The Love That Could Have Been

4

I felt something heavy pressing against my neck. Darkness edged my vision as my throat tightened, and panic clawed at my chest. I gasped for air, my lungs burning with the desperate need for oxygen. It was suffocating, and the tight grip around my neck was constricting my breathing.

That's when everything dawned on me. Fingers. Cold, unyielding fingers pressed into my flesh. They were the hands of a guy. He was holding me by my neck, trying to choke me. I can't make up the look on his face because of my blurred vision.

"Can't speak now, huh, Finnegan?" the guy said.

That voice. It sent a shudder down my spine. It sounds so familiar. But it certainly wasn't Caelum's.

I can feel his breathing near my neck. Signifying how close his face was to me.

"Go ahead. Your boy still won't hear you," he laughed. My boy? Who? Caelum?

I felt his grip tightened against my neck. No! I can't breathe!

I struggled against his touch, my hands frantically clawing at his two hands that were holding me captive. But my body felt so weak.

As the edges of my consciousness blurred further and the world began fading to black, I clung to the flickering hope that someone would intervene. That someone would come. And save me.

Caelum, where are you?

I need you.

—     —     —

"Dawn! Dawn! Wake up!"

Avery's voice echoed in my ears, waking me up from what seemed to be a nightmare. Or was it really a nightmare? Or another old and tragic memory of Sky.

"I'm sorry I have to wake you up. You seemed to be having a nightmare. You were sweating all over," she said with a worried look on her face. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry I must have dozed off" I said, wiping the beads of sweat on my forehead. "How long was I asleep?"

It's been a week since I got into the debate club of Pleiades. Over the days that passed, nothing much happened aside from hanging out with Caelum and Avery during lunch now and then. Lately, they have also been mentoring me and walking me through the debate club. Occasionally, Caelum and I would go out to eat and talk about Sky and other random stuff. Since my screening, I haven't encountered another seems-to-be memory of Sky. Not until earlier. It felt so real. What does that mean? Did someone kill Sky? But that's not what they said. Was there a foul play?

"About 15 minutes, I guess," she said, grabbing her phone.

We were having our training in the Dialogue Room. We just finished a session and are currently taking a 30-minute break before having another. I sat on one of the bean bag chairs in the Dialogue Room to rest when I didn't notice that I had already fallen asleep.

"By the way, Dawn. Is it alright with you to be partnered with Caelum for the tournament?" she asked. "I'm not sure if I'll be able to join since I already have prior commitments on that day."

"Sure. As long as it's alright with Caelum too," I replied.

"Thank you, sweet," she giggled before getting back to scrolling on her phone.

The reason why we're making extra efforts in our training today and will be having another round is that we were preparing for the upcoming tournament to be held on the weekends—a prestigious British-Parliamentary debate tournament hosted by Almeida University.

"Oh! It seems Omer will be joining the tourney too," she exclaimed as if she just saw something interesting on her phone. "He just posted on his feed."

"Who's Omer?" I asked.