The windows stay down on the ride home, wind whipping through the car to fill the silence. I handle the tiny winding roads well: Mirana never liked driving. Makes sense when that’s what killed her. But if she had drove like I insisted then I would have been the victim in the passenger seat instead of this pathetic survivor. And she wouldn’t be gone.

Going home feels like defeat, but I did all I could. Even committed crimes and desecrated a corpse. Mirana didn’t deserve that.

“What the hell was I thinking,” I say to myself. It was her cave, her grandfather’s legend and I just, well, ruined the whole image of it to say the least. But he has been right; the lights had come back with the tremors but no voices nor shadowed locks of floating hair.

I stop at the gas station in town to fill up. The automated cashier is nice enough. They’re all programmed that way but they comfort me. No need to overthink conversational cues when a robot will do it for me.

“Cheers good sir!” It says to me when I get my receipt. The manager has something of a sense of humor. I nod at the device and see myself out into the orange colored evening. The trip is two hours there and back but it is a gorgeous one. Trees peek out from behind small town buildings and dilapidated factories. Whippoorwills hoot their haunting tunes across gullies.

My apartment complex comes to life on the weekends. At least one cube in the tall rectangle blares music into the night, plenty full of families forced into small spaces against downtown lights. Midweek leaves it a ghost town which is more my speed. I close myself off on the third floor and reluctantly face my living space. Voids exists where books and paintings used to like a half-finished puzzle. The kitchen is pitiful without Mirana around to organize it. I make a point to straighten the magnets on the fridge before dropping into the couch. Mirana’s TV is gone but I have no desire to hear any more sounds. the AC thrumming in the background is miserable enough for now.

I don’t want the choking gasps that come with crying but they come regardless. I curl up with a sniffle and rub my eyes. I rub them again. Wait....

My eyes shot open. the lease-ready walls glare back with resounding clarity. I’ve needed glasses since I was a child. I must have lost them in the cave but I’ve always needed them for everything.

Great. Brought no one back from the dead but at least my eyesight is fixed, I think bitterly. The couch embraces me once more. Exhaustion takes me before I realize.

I’m awakened just as quickly by pounding on the door. I glance at my phone as I shuffle to the door and see it’s three in the morning.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Kikito stares at me on the other side hastily dressed in civilian garb instead of the red Ranger coat and hat.

His eyes widen and he says, “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“How did you find my apartment?” I ask. He stares back so intently I book it to my bathroom mirror. Soft green orbs glow back at me. No pupils or irises, just a shiny glow a cat’s eyes wear at night. I jump back and fall out of the bathroom, knocking down a photograph of Mirana and I at the beach. Kikito is already in my apartment picking it up.

“Is this her? The girl in the urn?” He asks.

“Yeah. Her name was Mirana,” I reply.

“Is,” he says. My blood rushes away from my brain.

“Is?” I ask quietly, He looks at me and yelps.

“Dude seriously what is wrong with your eyes what did you do?”

“Nothing! I didn’t do anything.” I steady myself and look again. Kikito turns the lights on. Familiar green eyes settle back into my dark frame. Kikito frantically fiddles with the switch until I stop him.

“Did you use her to fix your eyes?”

“Excuse me? Why would you ask someone that?” I demand.

“I don’t know I’m panicking,” he exclaims and makes himself take a deep breath before continuing, “did you have a dream?”

“Unless this is one.”

“You’d remember this one,” he says cryptically. He sits down at the nearest chair in the living room.

I scoff and say, “What the hell are you talking about? Did a dream tell you where I live?” To my worry, he shakes his head.

“No, that...that I just know. It felt like I’ve driven to your apartment a hundred times. It can’t be a coincidence,” he says firmly. I sit down next to him.

“Talk to me,” I say.

“It was so clear I remember it perfectly. But it was fragments. So many colors and there was an ocean but there wasn’t a single star in the sky. No sun or moon or clouds. Black sky and black water.”

“Was she there?”

“I’m not finished. It shifted and there was this mass of lights and colors at the bottom of the ocean and then it was her. I’ve never seen her before in my life but I know that was Mirana just like I know where you live,” Kikito finishes. I just stare at him. I want to call him insane but I got cat eyes.

“What was she doing down there?” I ask after a moment.

“She met something. A thing of eyes that turned into a faceless person,” Kikito says and looks at me, “I think we need to go get her.”

I laugh. There’s nowhere on earth you can find a place where there’s an ocean the stars can’t touch. I’m no expert on geography but I am a sucker for fun facts and I know I would have come across that one by now.

Still, my heart flutters. The sound of her giggle, her sassy eyebrows of disapproval, fresh linen from the detergent she insisted we use.

“What can we do about it? A place like that can’t exist,” I say but Kikito won’t have it.

“We gotta start with the cave. An answer’s gotta be there,” he says confidently. I nod without hesitation.

“It sounds like a terrible idea. I’ll pack us some stuff,” I reply. Kikito flashes a grin before getting serious again.

“I wouldn’t be bothering you if I didn’t feel sure about this. I felt crazy coming to you until I saw your cat eyes.”

“I trust you, for some reason. Maybe it’s the sincerity,” I say. It’s the best response I can give. This man might be crazy, but he knew where I lived. He knew what color hair she had. And he hasn’t murdered me yet. I look around my apartment. The walls don’t feel so choking. Maybe something of hers will adorn them again.