Rise by Amir Lane

Author:Amir Lane
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub

16

There was fire in his dreams. It surrounded him, swallowed him, and he couldn't even scream.

It was the same thing every night. Zven would be in front of him, blood seeping into his clothes from the wounds spread across his chest and stomach. The red spots would grow until they met and stained his entire shirt. He would start to scream and scream and scream and the blood would be replaced with fire. Ekkehardt would try to reach out, only to find himself frozen as the flames rose and filled the empty space they were in.

And then he would wake up, covered in sweat and screaming Zven’s name. The first few nights, Liese and Jakob would rush in to make sure he was okay. They didn’t check in on him anymore. It should have bothered him, but it was a relief.

He wasn’t alone when he woke up tonight, though. There was something on top of him, weighing down on his chest and stomach, pressing down on his throat. He gasped and thrashed against it.

His room was hot. So hot. So hot, he couldn’t breathe.

Someone’s hands were grabbing, tugging at him. Not tugging, yanking. Pulling. He opened his eyes. He was still dreaming. The fire was still there, eating his curtains and creeping across his carpet. He could barely see the flames through the thick, black smoke. It was like a blanket. Maybe that was where the expression came from. Blanket of smoke.

“Ekkehardt! Ekkehardt, for the love of God, wake up!” Jakob screamed.

Jakob had never been in his dream before. And he’d never actually felt the heat. It was… It was…

“Ekkehardt!”

He jerked upright, inhaling a lungful of black smoke and regretting it immediately. He choked. His eyes burned and watered and if not for Jakob dragging him out of his room, he probably would have walked right into the wall. Actually, he would have still been in bed. In the same bed that was currently being swallowed by flames.

There was a shape in the middle of the fire. A person.

“Zven!”

It came out as a cough. If Jakob understood him, or even heard him, he didn’t say anything. He was too busy pulling Ekkehardt out of the house and dumping him unceremoniously on the lawn. Who knew he was so strong? And who knew grass could feel so good? And air! Clean air. He took breath after breath until he was nearly hyperventilating. There were Feuerwehr putting out the fire that only seemed to be in his bedroom. It was difficult to see the dark blue uniforms against the night sky.

Fire escaped through the blown-out window. For a brief moment, it came together in a cohesive shape, a very familiar cohesive shape.

“Zven,” he whispered.

“Zven’s gone,” Jakob said, lying back on the grass.

Liese was across the street, screaming that she didn’t know this was going to happen.

“He did this,” Ekkehardt said between coughs.

“Ekkehardt. Zven is gone,” Jakob reminded him.

“He tried to kill me.”

Jakob rolled over to face him. Ekkehardt was still staring at the spot where Zven had formed.

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