Sentilia

PROLOGUE

I finally got to the edge of the forest, to my relief. The beach was down on my left, and the closest street was on my right. The weather was atrocious; the clouds were overly dark, making the sea look like liquid tar, and without the overhead cover of the forest, rain was pouring down, soaking me head to toe.

I saw a streak of lightning, and heard the thunder roll in unison. I had never been outside in such weather, so I wasn’t sure where to take cover. The usual safety blanket I felt in my dreams once again collapsed as soon as I’d stepped out of the forest, making the storm a little louder and a little more intimidating.

But something else was off. I remembered seeing a good part of the city, located in the valley, from here. I was standing at the same place where I was when I came back from the beach that day with Maia. With this gloomy sky, the city would have been lit up everywhere: the streets, the houses, every other building too. But the city was completely obscured; I could barely make out the houses through the heavy curtain of rain.

I walked further to my right in order to see the main street better. I crouched underneath a smaller tree that provided a small break from the storm. I was still getting wet though, the wind pushing the rain on either side of my hiding spot.

I got up, and crouched back down again. Something, or someone was behind me, I could feel it. But right before I turned around, something caught my eye in the city. I focused on the main street and noticed that it was alive with people.

They were all wearing dark grey ensembles, and walking in rows.

I realized at that moment that they strangely reminded me of peacekeepers. But they all had guns in their hands. They couldn’t possibly be from my community; violence was illegal. But then I remembered something that Elis had said; that the people from my community would one day force the people from the island to surrender their unique way of living, and join our society. “Force them with violence,” that’s what he had said. Could this be what was happening? It didn’t seem right...but what if...the guns were used to...

They were peacekeepers

They were here. Coming to stop the people of the city, to assimilate everyone on the island.

Elis.

That same second, I was up, and I was about to start running towards his house to save him, but as I got up, lightning struck and thunder exploded.

The flash had been so close; I crumbled to the ground.

I had never heard gunshots before, but their sound could not be mistaken with anything else.

I panicked for a moment, but the shooting wasn’t happening around me, it was happening in the city. I got up again, still half-hidden behind a tree. People came out from their houses, shooting at the men in the middle of the streets who were scattering, but shooting back. It was all so surreal. This could never happen in the real world. Never.

Suddenly I came to my senses. I still hadn’t saved Elis, nor Kleio, nor Maia, Cassiopeia and Hayden. Plus, the other people down there had to be saved too: the citizens as well as the peacekeepers. I knew the easiest thing would be to hide here and stay safe, but I couldn’t help myself, going down there to help was stronger than me.

What were they thinking? We had abolished wars just to jump right back into them? Was this really the near future I was predicting? I hoped more than anything at that moment that this was not all a premonition. I’d trade all of it for peace. If I had the choice between having Elis, Kleio and the island—plus the war—be real, versus having peace in a boring life, I’d chose peace. That realization made me reconsider the negative thoughts I had about my society.

Unreal as this dream felt, I had to see Elis, even if it meant crossing through the city.

As I finally got ready to make a run for it, I heard leaves shuffling behind me; I heard branches on the ground crack and it felt like I had already lived this moment, like a déjà vu. Before I had time to turn around to see who or what was there, I felt the same stabbing, sickening pain I had felt in my first dream on the beach. Something was lodged in my arm.

I started having vivid flashes of different moments of my previous dreams. I saw the first beach I had been to. I saw the kiss with Elis. I saw dolphins swimming underwater. And then I started seeing new images. I saw myself with a gun in my hands, shooting towards a peacekeeper. I saw Kleio transporting me to a medical facility. And then I saw Elis’s face, a few inches from mine—I could hear gunshots in the distance, and his ragged breathing in my ear. He took my face in his hands and said: “Come and find me when you wake up.”

And then I was back at the edge of the forest.

The pain in my arm was gone. I managed to turn my face to see five men coming towards me, grabbing me and pulling me back towards the forest. They shuffled to my sides and I saw Elis, left lying at the foot of a tree, his hands and feet tied, his mouth covered with tape, and his eyes wild.

Everything became blurry. I was waking up again.