”

“Peter!” she shouted and he finally paused. “Please, just stop for a moment and let me process. You’re throwing too much at me at once.”

He paused and took a deep breath, brushing his shaggy red hair out of his face. “Okay, I’m sorry.”

She sat down on the bed and patted the spot next to her. “Tell me what happened.”

He sat down next to her. “Laura and I dreamscaped again. She told me everything had gotten worse since we left. Kane has taken over and Laura and Ruben have started a rebellion and they’re barely surviving.”

Hannah processed what he was saying. She was shocked that Peter and Laura had dreamscaped again.

In the Eternal World, even with its outlandish magical standards,

dreamscaping was an anomaly that many people didn’t understand because it happened so rarely that researchers never had the chance to properly study it.

Dreamscaping was when two people could visit and communicate with each other in their dreams. No one could explain why or how they happened. All that was known about it was it occurred between two people who cared about each other though how it occurred was never explained. In all the cases that were reported, dreamscaping only happened once in a person’s life but this happened to Peter and Laura twice.

She had learned this when she briefly went to Raven City University. She hadn’t been there long but she remembered her lessons and found the dreamscaping lesson to be the most interesting and intriguing out of them all.

The fact that this happened twice stunned her, as well as the fact that a hint of jealousy struck her. She didn’t know why she felt like this. Peter had told her that he’d had a crush on Laura when he first met her though it was brief and she was with Ruben. They were best friends, of course, and they cared about each other. She told herself she had no reason to be jealous and now was not the time to be thinking about this with the task at hand.

She forced those thoughts out of her mind and tuned back into what he was saying.

“We have to go back now and save them, Hannah. It’s gotten worse and something might happen to them.”

“I don’t know if we should go back,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. Heather’s words were ringing in her ears and she needed to have this conversation with him.

His eyes widened with disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Peter, if things have gotten worse since we left, then it’d be a suicide mission. We could get killed if we went back and it’s been four years. We haven’t been able to get a portal open and at this point we more than likely never will. Instead of chasing after something that might never happen we need to try to build a life for ourselves here and look toward the future.”

He surged to his feet, his face flushed with anger. “Are you effing serious right now?! Where the hell is this coming from? You swore you’d help me get back and you said we were in this together. You’re the one who brought me here to begin with. You owe it to me to help me get back.”

The words felt like a blow to her heart and she winced. She lowered her eyes, trying not to let tears form in her eyes. “I thought we were past that.”

“We are. I just - Hannah, you know I have to go back and help save my world.”

She looked up at him and fixed him with a sharp glare. “How will you do that? You’re only one man.”

“The rebellion will fight with me.”

“What if they die before you get there? They could die too! You said it yourself that they’re not making that much of an effort against him. And what about us?”

“Us?”

“Yes. I’ve been helping you get back but we’ve never talked about if I’m coming with you. I don’t know if I can go back with you or not. What if we never see each other again?”

He stared at her, completely emotionless, for what felt like an eternity. The blank expression in his eyes terrified her and what he said next nearly destroyed her.

“That’s a risk I’m going to have to take.”

The words were a slap to the face and she couldn’t stop the tears from forming in her eyes. Her voice came out barely louder than a whisper, “You’re choosing the Eternal World over me?”

“Yes.”

That simple word changed everything. She knew then and there that she had lost him forever and that nothing could change that. She knew where she stood.

They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity before he walked out of the room followed by the sound of the front door slamming shut.

She collapsed into tears, once again finding herself all alone.