As much as that part should be amazing, it wasn’t. I would just have to hide my dark sand again, find new ways to not let it show. Margot would eventually tell. She hated Shadow Casters and she would blame me for Leigh’s death.
“Selene is getting the best technicians in to try and reboot the Virtual Realm again. Maybe he would still be there?”
I nodded.
I could only hope.
I turned around, trying not to be rude to Natalie. But I wanted to be alone.
I had to be alone to find a way to deal with all of this, and hopefully to sleep.
If Leigh wasn’t going to be in the Virtual Realm anymore, I knew where he would turn up.
Inside my dream.
A MONTH HAD PASSED SINCE THE SHADOW CASTERS invaded Revera.
They held a huge funeral for all the Casters that had died in battle. Tom and John were among them.
I was super glad that Shades was still alive. The stupid cat had found a way to dodge the Casters and they found him and all the other animals inside the vent.
I wasn’t awake to see the reunion between Charlie and Natalie but Max told me it was amazing to witness. She cried and laughed all at once when she saw that parrot.
Selene asked me so many times how I’d reversed the shadows in the Orb to light and I just told her I’d used my happy thoughts and the other question I didn’t want to answer, I told her I didn’t know.
She let me stay close to her after I got out from the hospital.
I wasn’t in lock up the way Fox had said she was. I saw it as a well-deserved rest, being waited on and pampered for a couple of weeks, occasionally showing Selene my sand.
It was a bright gold every time. At least that is what they told me as colors still hadn’t come back and my world was all shades of grey. All I saw was this white bright light.
She let me go after three weeks, the day all of Revera was going to find out if the Virtual Realm still existed. They’d only picked a couple of people to enter the reboot, not many were chosen and I wished that I could say I was one of them, but I wasn’t.
Still I was able to watch on a special screen inside a special room that looked onto the lab where the technicians worked. Once they got into the Virtual Realm to find out if Leigh was still alive or not, the screen would show us what they saw.
Three men were chosen. Two technicians and a Guardian.
It was a loss to Revera, knowing how long it’d taken Leigh to create the Virtual Realm and how quickly it had been destroyed.
If he was gone, the Virtual Realm would never be the same again.
Shades rubbed against my legs before he jumped onto my lap. How he’d gotten in… I’m not even going to ask.
“So, did I miss anything?” he asked.
“Nope, haven’t started yet. They are still getting there.”
“Getting gassed you mean?”
I giggled. The cat had a wicked sense of humor but he was just as brave as any of the Casters walking Revera’s halls.
My heart started to beat frantically as I looked down from the gallery onto the three dentist chairs where the three men had started to fall asleep.
It was the easiest way to get into the Virtual Realm.
Deep breaths, he just needs to be alive.
“He’s going to be fine, Chas.”
“Shush, Shades you don’t know that.”
I opened my eyes and looked at the big screen.
It reminded me of a dilapidated world. Everything was gone. The buildings, the people.
Tears filled my eyes as the three of them walked and walked for miles.
They entered what was left of homes and walked out again, just shaking their heads.
It carried on like that for hours, and not even in one of those seconds was there any sign of Leigh.
Hope was relatively high when the first day was over and there was still no sign of Leigh. The Virtual Realm was huge, but when they reached the third day, I couldn’t watch anymore. I got up and went straight to my room and fell on my bed.
He’d never even known how I really felt about him. He would never know, and that hurt the most.
“Meow.” Shades jumped onto my bed and lay right next to me. His long fur brushed against my skin and I was mad that when he was finally being there for me when I needed him, I really just wanted to be alone.
“Tears are not a sign of weakness, Chas. They’re a sign of caring and love. They’re also a sign of strength, because if you cannot cry, it means you don’t have a soul to cleanse.”
I looked up at the cat.
“I can’t do this.”
“Okay, now that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said. “You saved Revera, and I don’t care how much help you had. You saved Revera and still decided to be good, otherwise your sand wouldn’t have turned back to gold. If anyone can do it, you can. Remember, the Virtual Realm is big. That boy had plenty of time to create the world, and he doesn’t do things half-ass.”
I giggled. It sounded like Leigh.
“He’s going to be fine, you’ll see. They just haven’t found him yet.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“So I guess you will tell lover boy how you really feel if you see him, right?”
“He would probably think I’m a silly Caster having feelings for something that isn’t real.”
“He is real, well not the way we want him to be, but if he’s real to you, he’s real.”
“Thanks Shades.”
“And he won’t laugh.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know that cats don’t know everything and that they are not always right. You could be wrong about that.”
