The door opened behind me and an older man with merry grey eyes poked his head in. When he saw me, he smiled and held up my bag. Perfect. I waved him in the room and accepted the bag. He nodded and left without a word, but I caught his worried glance at my stomach.
I tipped the bag onto the floor and found my bottle of pills. I still had two sleeping pills mixed in with the other ones I’d tried.
I swallowed them dry and leaned back into the chair.
“That bad?” Luke asked startling me.
“What do you mean?”
“Pain pills?” he asked coming over to take the bottle from me. His shirt showed dark patches from putting it on wet and clung to his skin. His hair was still damp too. He couldn’t have been gone for more than a few minutes.
A frown settled on his face when he studied the prescription label and the unknown name on it. “How many did you take?”
“Relax. It’s just a bottle. I keep other stuff in there. I took two sleeping pills.”
His eyes flicked to my blood-soaked shirt. He squatted down near me, balancing on his heels, and lifted the hem of my shirt. His shocked gaze flew to mine.
“I know. It’ll need stiches. No hospital though, okay?” I grabbed his hand and begged with my eyes until he nodded. “The dreams will knock me out, and the pills will keep me under.” I did a slow blink without trying. Already they called to me.
“Luke,” I whispered. “They’re not done trying. Tell the others to soak the buildings. I’ve died by fire before, and it’s not fun.”
* * * *
I suffered the same dream duality as I had before, but more. My present self, my past self, and the past selves of four of my sisters. The multiple views disoriented me, and I fought to focus on just one.
Heat flickered over my stomach like tiny flames dancing on my skin. I wanted to look down, but my eyes remained focused on the horde before me.
My fingers gently squeezed the hand wrapped within mine before I looked to my sister.
Through her eyes, I looked back at me. Again, my present-self suffered a wave of vertigo. My stomach twisted with pain, but I couldn’t tell from which of us it stemmed.
“All will be well,” I promised my sister.
I pushed away the discomfort and tried to focus. My sister squeezed back as her eyes closed.
“What do you see?” I asked.
Concentrating on my sister, I jumped perspectives.
A swarm of glowing lights filled my mind. Blue-green, blue-grey, yellow-green, and then us. The humans were far from us. We’d agreed to leave them out of our fight. The blue-grey almost outnumbered blue-green.
“They will not win. They do not have Courage. Her spark no longer exists,” I said on a sob. Knowing they would not win did not sooth the loss of our sister.
“Be strong. They may not win the Judgement, but they may win this fight.”
A hand closed over my shoulder and peace flowed through me, taking away fear, hate, worry, even the odd outside feeling of pain in my stomach. I breathed deeply and struggled not to smile. I fought to hold onto my worry.
“Stop, sister. Save yourself for them. We will need you,” I begged.
Changing perspective again, I surged into a mind filled with so much fear, hate, worry, pain, and doubt.
I struggled to breathe. My skin felt too tight as if all the emotion inside of me fought to burst out. Fists clenched, teeth gritted, I growled, “And we need you focused. They will learn to fear me.”
“Sisters, join hands,” another of us spoke drawing our attention.
Turning, we clasped hands. Five of us: Strength, Hope, Prosperity, Wisdom, Peace.
“Courage will always be with us,” Strength spoke with confidence as a surge of power flowed through us.
