I blacked out again.
When I came to, I first noticed the variety of intense smells. Freesia, lemon and vanilla first. Mom’s natural scent. Then orange blossoms and fresh rain. Rina. From farther away came pine and sea air—Owen. And then mangos, papayas, lime and sage. I smiled inside, knowing Tristan was still here. The smells of coconuts, salt water and stale sex also lingered on the air.
Next, I noticed all the sounds. The blood and energy pounding and whirring through my head came loudest. I could hear the whispers of fabric rubbing against itself and two heartbeats, besides my own, in the room. From the background came a low, rumbling growl, like a faraway train, and heavy breathing from somewhere else. And from even farther away, I could hear the waves on the beach.
I briefly opened my eyes. The dim light in the room made me think it was day time and the shades were drawn. Then it became painfully bright, as if a strobe light hit my face. For one surreal moment, I thought someone had taken a picture with a flash to commemorate this horror I suffered. I squeezed my eyes shut. The reverse images of Mom and Rina’s heads glowed on the backs of my eyelids.
The sense of touch and feeling came last. My skin burned, everything against it feeling arctic, even the air. I felt each thread of wet terrycloth and each droplet of cold water on my arms, around my neck, across my face and forehead as Mom sponged me. Rina’s hands felt like blocks of ice on my chest. Her breath felt cool on my face.
The energy traveling through my body earlier began to build and separate at the same time. My muscles felt on fire and the nerves twitched under my skin. Electricity charged through my veins, currents jumping from cell to cell. The gradual coming on of my senses escalated to a high crescendo, everything—the smells, the sounds, the touches—intensifying to an unbearable level. My ears rang and throbbed. My heart pounded. My breathing became shallow. My body trembled from the onslaught.
“Something’s happening,” I gasped.
Every single muscle, every tissue fiber tensed at once, pulling at each other in opposite directions. My body convulsed, every muscle pulled taut. Lightning shot through my veins and I felt as though I was being electrocuted from within.
An angry, moaning sound ripped through the room. It came from me.
Rina’s icy hands pressed harder and I thought my skin would freeze and crack under them.
Then I felt the two streams of power—fire and ice—flow up through my limbs and course through my body, both rushing to my chest. Two angry rivers raging toward each other. Agonizing pain exploded through my chest cavity as the two energetic powers crashed against each other. I screamed with the pain. My back arched uncontrollably, throwing Rina back. The two forces twisted and pushed at each other, tearing through my lungs, ribs and muscles as if splintering them into pieces. A warmth surrounded my heart, like a shield, while the energies clashed ferociously. The Amadis mark seared and blistered painfully.
“Oh, my God, it hurts so much,” I cried. “Make it stop!”
“What’s happening?” Mom gasped.
“It seems the two forces are battling,” Rina answered. She sounded like she stood at the other end of a long tunnel. “We have to let this happen. There is nothing we can do.”
And then the bedroom vanished.
Perhaps I passed out again. I didn’t know what happened. I just knew I was no longer there. Not in mind and spirit anyway.
I felt a sense of both familiarity and disorientation at my new surroundings. Where am I? I sat up and found myself in that strange meadow again, surrounded by mountains, and the lake in front of me. But the place looked and felt different once again. Not a warm, happy place, nor steel-blue-gray and desolate. I slowly rose to my feet as I focused on the tree with the constantly falling leaves.
But only half of it possessed actual leaves. Golden petals filled the branches on the right. They sparkled and glinted as some fluttered to the ground. The branches on the left half, however, were barren of any leaves, any life. Instead, that half looked as if an ice storm had come through, wrapping every branch and twig in a coating of crystal. Snowflakes floated to the ground, as if falling from those branches.
My vision pulled out and I realized I aligned perfectly with the center line splitting the tree between ice and gold. And I realized the whole world was split in half. To my right, the tall grass waved in a warm breeze that caressed my right leg, right arm, right half of my face. Green pines covered the mountain and the sun shone in the sky, reflecting off the lake. Flowers bloomed and turned their faces toward the sun. Birds chirped from their hiding places in the tree branches and I heard soft footsteps of wildlife on the forest floor.
To my left, snow blanketed the field and the trees on the side of the mountain. The left side of the lake had the pseudo-transparent look of water frozen solid. A lone white wolf sat near the base of the tree, watching me carefully, though I didn’t feel afraid and it didn’t look concerned. The left half of my own body felt cold, but not uncomfortable. In fact, there was nothing chilling at all about any of the scene. It was a beautiful, wintry landscape, just as lovely as the other side, but in a different way.
I considered the strangeness of my environment. How did I get here? What am I doing here?
“You need to decide,” said a familiar, accented voice. Unlike last time, when it had sounded flat, it now resonated across the field like soothing music. I peered to my right and saw Rina and Mom standing far off, near the base of the mountain.
“Decide what?” I asked. I didn’t yell, not feeling the need to, although they were several hundred yards away. I somehow knew they would hear me even if I whispered.
“Which way you want to go,” said another voice, this one unfamiliar. A male voice with a different kind of accent. With surprise, my head twisted to my left. A man, perhaps in his late twenties, stood almost directly across from Mom and Rina, at the base of his mountain. His hair and goatee were snow-white and his eyes ice-blue, the same face I’d seen earlier in my mind. But now it came attached to a body, clothed in black slacks and a tight- fitting black shirt that emphasized his powerful build. He smiled, but his teeth now looked bright but normal, not icicles as I’d imagined. In fact, the beauty of his smile stunned me. “You can come with us….”
“Or with us,” Mom said from the other side.
“Well, that’s a no-brainer,” I muttered. I took a step to the right, toward Mom and Rina. As if in response, the warm, yellow tone of the right side shifted more to the left, taking over part of the winter scene…increasing its area.
“Such a quick decision for an intelligent person such as yourself, Alexis,” the man said, halting me in mid- stride as I started to take another step. “There is much for you over here, too. Isn’t it beautiful?”
He swept his hand through the air and the snow sparkled as if he’d just scattered diamonds over it. I shifted my weight and when my foot finally came down, it landed back to the left. The wintry side regained the ground it had lost from my first step.
“You can rule the world,” the man said. He waved his hand again and, like the slideshow of my earlier dreams, pictures hung in the air between him and me, but these were different—pictures of palaces and wealth and servants catering to me…and to Tristan and Dorian. I moved another step toward that side to get a better look. The scenes changed to even more people following us, worshipping us, then to Tristan and me standing at the top of stone steps, waving at a crowd of people that stretched farther than the eye could see.
“Power or love, Alexis?” Rina called from the other side. I turned toward her and Mom. They waved their hands and more pictures hung in the air, of Dorian and Tristan, of Mom, Rina and Owen. They moved their hands again and warmth flowed over me. Again, the decision came easy. I had little use for power, but I needed love. I took several steps in their direction.
“You can have it all over here,” the man called out. “Power, love, wealth…everything you ever wanted. Everything.”
I glanced over there, his side much smaller now after the steps I’d taken to the right.
“Lies, Alexis,” Rina said. “Remember that they deceive. They do not know love.”
The man shrugged. “But isn’t this what you want?”
More pictures appeared, all filled with Tristan, Dorian and me, involved in different activities, all of us looking blissfully happy.
“Only with us can you all be together, can you have it all,” the man said. “Otherwise, you lose.”
He snapped his hand back, as if snatching something from the air. A small boy suddenly appeared in the crook of his left arm. Dorian.
