Reunion

            “What are you doing here?” Chackney asked the seemingly empty room. She didn’t need to see him. She could smell him. That mixture of salt-water and peppermint was unmistakable. She turned around to face the tall, menacingly attractive man that had found his way back in front of her.

            “Hello there, my dear,” he said in that clear, smooth voice of his. He smiled wickedly, “it’s been a while hasn’t it?”

            “Not long enough,” she replied shortly. “How did you find me?”

            “It wasn’t easy,” he said, taking a step closer, “I’m just that good.” His grin widened.

            “Don’t play games,” she spat, “You have way too much of an ego to spend all of this time hunting for me. You just happened across me didn’t you? You’ve always been unnaturally lucky.”

            He took another step. “It fits doesn’t it?” After all, neither one of us is what a mortal would call ‘natural’ are we Reginleif?” he was toe to toe with her now, looking down at her from his near-foot-high advantage.

            She didn’t budge. “Don’t call me that,” she growled between her teeth.

            “Oh yea,” he snickered, “What is it they call you here? Shelly?”

            “Not even close. Now leave.” She said firmly.

            “But I won,” he argued, “I found you.” He reached up to touch her face.

            She jerked away and yelled, “It was never a contest! I didn’t want you to find me. I didn’t want anyone to find me!”

            He reached out to her and firmly, but gently pulled her to him in a hug, her face buried in his chest. “You should stop yelling,” he said, “You’ll make yourself upset.”

            “You make me upset,” she said, her voice muffled by his shirt. “Why did you come here?”

            “If I tell you, do I get to call you Chackney?”

            She looked up at him, “Why would you want to call me that?” she asked.

            “Because it’s the name that you adopted when you became human. That’s the life that you live now and as much as I disagree with your secision, I want to be in your life again. Everyone in your life calls you Chackney.”

            She could believe it. She stood there in the circle of his arms staring up at him and absorbing what he was saying to her. Before she knew it, he had leaned down over her so that they were almost nose to nose. “Can I?” he whispered. She could smell his sweet breath on her face as he spoke.

            Since when do you need permission?” she asked and their lips met gently for the first time in fifteen hundred years.

For Serious?

What happens next? How can they possibly stop there? Cameron urgently flipped through the remaining pages of the book, those useless, terrible, uninteresting and unrelated pages. There was nothing else… Nothing!! He had to know what happened. Why the hell would this author torture him this way? How could she just leave it at that? He felt his blood pressure rise. He heard his blood pumping in his ears and the anxiety take hold. He couldn’t explode though. He was in the library, surrounded by hard-at-work students. He was the one who had decided to forego his studies in favor of some light reading. That had turned out horribly! He wanted to destroy something and suddenly couldn’t hold it in any longer. He stood up, chucking the book across the room before storming out of the library.

Resurrection

Is this resurrection?

            The question came to Aryne’s mind as soon as she opened her eyes. She was blinded immediately by a severe and harsh white light. Surely if she had gone to the next life, the light would be warm and calming right? Isn’t that how it worked? Was she supposed to still feel pain all over? She could feel her heart still pounding against her chest, so fast that it felt like it might burst out of her body. The light was too hard. She had to close her eyes again but then she saw spots on the back of her lids. She couldn’t feel anything except pain. It was in her arms, her legs, her head, her eyes, her chest. God her chest was excruciating. What had happened?

            She tried to remember… It was night wasn’t it? Where was that harsh light coming from? She remembered crying. Crying a lot. She remembered taking a walk to try to calm herself. Walking where? In the woods? Down the street? Around town? No it was definitely the woods, along a trail she had walked since she was a child. She didn’t want anyone to see her crying so she went by herself. When she reached the hill looking over the road and the stream that ran next to it, she had stopped. She decided to run down the hill and jump the stream like her father had taught her to do. She had checked the road hadn’t she? She did make sure no cars were coming. She knew she would end up hitting the road running. Why, then, had she been staring into a pair of blinding headlights when she finally stopped herself?

            There was no way that she had survived being hit. The car was going way to fast. And if she wasn’t in heaven, or at least just outside of it, what was this damned light?

            Then she felt something strange. It wasn’t painful, it wasn’t anything really. She felt something soft against her mouth. It wasn’t a kiss she knew, but it was just as urgent. Whoever this was was blowing air into her body instead of taking it. It came in cycles. She felt the air flow into her body, then a fierce repetitive pressure on her chest, her chest that already wanted to fall apart. Finally, she took in a breath. She hadn’t even realized that she hadn’t been able to. When she did, her chest felt like it was going to explode. She sat up suddenly, coughing and hacking, still trying to take in too much oxygen. She had been resurrected. She was sure that’s what it must seem like. Before she finished her coughing fit, she felt herself engulfed into a pair of strong arms. She didn’t even look up to see who it was, she could tell by the button up plaid shirt and the smell of wild honey suckle that it was Nathan. She leaned against him exhausted and still painful. Her chest still ached with every breath she took but it wasn’t about to explode anymore. He was still holding on to her as though she might slip away somehow and he was going to do everything he could to make sure that didn’t happen. She let her head rest against his chest and they sat in the grass just off of the road in the light given by the headlights of his car.