Still laughing, I reply,OMG, you found him!
Yeah, and you’re lucky I love you, or else that could’ve ended badly for both of us.
Love you too,I text.BTW, he’s single now if you want your shot!
She sends me the pondering emoji, then a string of laughing-crying emojis.Girl, don’t tempt me.
I send back the eggplant emoji, followed by the cactus.Just don’t mix them up,b/c good luck explaining THAT at the ER!
You are terrible and beautiful and I love you the mostest. Gotta finish packing, and no that’s not a euphemism.Call me soon!
I send her a kissy-face, then put my phone away, lying back against the sun-warmed rock to watch the clouds drift by. I guess I pass out at some point, because when I open my eyes again, the light has changed, the air a few degrees cooler.
I blink the sleep from my eyes and rub my bare arms, trying to rally. I should probably head back to my suite and shower, get some sleep in an actual bed.
As soon as I sit up, the air around me wavers, the sky flickering ominously.
It doesn’t feel like a storm, though.
It feels like a glitch in the matrix.
The breeze stills. The petrified forest, normally alive with the rustling of sagebrush and the chittering of birds and reptiles, goes completely, eerily, impossibly silent.
No animals or birds. No students on bikes along the pathways. No shouts or laughter in the distance.
I can’t even hear my own breath.
I get to my feet and peer down the path, past the rock I was climbing earlier, back in the direction toward the dorms. Suddenly my vision sharpens, zooming in close.
The dorms loom in the background, the grounds packed with students and faculty, everyone fleeing some unknown nemesis.
“What the fuck?” I gasp. Then, behind the running masses, the source of their fear emerges in the chaos.
Mages and witches with yellow glowing eyes, their skin gray and lifeless, blood dripping from their teeth. They pour in over the rocks and pathways like scampering beetles, devouring anyone in their way, leaving only bones and blood in their wake.
Bringing up the rear, a chariot roars through, mowing down some of its own soldiers. It’s drawn by two horses, a white and a black, urged on by a fierce woman with flowing auburn hair, dressed in a blue tunic and green cape, a huge staff in one hand, the reins in the other.
Behind her, an old man sits in the back, but I know in an instant he’s not some feeble, wounded passenger.
He’s the general.
Dressed in a long gray tunic and a cape made of raven feathers, he holds a single wand in his right hand, his lips uttering some terrible spell that gives the dead their strength. His blue eyes are wild with madness and purpose in equal measure.
He raises his wand higher, and the charioteer pushes her steeds harder, through crowds of the living as well as the dead. Students I recognize from my classes, Professor Nakata, Professor Maddox—all of them try to flee, and all are mangled in the wake of this deadly, gruesome army.
I try to cry out, to move, but I’m only a witness to the carnage, frozen in place, forced to watch helplessly as terror consumes the Academy. Smoke rises, the stench of blood and death turning my stomach.
Finally, from out of the smoke, an ally emerges. She runs to me, leaping onto the boulder. Her blue gown is tattered, her crown of flowers smashed and tangled in her wild dark hair.
The Princess of Swords stands before me, blood soaking her dress, a blade gripped in each hand. Her face is grim, her eyes flashing in warning.
“Help me!” I shout, finally finding my voice. “I don’t understand! Show me what to do!”
She whirls her swords in the air, those fierce eyes blazing.
Then she jabs the vicious blades into my calf.
It’s only when the images of the gruesome army fade and the pain burns hot through my veins that my Princess of Swords vanishes, and I realize she wasn't a vision at all.
