Fates' Bane

Everything was dark. Flashes of memory ran through my mind as I walked through the ill-lit forest, not bothering to dodge the mass of trees and branches, I had no destination in mind. I was dizzy and disoriented. Despite the darkness, I could see everything clearly. It was like night vision, but more natural. I reached a clearing. The moon shone aloft and in the middle of it was a tree stump. There was something eerie about this location. The tree stump had been the only one cut down and I had an uncanny feeling that it had been done many moons ago. Yet there was no sign of decay or growth. It seemed frozen in time. I cautiously made my way towards it, intrigued, ignoring the feeling of dread creeping up on me. And then everything changed. The Earth engulfed me, slowly pulling me down as I fought to break free. It wasn’t quicksand, I had been walking on flat Earth, on grass, yet I was still sinking. I kicked, I struggled and I cried out to no avail, and right before I was entirely submerged, only one name came to mind. “Damian!” And then I was gone. Everything was dark. I arrived in a large room, possibly a house, but there was no furniture in sight and most importantly, there were no doors. The room was completely empty, or so I thought. I seemed to have subconsciously taken notice of the large sheet of glass bisecting the room, but I had not been paying enough attention to notice. As I stared at the glass sheet, it seemed to become more concrete, more real. I had a sudden urge to avert my eyes but an unearthly feeling kept me focused. I observed the glass sheet and the longer I stared, the stronger the urge to look away. Just as I was about to give up, something happened. The air behind the glass seemed to peel away, like stripped paint. And then a figure materialized behind it. “Damian!” I screamed his name, over and over again, banging on the glass, punching it until my hands bled. He seemed unable to hear me. An unnatural chill ran across the room. Damian disappeared and I was suddenly reading words in an unknown language, written across the glass in blood. Ένα δέντρο δηλητηριάσεων. And then once again, everything went dark.

I woke up in a cold sweat, heart racing, unable to breathe. I spent a minute regulating my breathing, trying to calm down. Once I was fully aware of my surroundings, I noticed my best friend sitting on the bed, next to me. I had almost forgotten that I was at her house. I spent most of my time here, not having anyone to keep me company at home, since my mother was always working and my father was absent. I had a sister too, but she made it clear that she thought I was abnormal, and moved out really early. She was right. I didn’t know what it was, but I had always been strange. Different. It might have been because of the way I acted. Or possibly because of the elephant in the room. Predicting the future was definitely not normal. But my best friend had never made me feel abnormal. She was cautious when I was like this, like I was fragile, but she was a better everything. A better person, a better sister and a better friend. Her home was my home, and one thing I appreciated about her house was that she had bunk beds in her room, so I could sleep in the same room without her brother feeling agitated. There was a guest room too, but I did not like being alone. And her brother and I hadn’t reached that part of our friendship yet. I opened my mouth to thank her for being there for me, but the words that left my mouth were not what I was expecting. They didn’t feel like my own. “There’s something coming.”

She looked at me sympathetically. “Another one of your nightmares? Nothing’s going to happen, it was just a dream.”

“I saw words in another language, words that I shouldn’t remember, but I remember them vividly.” I got up from the bed, searching for a piece of paper and a pen, ignoring the wave of nausea that had passed through me. It didn’t take long to find. Devyn’s room was neatly messy. Everything was always in the same place. Once I found it, I wrote down the sentence perfectly, like I was writing English. Ένα δέντρο δηλητηριάσεων. “I don’t know what language this is, and I don’t know what it means, but there’s something coming for Damian and me.” Damian was Devyn’s brother. They were twins. They both had smooth tanned skin and curly brunette hair. Devyn’s hair was long, often worn in a ponytail and Damian’s was short, a curly mess of hair just sitting atop his head. Their clothing was also similar. They both liked ripped jeans, leather and sports jackets. I had expected to find one of them wearing a cap as well. That fell to Devyn. She even wore it backwards. They were effortlessly beautiful and normal. They were what was known as ‘cool.’ I couldn’t say the same for myself. I had short blond hair which wouldn’t look too bad if it wasn’t for my very fair skin. Devyn often said I was ‘Hot. Like a blond Edward Cullen.’ I didn’t know how to feel about that. Unlike the twins, I had no sense of fashion. I often just wore jumpers and jeans. I was what was known as ‘uncool.’ Yet out of all the people in our school, they had chosen to be friends with me. Well, Damian had been dragged into it, but he didn’t seem to mind. That had been stranger to me than my premonitions and that made them cooler than any designer clothes or popularity status ever could.

“It was just a bad dream, El. It’s not going to come true. Premonitions aren’t real.” Of course she didn’t believe me. Damian wouldn’t believe me either. In fact, Damian didn’t like when I talked about it at all. Or when I talked about anything possibly supernatural. It often hurt me, how bothered about it he seemed. I didn’t understand why, but I would respect it. I couldn’t blame them though. I couldn’t expect them to believe in something as surreal as predicting the future. I didn’t even know if I was being reasonable. I had dreamt of things happening before they happened in the past, but that might just have been I was subconsciously aware of it. There was this one time where I felt like I was reliving a scene from a movie. It was when I first met Devyn. The sense of Déjà vu as we bumped into each other in class irked me. It bothered me all day, until I eventually forgot about it. There was something about this particular dream that I had had, that was different from the others. I was certain it was going to come true. Something was coming, and something told me that Damian and I had to stick together. No matter what.

“Yeah, maybe.” I looked at the clock, sitting on the nightstand. 12:50. “Anyways, I think I might just go back to bed. You don’t have to stay with me.”

Devyn ignored me. She picked up the piece of paper I had written on and studied it for a few seconds before whispering. “A poison tree.”

“What? Is that what it means? How do you know? What language is it in?

“I- I have no idea how I know, but I think that’s what it means. And I think it’s in Greek.

“Did you study Greek? Read books in Greek perhaps?”

“No, not at all. I’ve never read it in my life… A poison tree. What does that even mean?”

“I’m not sure, but I recognize it. I just can’t remember where. A premonition doesn’t sound so unrealistic now, does it?”

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation as to why I understand it. An explanation that’s not supernatural Elliott. Now go back to bed.” Devyn smiled at me, cheekily, and then left the room, possibly to finish binge watching her latest TV show. She was a night owl. As soon as she had shut the door, I picked up the piece of paper and wrote A poison tree under the words in Greek. My first clue. Now… I just had to figure out what it meant.