“Hello?” Jocelyn pushed a branch aside while stepping deeper into the forest. A thorn scratched her, leaving a stinging line of pooling blood on the arm holding her flashlight.

Looking through an opening in the canopy, she assessed the moon. Despite being only three-quarter full, the pale light still made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She should be safe from wolves, but there were other dangers outside at night.

She would have waited until daylight, but years ago, she had learned the hard way not to ignore her visions. Her ignorance on the warnings of her visions cost her fiancé his life, and herself any chance at happiness.

The forest opened into a clearing with a rushing, white-water river carved into smooth rocks ten feet below the path. The elevated trail hugged the river bank before descending some, squishing Jocelyn between the river and a sandstone wall. Her hand traced the cool stone as she followed the narrow path.

The details of the vision she had this afternoon turned her stomach. Somewhere, tucked away in this tan and pink sandstone was a shirtless man, about Jocelyn’s age of twenty-nine, wearing nothing but a pair of white boxers. Blood washed down his back where a glowing sword had sliced off his dark grey wings this morning. The feathered wings had flopped to the ground and disappeared in a plume of fire, leaving nothing—not even ash. The man had to have been an angel.

Jocelyn’s visions were unpredictable. Not only did she not know when they would hit, they were inconsistent. Sometimes she saw the present, and other times, she saw one possible future. If she intervened, the future may change. If she didn’t, like in the case of her fiancé, the future she saw would become a reality. 

Shortly after Jocelyn witnessed the angel with huge, white wings remove the wings of the dark-feathered man, her vision changed. The man without wings lay in the dirt, in a cavern tucked away in this forest. He winced as he repositioned on his stomach. Two, foot-long wounds leaked cloudy fluid down his bright red, swollen back. The man shivered, but his forehead glistened with sweat. Then she saw him die. The angel of death came to take his soul.

Jocelyn wrapped her free arm around her stomach and pushed her glasses up as she followed the path from the river into a cavern.

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Despite doing everything in her power to change the future when a vision hit, this one was different. This man…angel…reminded her of her fiancé. His stoic features reminded her of when her fiancé had been hurt on a camping trip and grit his teeth when the doctors put his shoulder back in its socket. She saw stubbornness in the angel, another trait he and her fiancé shared. Jocelyn had despised her fiancé’s single-mindedness at first but grew to think it was almost cute. How she missed him.

She jumped when a deep howl snaked around the rocks and wrapped her body. Her heart pounded as she rechecked that the moon was not full, then looked back the way she came. She had mapped her way to the caverns and was almost there. She couldn’t turn back. If she didn’t prevent this future, nobody would, and she did not want more guilt in her life. If she saved enough lives, would it make up for the one she ignored?

She took a few more steps along the trail, and a heaviness settled on her head, causing a throbbing pain.

No, not now!

A new vision hit her hard and fast. In one movement, she pulled off her backpack and sat on the trail. Sweat trickled down her cheek as her vision darkened. She grew rigid and flopped on the ground. Her body shook as if in the throes of a grand mal seizure. She clenched her jaw, so she didn’t bite her tongue.

That wingless angel sat on a chair facing a water fountain in a park in Jocelyn’s hometown. His hair was cropped short and peach skin replaced his pale complexion. He held a coffee cup and watched children play in the water. He appeared healthy, happy, and healed—handsome even. Then the vision switched, and he looked older. A few distinguished wrinkles around his eyes gave him an air of wisdom. He now sat inside a home, at a small kitchen table reading a newspaper. Still alive and healthy.

It was another possible future. A future Jocelyn could give him if she cleaned his wounds and helped him out of the forest.

Her visions came in pairs. This morning, one showed her what would happen if she didn’t intervene. The angel would die. The other vision showed what would happen if she did something. She’d save a life.

Sometimes helping someone was as easy as showing them their demise, other times she needed to make a more direct intervention. Jocelyn prepared for either outcome. In her backpack, she had a washcloth and a bottle of water to wash his back. She also had some antibiotic creams and a bandage to keep the wounds clean. A small intervention at the right time could make all the difference. 

Sitting up, she adjusted her glasses, rubbed the sandstone from her sweaty skin, and shook out her dark hair. She rehung her backpack over her shoulders and picked up the flashlight. Just ahead was the cavern.

More to come...