Page 104 of The Souls Harvest
For the first time, the name that’s never spoken for me sounds like the perfect representation of who I really am.
I let my hand linger in mid-air. I don’t care what’s happening around me—us. There is no breeze to distract me, no distant image of a forbidden lake. The sun is just a bright sphere in a fabricated sky. Its heat is not real.
What am I thinking?
I close my eyes. They say your senses enhance when you can’t see.
“Sof…” His voice is like a caress on my skin that soon makes space for his lips, gently kissing the palm of my hand.
“Can we just hide here? Forever?”
“I wish…” His voice tickles my skin.
I force my eyes to stay shut, calling for darkness.
Faces dance behind my eyes, and the hand I think is Galen’s turns out to be mine. A kernel burns in its centre. Purple. Then red. Hot and cold. A dancing flame, alive and happy, growing larger. It is bigger than my hand, but so light it will fly away if I don’t curl my fingers around it.
A sudden wind blows my way, and the kernel bursts into white ashes.
“Where did you go?” Galen whispers.
I open my eyes and step away from him, gulping air until I can feel the tendons in my neck tensing.
“I don’t want to crush it.” I don’t make sense, but nothing that happened lately does.
Galen approaches me, but something disturbs the leaves above us, breaking the spell. My hand is still in midair, reaching for something.
“Sorry to interrupt…” A voice calls from the top of the tree.
“Oh, here we go.” Galen’s voice sounds different, lighter, unbothered.
“Oh, you are boring.” The hidden voice replies.
As soon as I look up in its direction, the voice takes the shape of a man who gracefully jumps off the tree despite his build. He lands on the grass between Galen and me, on one knee, his head of light brown hair bowing, like a knight out of place and uninvited.
“Let me guess?” I ask, standing above him, akimbo.
“July, meet Kris.” Galen cuts in, bending to grab his brother by the collar. “Again.” He adds while pulling him backonto his feet.
Chapter 38 - Page Two
Kristyon
When you spend ten of your lives running from the gruesome possibility of being annihilated, you have two choices.
One: you keep running.
Or two (my favourite): treat every life like a chapter from an exquisite book. The first page tells pretty much the same story with more or less seasoning, depending on the author’s mood. Sometimes, you have to scrap a page and start redrafting because some characters may need a push, or be stopped before their adventure becomes a tragedy.
But what happens on page two makes the story worth reading to the end.
Again.
“It pains me to admit that I may have underestimated the distance from you two and my first-row seat up there.” I wave a finger at the treetop while my brooding brother pulls me up.
The hand I slammed on the ground when I landed hurts, but I keep a perfectly stoic, straight face.
“What happened to stay hidden until I say so?” Galen hisses in my ear before letting me go to theatrically massage his temples. “The death of me…” he mumbles.
