1

The first time it happened, I felt nothing. Not the bullet passing through my head, nor the sizable junk of my mind that flew out with it. I just remember walking along the bustling downtown area of Manhattan, irregular expanses of mashed potato clouds lumbering through, bringing with them the scent of rain and renewal with it.

It was only after the fifth time that I realized the irony of it all. It had been the first day of spring, the coming cloud shower heralding a new era of things to come. Promises, secrets. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be around to discover them.

But that's all relative, I suppose. The ninth time I found myself looking out over one of the vast ravines in the Rocky Mountains. Backpacking with a group of friends, all students together on the same exchange trip. I vaguely recall that I was studying regional economics, specifically in those areas hardly affected by the suffocating hold of corporate monopolies and government bureaucrats.

Then I felt myself falling, falling down and fast, my footing giving away beneath me as the landslide carried me over the edge, the land below rushing up to meet me in a blur of color, distorted by the tears that welled up in an autonomous bodily response to not wearing the proper eye protection for such a stunt. And then I woke up.

Gasping, I bolted straight up from the sleeping pad, sweat dripping down my face and neck, chilling me as it evaporated into the cool, thin air of the Tibetan mountains. I glanced outside the window to see the moon glowing overhead, proud and majestic somewhere near the top of the world.

The blankets pooled around my feet, still warm from my body heat, but I left them to lie, padding softly over wooden plank flooring to the paper thin door that separated me from the night.

Wake up. Wake up. Please, we need you to. I need you to.

Taking long, deep breaths to stabilize myself, I ran through a mental checklist comparing all that I had experienced both in my dream to what I knew in my waking moments. Already my memory was fragmented, the events of the past few hours blurred and indistinct.

Drawing my knees up to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them, rocking back and forth lightly against the deck boards. Eyes unfocused, if only for that I couldn't focus on anything. Not clearly, anyway.

Every time I had this kind of dream, I would startle into consciousness aware that I had just died, but not always knowing how or why. They say some people have premonitions about upcoming events, minutes, days, weeks, years into the future.

I don't. But it feels as if I do. All I know is that once a month, I dream, I die, I wake up. For almost a year now, I've tried to catalogue the occurrences, but my journals are either misplaced or irreparably damaged. For some reason I know that, even though my recollection of events becomes hazier by the hour. It's like a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I'm missing something.

Why am I here in Tibet? To study each animal in its natural environment as a part of my work's wilderness expansion project. As if we needed more of that. I'm so sure of what I'm doing, I've trained for this ever since I left high school, throwing myself into four years straight of classes and co-ops at my local university, then spending another six afterwards doing fieldwork.

I'm quite aware of what I've accomplished in my life, I can even recall my earliest memories as a child, in our run-down ghetto neighborhood, bordering on the dark side of the Favela. The problem is, I was quite convinced I knew what I was doing in my dreams as well. Each time I wake now, I ask myself, is this a dream? Or is this reality?

A cold chill runs down my spine, the freshly shaved hairs at the back of my neck prickle in warning. Someone else is here. I'm silent, muscles tensed like tightly pressed coils, ready to spring into action at the drop of a pin or less.

Suddenly, I see a shadow move among the darkened foliage less than fifteen feet away. I'm guessing at the distance here, estimation has never been a strong suit of mine. I know they're here for me. It's terrifying, but at the same time, comforting. A feeling of familiarity washes over me, bathing me in its warmth despite the chilly mountain air.

They level a gun to my head without changing expression. Without definite shape, I cannot even begin to attempt to identify them. The shadows tug against them, pulling apart their fluid form. Like the mold is breaking. I know I won't feel anything.

Wake up.

Darkness.

Has it been a millennia, or merely seconds that have passed in the interlude?

I'm in a techno club, the peoples' disc jockey. My hands move with an instinctual rhythm over the records, fingers tapping a foreign and yet melodious beat that melds seamlessly with the ever present synthetic music that flows gracefully from glowing mega speakers.

I bring my hand up to the back of my neck and feel the fuzzy-not-quite-stubble hair that covers it. Freshly groomed, no more annoying baby hairs to disrupt my clean cut style. There's movement by the neon bar. Two figures, darkly hooded so I cannot discern their features, look my way. I stare back, mesmerized, recognition on the very tip of my fingers.

They rise, I disappear. Fleeing across the backstage through the emergency exit, down the dimly lit alley. The music and multitude of voices drift away as I make my escape, splashing through shallow puddles, evidence of the recent rain shower.

I stop cold at the revelation. Rain. Refreshes, renews. Water, it both brings life and washes life away. My time has come yet again.

Their call reaches out, my ears easily drinking in the sound. Turning, I see their forms. Dark, blurry even, a stark contrast to the clarity of the world around them. An artist's smudge. An accidental mistake, something not meant to be there. A glitch in the system.

Disjointed words, out of tune, discordant. My head hurts with the difficulty of trying to figure them out. It's like my ears have dyslexia.

One of them, the smaller of the two, reaches out to cradle my face in their hands. The solidity of their touch surprises me, as I cannot make out their features. My eyes flutter shut. Soft, caring, I know who they are, and yet, I do not.

Pain blossoms across my side, for the first time I feel something, but at the same time I am disconnected from it. Aware of what is taking place, yet also merely an observer to the events that are unfolding. My knees buckle beneath, unable to bear my weight any longer, starved of the rich oxygen that my blood carries.

Wet, everything is wet, warm, and sticky. My fingers find their way to my side, I know I've touched something, but I cannot feel it. Everything is numbed, like I never had control over myself to begin with.

As expected, they gleam darkly, and I know instinctively the coppery scent that I should be able to smell. But I don't. I don't smell anything. As my vision fades once more, I hear the call, faint, desperate, pleading, the petition of one who has just about lost all hope.

Yadira, come back to us.

There's no more time.

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

Perhaps I've been too complacent, allowing life to drag me every which way, crowding me down the narrow gullet of so-called fate. My dreams, were they really dreams? Or memories of past reincarnations. No, it couldn't be.

I've never had a better chance. Though I'm aware of my imminent death, my detachment serves to keep me grounded. Ironic, isn't it? And yet it makes perfect sense. With every fiber of my being I will my eyes open.

I reach out with my hand, still covered in blood, grasping at their cloak. They straighten, obviously not expecting me to keep holding on. The glint of steel in the dying light, and then their hand is covered in a dark, wet substance.

If I could describe it, the first word that comes to mind is black. An odd color for blood, something your trained mind would assume at first glance. But then when I glanced back to my own hand, I noticed with mild surprise that it was fading. Intermittent flickers of transparency allowed me to glimpse through my own body, so to speak.

There's no more time.

Oh, I thought. I am dying. For real this time.

And then the figure clasped my bloodied hand with their own, and I felt every fiber and nerve ending, millions upon billions of sensory units light up as a white-hot sensation flooded me in entirety. Suddenly, everything was in painful focus, clearer than crystal, without imperfection, not even down to the atomic level.

I saw their faces, breathed their names, beheld the sparkle in their eyes.

And then I woke up.

Xylon.

Xylon. Yadira. Zora.

Zora.