"I wish we could be together forever. Did you know no one can see us and impair us here. Not even twelve Nephalems have the power to hurt you in front of my gaze."
The voice was a soothing current, and the woman who spoke possessed a Wynorrific face, her expression a ravishing sight. Her eyes, gleaming with violet, were soulful and deep, framed by bold, flattering eyebrows. She had a short white haircut, an aquiline nose, and an oval smile beneath dainty lips. Her hands, when they touched him, were gentle and cordial.
He lay back, his head resting in her lap beneath a dark blue sky where six or seven birds drifted. A serene bouquet of black Baccara roses rested nearby, illuminated by the impossible light of a crimson moon.
Ah, that was a pleasant dream.
Reality struck, sharp and unwelcome. He had to get to work. Am I already too late? Hell.
In the next scene, Arlot pedaled furiously on his bicycle. His destination was an electrical shop, where he worked part-time as a quotations maker. He was precisely thirty-four minutes and eleven seconds late. His boss began to scold him immediately upon arrival. This time, Arlot didn't stay. He simply turned and left the shop, the humiliation finally breaking his composure as he started crying in the street.
Behind him, his boss muttered, "You have to accept your fate, child."
Walking away, he heard faint murmurs, his name whispered on the wind. When he glanced behind him, the world swam, and he fainted straight away.
The surroundings shifted instantly. "Do you want more salmon, Arlot?"
His mother's placid voice was a balm. She sat across from him at a medium-sized table filled with plates, a cooker of rice, bowls of thick soup, spoons, and a large glass jug of water. Wrinkles near her beautiful eyes crinkled as she smiled.
To her left, his father spoke in a meticulous way: "Finish your meal."
His brother was already leaving his seat, his back turned, face unseen. Arlot, holding a spoonful of rice, looked at the half-eaten salmon with spices on the table to his right.
In a voice filled with genuine cherishing, Arlot replied, "Yeah, Mom, give me some fish."
The dream had left Arlot with a persistent tremor, the ghostly image of a shared meal lingering even after he had slumped, heavy-lidded, at the dining table. He blinked, the dingy reality of his small, fusty kitchen bleeding in: the single gas burner, the small infrared plate, the insufficient chimney. It was a setup adequate for one, yet there on the cheap laminate, a bowl with remnants of rice suggested a second presence.
Confusion, thick and clinging as the damp air, settled over him. Am I home? How? His gaze drifted up to the water-stained ceiling, his voice flat, stoical, betraying nothing of the deep ache within. "I wish that we can eat together again." The clock on the wall mocked him; it was late, too late for sleep, yet the next day promised more work, more exhaustion, and a necessary confrontation with his boss about the previous day's collapse.
His house was simple: the kitchen and a main room, wider but equally lonely. He walked past his father's bookshelves filled with old hardcovers, past the small fridge and the wall mirror on the south wall, towards the simple pallet he called a bed. The entire structure, from the north-facing entrance with its shoe cubby to the detached toilet and bath walled off with mere wood planks, spoke of a life pared down to necessities and solitude.
The next morning, Arlot was late again. He stood before his boss, the humiliation a bitter copper taste in his mouth, stifling the hot well of tears. He would not run. But then the sinister voice, a whispering static in his mind, returned: Give me your qu…
The world tilted, a veil of shadow descending over Arlot's vision, threatening to swallow him whole.
The scenario shattered.
"What are you doing, Cruz? And where is your attention at?" The roar of an old man, sharp and enraged, cut through the haze. Arlot flinched, the sharp sting in his side from the Melusine's strike bringing him crashing back to the present reality.