Page 38 of Bright Blinding Ruin

The world around me is realistic. I want to believe it, even though I know it’s nothing but a lie. The only thing that sets it apart from the real world is the fact that there are no people. No other students hurrying with heavy bags, going from class to class. No professors walking along with their briefcases or riding their scooters.

God, never thought I’d think this, but I miss college. I miss the classes, the learning, even the papers. Juggling all that with work was hard—hard enough that I was late one too many times to work, hence why I lost my cashier job in the first place—but given what I know now, given what I’ve been through in Laconia, I’d take it all back in a heartbeat. If given the choice, I’d rather be there than here.

“Rey.” A soft, girly voice whispers my name behind me, and the moment I hear it, I tense up. I don’t want to turn around; Iknow exactly who I’ll see. Hint: it’s someone I shouldn’t ever see again.

“Kiddo,” a second voice speaks, this one deeper, and the second the voice hits my ears, I close my eyes. Another familiar voice… another I shouldn’t be hearing.

Both the people behind me are dead. They’re nothing more than illusions Invictis cooked up to distract me. To torment me. I shouldn’t turn around. Doing so will only hurt me more, I know this, and yet turning around is the only thing I can do.

I do it slowly, trying to prepare myself for what I’m about to see. My dad stands a few feet away, and beside him is Prim, whose tawny skin is clean for once. She wears a new dress that actually fits her skinny frame, while her hair is pulled back with the same ribbon that’s now in mine.

My dad is clean-cut, a smile on his lips. His brown hair is combed back, a loose-fitting jacket hanging over his shoulders—his favorite one. He’d only ever put it away once it was seventy degrees outside. He wore that thing everywhere. Even in winter, when he needed to wear something thicker, he’d just pile on more layers underneath it. He looked ridiculous, and that’s what I always told him.

Until I couldn’t tell him that anymore.

“Kiddo,” my dad says again, and his voice is so real it almost brings tears to my eyes. “I think it’s time.” He extends a hand to me, as if wanting me to join him.

Beside him, Prim offers her hand, too, though it’s much smaller than his. “Come with us, Rey. Please.” The way her hazel eyes widen a bit when she says that last word makes my heart break all over again, knowing I wasn’t there with her at the end.

This girl had such faith in me. She believed in me, even when she was the only one, and look at where it got her.

“You’re not real,” I say, the words like razor blades on my tongue. They don’t want to come out, and they cut like a bitch.“Neither of you are real.” Looking between them, being so close to them, logic wants to fly out of the window. I want to believe in them. I want to go with them.

But I can’t.

My dad’s hand falls, while Prim steps forward. She hugs me and then vanishes into thin air. My dad is right behind her, and even though he’s not real, I let myself get hugged by the man one final time. I close my eyes and bury myself in his jacket, inhaling a musky scent that brings back so many memories.

I want to tell him I love him, but he’s not real. None of this is real. Still, it’s nice to forget—even just for a few seconds—how life turned out for us both.

I’m about to pull away when a sharp pain erupts in my stomach. My eyelids fly open, and I try to pull away from my dad… but when I open my eyes, all I see is gold. It’s not my dad in front of me anymore, and we’re not in the middle of the quad. I’m back in the garden in Acadia, and Invictis stands before me in place of my dad.

And he’s holding onto a sword of light.

A sword that’s currently lodged right in my gut, someplace it definitely shouldn’t be.

It’s like slow-motion. An uneven breath escapes me, and in the process my stomach moves. The pain is searing and hot, and it spreads to every nerve in my body. Standing hurts. Breathing hurts. Everything suddenly hurts.

My eyes are glued to the blade sticking through me. It’s like my brain doesn’t understand what it’s seeing. Invictis stabbed me with some kind of magical sword, and all I can do is stand there and think:No, this isn’t right.

I’m not supposed to lose. Don’t the heroes always win?

My mouth falls open. It’s like I suddenly can’t breathe. It hurts too much. Bit by bit I lift my stare until I gaze into the faceless head of Invictis. All I see is a misshapen halo and thelight glowing from within. No eyes. No nose. No mouth. Nothing that would give what he’s feeling away.

Thrilled to finally be rid of me? Overjoyed to be the victor? Or maybe he’s not happy at all and he’s just doing what he has to.

A broken, breathy laugh comes from me. “I guess you win,” I whisper, my mouth as dry as it gets when I’m fighting my way through a shadowstorm.

The blade of light dissipates, and the moment it does there is nothing keeping me upright anymore. I fall back and land hard on my ass. The motion sends a new shockwave of pain through me, sheer agony, and all I can do is muffle that cry and instinctively place a hand above the wound in my gut.

Something like this might kill you in my world. Here? I’m fucked.

The world stops around me, or at least I think it does. I don’t feel the sun on my skin anymore, nor do I hear the wind blowing or feel the breeze of the garden caressing my cheek. The garden is dead, and I’m going to follow suit.

Invictis stands five feet away, his feet firmly planted on the ground. Behind him, his wings hover, shimmering and golden, far too beautiful to belong to an instrument of destruction. He does not say a word. I guess I don’t merit agoodbyeor anI’m sorry.

I’m about to close my eyes—can’t look at him anymore—when the world around me snaps back into focus. An earth-shattering growl pierces the sky above us, and two seconds later something large lands on the ramparts near the side of the garden. I turn my head and see the same dragon that came to my rescue before, when I had to get Fred back to Laconia. It opened a portal for us.

And again, seeing it in the daylight, its black scales shimmery with a reddish hue, I want to say it’s the same dragon thatattacked me in the shadowstorm, back when I had no clue what the hell was going on here.

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