Shatter

Chapter 11: The Angel in the Dream

Grey smoke was flowing around me in the thick air, as if it were threatening to swallow me in it's wretched darkness. 

"Choose." 

I had to get out of here with Carmen... the house was on fire... we would get burned....

I saw a flurry of red. Orange. White. Yellow. 

The flame―it was getting closer―and closer―and closer. It was going to burn everything down, burn everything to ashes until they fell at my feet. Carmen and I. We had to get out. 

My mind jumped to the thought of Goliatha. Where was she now? Was she dead? Because she saved us? Was she discovered? I couldn't die. Neither could Carmen. 

We came this way. 

Goliatha risked her life for us. 

We could not die. 

I looked at both Carmen's. 

"Goliatha," one whispered. "Luna, please! It's me!"

"No," the other pleaded, "No, Luna, it's me! Don't let me die, Goliatha saved us, I cannot die and neither can you."

"Choose," both of them said at the same time, robotically. 

I pointed at the one who had said that we couldn't die. Though... the last phrase that she said was a bit off―she said it like a statement: we couldn't die―and not like a plead―not like she cared, sort of, as if her emotion had disappeared.

"NO!!!" the other Carmen wailed, and streams of tears went down her eyes. "No, Luna! Luna! You..." her tears turned into sobs, and her hands trembled. 

"Haha," laughed the Carmen that I had chosen. "Wrong choice, ma'am." 

Hollow black eyes. Cruel black arm. The olive skin disappeared―transformed into a pale, white marble―it was the man in the mirror. 

I howled in anger―frustration―sadness―at what I had done. The wrong choice. That was quite right. 

"Choose." 

I realized that was all just a... hallucination, I guess. That wasn't real. 

A wave of relief washed over me―well, that was before I realized half of it was still reality. I still had to choose. 

"Luna! Please," one of the Carmen's lept towards me like a leopard, fast―before I could react, I had nearly fell―luckily, I regained balance. "Choose," she said, in my ear while darting past my head―her voice was as light as a feather, flying away in the grey smoke in the air. "Me."

"You," I finally said, and gestured at one of the Carmen's. 

"Are you sure?"

This choice could turn your life upside down, I thought. 

"Yes."

A horrifying scream came from the other Carmen: the one that I had not chosen. She sank to the ground like a heavy stone, and shrieked in anguish. Her face turned a blood red, and her hair went to such a black it looked like a rotting plant; her skin crumpled like paper, so many layers that it was the most hideous, outrageous sight, as if her skin had just been torn apart by a monster, and put together again. 

Then, she disappeared into thin air. 

And I hoped that she would never come back. 

"Gone; go away," I whispered, "Never come back." 

~

"Do you know what The Other Side is?" the angel questioned. Her skin was as pale as snow, her large white wings like a colorless fire, and her voice as clean and gentle as a wind that rustled lightly, as if it was swooping in and out of tree leaves: the angel's voice would fade occasionally, and sometimes be quite loud.  

"I don't..." I hesitated. "What is it? All I know is that we're here, nothing else."

"The Other Side is made of the Fears of every single living creature on planet earth. Who knows... maybe if humans were all fearless, The Other Side wouldn't exist. But it does. 
Fears. Whether it's a little, tender plant sprout that's afraid of being stepped on carelessly by a human, or whether it's a child that's afraid that there's a monster under their bed, everyone is afraid of something: either a hidden Fear or a one that is easily shown."

"How come no one can destroy it?"

"Well..." the angel said, and her voice faded ever so slightly, "You cannot simply pluck out a Fear out of a human and hope for it to be gone forever. It will always come back."

"So," I said, "if someone was afraid of nothing... then what would happen?"

"In that case, they would be forever oblivious to monsters."

The answer was so simple, yet so complex. 

Monsters?

"Why have only some people tried to destroy The Other Side, and the others seem unknown to it?" I asked. 

"Because only some people have learned to accept their Fear... but no one in history so far has actually seen a Fear. Fears are in the forms of monsters: for example, the man in the mirror, you see him, correct? He actually has no form in real life. But when Fears turn into monsters, physically, then that means what you are afraid of is dominating your life, yet you still accept it, or know it. Some may have mastered that sort of skill before, but no one has actually seen a monster." 

Her voice was fading. 

"But," she continued, "You have seen your Fear. It is too strong. Your Fear is too strong. It is spreading... that is how Carmen also saw him.
Though, only you can destroy your monster; and also possibly The Other Side."

"Why only me?" I asked, desperate to get the answer before the dream flew away.

"Because you are special... in a way that nobody knows why... and..."

My vision went blurry, and however I tried to scream "No," my dream was going away. It would be lost before I knew it. 

~ 

"Ah, you're finally awake!" Carmen exclaimed. She sighed. "I was trying to get you awake for like, I don't know, ten minutes."

I stood up rapidly. My face must've had a somewhat look of determination plastered on it, because Carmen raised an eyebrow, confused. 

"I saw the angel in my dream," I said quickly, "And she said a lot of things." 

I told her every single thing. 

Carmen frowned. "Hm. Strange."

"Well," I said, slowly stretching out the word, "What do we do now?"

"Continue exploring this place, perhaps," Carmen suggested. "We still don't completely know what's here and what's not."

"Yeah," I agreed. 

"Wait―" Carmen said, just as I was about to start walking, "―what is your fear?"

Should I tell her?

No one knows it except me. 

"I―I'm afraid of losing someone. Like Rosalie. And I'm afraid of betrayal. I'm not just afraid―it's a fear I can't describe. It's just... I don't know, I'm afraid of those things even though they're not that... that scary." I stuttered. 

What I left out, was that those fears only came to me after my parents died and our family fell apart.