“Wake the fuck up!” Alex shouted.
Jason’s eyes shot open, he was back in the RAV4.
“Sorry, Alex.” Alex opened the door and got out, walking to the passenger side and opening Jason’s door.
Jason started to get out, but Alex stood in his way.
“Jason, we need to talk real quick.” Alex sounded serious, but far less aggressive, Jason knew that was either a bad thing, or a worse thing.
“This is not going to work out.
Finding you drugged out of your mind, missing appointments, and now killing three fucking guys that aren’t even armed?
This is over.
You can’t come around me or Lydia anymore.
I know she is your sister, and I know you love her, but until you get the help you need to sort out your life, I don’t want to see you again.” Jason didn’t speak, he didn’t even think, he just sat there.
Alex’s words came down on ears that wouldn’t cooperate.
Jason just nodded his head and got out of the car.
Just as soon as Alex appeared, he was gone.
Jason turned, facing the cottage.
What was here for him now?
He had no clue, not much but a space to sleep.
Jason grabbed his cigarettes, down to the last one, and lit one.
He stood there, a mere 10 feet from the cottage door, smoking his cigarette, tasting the blood every time he raised his hand to his face.
The blood, he thought, better wash that off.
He finished his cigarette and went inside, a small shower in the corner of a back room.
He washed off and got dressed into a pair of boxers, no shirt.
Back to darkness, he didn’t remember laying down.
But now he felt pain, increasingly hot pain in his side.
He looked down through blurry vision, seeing the pool of blood forming under him on the grassland ground.
Still no Daphis, still no Fenris.
He hadn’t died yet, but he was back and forth between worlds more frequently now, and he didn’t know why.
Maybe because his desire to die in the other world was as strong as his closeness to death in this one.
He struggled to crawl ahead, attempting to speak, but no words would come out.
He thought for a moment, and he thought of Daphis.
Her song, her touch, how it healed him.
But as he thought of Daphis, he thought of Marie.
Where was she?
Was she real?
Would he ever find out?
He didn’t know.
He was losing blood and losing it fast, though.
He couldn’t afford to think.
He had to call out for Daphis.
The more he tried, the less likely it felt.
Words were not forming, and even if they would, he knew he could never be loud enough.
He coughed, immediately blood sprayed out of his mouth.
Yep, just as he thought, the branch punctured his lung.
He was going to drown again, and he remembered that being his new least favorite feeling.
Jason focused on whatever he could to distract himself.
Daphis and her singing was all he could zero in on to help.
As he thought, he could hear her words in the song, and he could finally make them out.
He listened, and he could almost start to hear the song.
Not in her voice, but in his.
As he focused more, and heard the song more, the pain started to subside.
He felt the same warming heat that he’d feel when Daphis healed him, but now he was doing it without her.
After a few moments, Jason felt young again, and could breathe normally.
Jason stood, staring at the side of the cliff.
He slowly looked higher, and higher, until he could see the top.
A figure stood up there, but was too far away to make out.
Jason focused, and his vision narrowed, then zoomed.
It was Fenris.
The next thing Jason knew, Fenris was gone, but Jason knew where he had gone.
Jason turned quickly and saw Fenris standing behind him, Daphis close behind.
“What just happened, Fenris?” Jason asked, almost a bark rather than a question.
“In this life, or in the other, Jason?” Jason felt the anger start to well up inside him, “Fenris, I don’t want to play this game right now, I just lost everything, including my own fucking sanity.
Now please, for the love of fucking God!
Tell me something.” The outburst was unexpected, Jason regretted it immediately.
“You don’t trust yourself, so your senses fail you.” Fenris remained calm as ever.
“I don’t know what that means!” “You just healed yourself without Daphis.
How did you do that?” Fenris didn’t look curious, he looked like he was challenging Jason to think.
Jason looked at Fenris, wondering what he meant by trust.
“Jason, you have great power.
I have told you this.
But you are a weak man.
You let your emotions control you, you let fear dictate your decisions, you let drugs control your pain, and you let your family suffer for it.” Fenris spoke so calmly, but so cruelly.
Jason was stunned.
He had never been spoken to in this way, not in the forest.
He stood motionless.
“You have been asked to help us, to learn with us, and to be a better man.” Fenris started, “But, over the last few days, you’ve fractured relationships, drugged yourself, killed three men, and dragged your best friend into your mess.” Jason was starting to get frustrated, this was not what he was used to in the forest.
“You cannot help us if you cannot help yourself, Jason.
So I will not be seeing you again until you fix what has been broken.
Here, and there.” Fenris turned.
“Come, Daphis.” Daphis and Fenris disappeared as soon as they appeared.
Jason was defeated.
He’d been abandoned here, abandoned there, and he didn’t have anybody to blame but himself.
He turned back to the cliff, and on the face of the cliff, at eye level to him, was the same sheet of paper in the envelope he pulled off the driver.
Jason looked at it once and immediately realized what he had to do.