“I’m not about this. Just tell him how you feel when you see him, please.”
I giggled. “Thanks, Shades.”
“You are most welcome. My job is done, see you later.”
“Yep, see you later.”
He left and I felt better. But whether the cat was speaking the truth or not, I would probably never know.
Fatigue finally came.
I hadn’t dreamed of Leigh once in the past month which told me that he didn’t exist anymore.
Darkness consumed me and I drifted away.
When I opened my eyes I was inside the woods. The vibrant colors of the brown bark and green leaves assaulted me as I took in my surroundings. I could still see in color in my dreams. I always searched for him in the woods, but I never found him.
I tried to dream about theme parks but it never happened that way.
I walked and walked, the trees looked the same. They were dull and lifeless, it wasn’t the colors of Revera anymore, it was the same colors in the Domain; another sign that he wasn’t here.
The tops of the trees moved slightly. I could see it, the wind. It blew small pieces of leaves from their branches and they descended toward me.
They brushed my face gently, leaving a million goose bumps on my arms and blew through my hair. I closed my eyes not knowing what caused this and when it left, I followed it with my eyes. I looked behind me as it blew more leaves in its wake.
I didn’t want the wind to leave my sight as it was the first dream where anything had happened.
The wind picked up again and started to blow orange leaves that had fallen to the ground, twirling them round and round.
A figure started to appear in the leaves and I squinted. It was vague at first, but they were definitely forming a figure. Then the picture got better. First the color of dark hair with broad shoulders appeared. Then his arms, torso and hips. It shifted down to his legs and lastly a pair of glasses rested on his nose.
I cupped my mouth as tears welled up in my eyes.
It was really him.
When the wind finally found its resting place, leaving Leigh standing on the leaves, I didn’t think twice. I ran and my arms wrapped around his neck.
He smelled the same. A bit of musk, mixed with danger and something sweet.
His arms folded around me to
o.
“Please tell me that you are okay?” I said into his shoulder.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“It’s not the same. This is a figment of my imagination. My dream.”
He chuckled. “Chas, I was always just a figment of someone’s imagination.”
I looked at him, confused. “No, you weren’t. You were real.”
“I’m not. I’m a virtual creation, that’s it and….” He looked down to the leaves. “You must know that this isn’t a healthy relationship.”
He’d said it, the word. Relationship. “My parents didn’t have a healthy relationship either. I don’t care.”
“Chas, your dad was real. There is a huge difference.”
“I don’t care!” I said, a bit louder which made me look away. I knew what was going to come next. The cat was wrong. He was going to reject me like he’d done to Margot.
“Yeah.” He sighed. He lifted up my chin to look at him. I hated the tears of betrayal, but it hurt, and I finally understood why Clare had been so upset with me. If she’d hurt this much too, I could finally relate.
“You aren’t the crying type, why the tears?”
“I just wanted you to be okay.”
“I am, I’m here.” He kept saying it over and over.
“It’s not the same, Leigh. I’ll never see you again, other than in my dreams, which are my doing. I want you to be okay inside the Virtual Realm.”
“Why? Why aren’t your dreams enough?”
“You know why. I don’t know if this is your or my doing. I want it to be you.”
His lips curved slightly.
“Why?”
“You know why.” I looked at him again.
“Chastity?”
“I really don’t care, Leigh, and you might not feel….”
I couldn’t finish my sentence as his lips were planted firmly on mine. He kissed me gently and my stomach did a million flops with the knowledge that he felt the same way, even if it wasn’t real.
I wrapped my arms around his neck again and he pulled me harder into him.
He was slightly out of breath when he finished and gave me a smile.
“What?”
“You worry too much Chas, and Mr. Grey, you should trust him more.”
I giggled. “You have to say that because this is my dream.”
“No,” he spoke through laughter. “Cats are always right.”
I giggled.
The wind blew and he looked up at the sky again. His eyes became sullen, with his smile. Something was wrong.
“What is it?”
“It’s time, Chas.”
“For what.”
“For me to go.”
“No.” I grabbed him again and could feel his mouth on my head. “Shhh, it will be fine. It will be fine.” His voice became softer and softer saying it will be fine over and over until my eyes opened and I was back in my room, lying on my bed.
Shades was purring loudly and was lying close to me. I scratched his head.
Whether Leigh was alive or not, I didn’t know but at least I was dreaming about him again. Which was altogether a really good sign.
I guess only time would tell if there was anything left in the Virtual Realm or not. Only time would tell.
IT HAD BEEN FOUR MONTHS, FIVE DAYS, SIX HOURS and twenty-odd minutes since the night the Virtual Realm was lost to us.
The night that the one person I’d looked up to had betrayed us all. Fox, a brilliant Guardian who’d made a deal with the Shadow Casters and then she died by my hands.
The night that Sophie, a sweet, smart, curly-headed girl died. The night that the only guy I would ever love was tossed into the unknown.
They’d given up on the search and today was the day that they were going to switch off the machine. It didn’t matter to them whether he still existed or not, but he existed inside my dreams. My beautiful, colorful dreams.
I was lucky that my cat Shades, or Mr. Grey as the Reverians knew him, a talking cat who only I could hear, hadn’t died.
He was alive and still as grumpy as ever with his snarky comments but he truly had become one of my best friends.
He said that the Virtual Realm was huge, and that Lover Boy might still be alive. Well sort of, as Leigh was part of the Virtual Realm. Technically he didn’t exist, he was like a computer program, just way more advanced, or what Reverians would call, a Jumper.
He gave me hope and now they were just going to plunder it, killing the only guy that I would ever love.
It was also four months, five days, six hours and now seven minutes that I’d been living a lie.
I dreamt of Leigh every night, it was the one place he still existed, and in these dreams, well we’d gotten to know one another pretty well.
I’d crushed deeply for him, and the worst part of it was that I had no idea whether it was my imagination or whether he was really there.
Dreams inside Revera were not like the dreams that the humans in the Domain were used to. Here they could be used by someone like Leigh to have a private conversation or they could be used for a silly girl’s fantasy of a boy she could never really have, but they were real, you experienced the full dose and not just twenty percent the way my mother, Vinicola Sodivic, a name the Light Casters feared, and one of the best Shadow Casters alive, told me.
Leigh and I kissed many times in my dreams and each one felt so real, but again, it could be all my doing and have nothing to do with Leigh whatsoever. Like I’d said, a big lie, which didn’t matter one bit because whichever way I looked at it, it was going to be over.
Footsteps rushed up the stairs and a head with blonde scruffy hair peeked into my room with a huge grin on his face. I hadn’t recalled ever seeing Max grin like that before.
“What?”
He just smiled and stared at me like an idiot. “They found him.”
I sucked in a breath. “What?”
“It’s just a voice, but they think it’s Leigh.”
I ran out of my room and down the stairs with Max right behind me. “A voice. How?”
“It was when they just exited the Virtual Realm, they were about to make it final, to shut down the entire world and then his voice just popped through.”
We ran back toward the science building that housed all the people who were hard at work trying to save anything that had been destroyed inside the Virtual Realm when we finally entered.
“The frequency was not clear and we couldn’t make out a single word, but it’s him Chas.”
I sprinted up the steps. I’d never run so hard, just to hear his gibberish for myself. If his voice was there, he was fine. It was the sign that I’d been praying for these past four months.
We’d spoken about this day so many times, which always led to my insecurities about all of this. How it was only my imagination.
He’d just laughed at me.
The gallery windows were blocked by everyone standing against them to see better. The scratching while they tried to find the right frequency was all over the speakers.
“Leigh, can you hear me?” One of the scientists said.
There was no response and more scratching began as they tried to find a better frequency. It drove me insane every time they spoke and there was no answer.
After the umpteenth time I got up; I seriously could not do this – go through this again. He wasn’t there. He was gone.
“Chas,” Max said softly.
I couldn’t look at him and touched the knob of the door.
The scratching noise stopped and a voice came through. My stomach flipped as I knew that voice. It was him. It was really him. I ran to the window and didn’t care who I had to shove aside to get a better look at how the technicians were working.
One word was said and then scratching again, another half of a word, more scratching. I started to giggle. It was Leigh, it was really him. What he said wasn’t clear as they tried to tune into the frequency to hear him better. But none of that matter
ed as I knew he still existed.
Then he spoke again.
“Tell Chas…” The voice disappeared.
Everyone stared at me, even Margot. I didn’t like her look at all, the way her lips thinned and the soft muscles alongside her jaw started to pull slightly.
I looked away and back to the technicians. Tell me what?
They fine-tuned the frequency, trying hard not to lose him. My heart was pounding. Tell me what?
His voice came again. “…cat is always right.”
The cat is always right. I started to giggle and knew that somehow my dream wasn’t a figment of my imagination. He was really there and the past four months had been real, even though it was only in my dreams. It was real and he really did feel the same for me.
Adrienne Woods was born and raised in South Africa, where she still resides on the East side of Johannesburg with her husband and two little girls. She’s been writing for the past four years and in her free time she likes to review books of new and upcoming authors.
www.authoradriennewoods.com
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