(Inspired by the album, "Elysian Fields" by Thom Brennan)

The soft, hollow echo of beautiful, etheric music was everywhere around him. He became aware of other things, such as how unworldly it sounded, like the aural equivalent of a still, quiet pond untouched by man, undisturbed by cares or troubles or stresses of any kind. 

It made his heart sing.

And when it sang, the sound joined the beautiful, haunting melody cushioning his soul, bringing a backdrop of star clusters into focus - stars that were like dust against the inky depths of space. They came together in clouds as soft as silk and yet there were several of these stars that were a hundred times more brilliant that shone against the nursery of new possibilities being born from gravity compression and hot gasses within in the depths of the silken space clouds.

He held his breath.

Zach

The young cameraman awoke with another’s name on his lips. A name he remembered across time, across lifetimes...

Across everything new and modern, back into the depths ancient, primordial swamps where only dragonflies danced.

By the time he woke up fully, the name had been forgotten, but not the words now upon his lips.

My Queen. I await you...

“Wow, you look like hell.”

Zach yawned and scratched his unruly hair as he shuffled to the kitchen counter to pour himself some coffee. One sniff told him Rick had made it too strong again. Looking around, he spied the ‘fridge, making a straight line for it, dumping the coffee and cup in the sink, grabbing another clean cup on his way to his target.

“Hey, you could have given it to me,” his roommate complained from the table.

“Hmm? Oh yeah, I guess,” Zach shrugged, capturing the gallon pitcher of water and pouring himself something less lethal. He closed the icebox door and made his way to the other chair at the table in the sunny kitchen nook. He settled in, drank the entire glass, contemplating his regret he hadn’t brought the picture back with him when he caught his co-worker looking at him, shaking his head. “What?”

“How the heck do you do that?” Frick asked.

“Do what?” the cameraman shrugged, heading back to get the pitcher, bringing it to the table as he poured himself another glass.

“You drink like a fish, dude,” came the half-grunt, half-laughed reply.

“That term, my friend, is reserved for drunks,” he replied smoothly. “While I like booze as much as any other twenty-year-old, I never drink so much I am impaired, especially during work.” He downed the glass, poured himself another and was already nearly done with it when he paused and added, “Marilee would kill me.”

“Marilee can hold more booze than you and I put together,” Rick agreed, working on his own breakfast. His eyes kept straying back up to Zach, however, watching him. He shrugged and returned to eating.  “And the boss-lady would kill you if you lost your camera rig.”

Zach laughed, working now on another glass. “Are you kidding? I’ve held onto that camera during a riot, a mugging and when I got knocked out by that stray bottle of Jack Daniels in that bar fight last month. I’ll take that rig to my grave, even though it weighs fifty pounds,” he muttered. Returning to the peace and quiet state he liked to exist in most of the time, his gaze strayed to the window, enjoying the warmth and brightness of the sun as it washed over him. It felt as natural as the darkness surrounding him in his dream... 

There was silence for a moment in which he felt a slight shiver at the last, as if someone was paused to contradict the circumstances of his yet-to-happen demise. “Sheesh, you leave a window open, Rick? I just got a chill.”

Not even pausing for an answer, Zach refilled his glass yet again and downed it. 

“Are you all right, man?”

A voice tickled his senses, as soft, as haunted as in his dreams. I await you, my dear one…

“So do I.”

“What?”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry,” Zach apologized. “I must have said that out loud.”

“No, not for that.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What then?” he asked, the now empty pitcher already back in his hand for yet another glass.

“Zach, you just drank five glasses of water in as many minutes,” Rick replied, concern lacing his voice. “And you’re going for another one!”

“Yeah? So? I’m thirsty. What of - “

“Dude, look at your glass!”

Zach stopped and looked. It wasn’t a glass. It was their smaller, decorative pitcher that was twice the size of the biggest glass in the house.

“Are you sure you don’t have a drinking problem, Mr. Frack?”

The question annoyed the cameraman. He looked up from the couch to the therapist - a tall, thin and anemically pale man who gave him the willies worse than any human he had ever met. 

And he had met the worst of Moonville in his line of work.

“Don’t drunks have drinking problems?” he asked, trying not to sound as bored and annoyed as he felt.

“Yes, it would be peculiar,” the therapist replied smoothly. “And just as hard to fight as obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

That pissed Zach off. He sat up, feeling his temper flare up. “Hey, I DON’T HAVE OCD, got it?”

His patient’s temper didn’t ruffle the doctor in the very least. Eyes of ice-cold, pale blue met Zach’s golden gaze, looking right through him.

Zach would have won the staring match if two things hadn’t happened. The first was the unexplained chill of fear that coursed through him at the doctor’s callous, clinical gaze. The second was the reflection in the mirror behind the doctor when he happened to look past the psychiatrist.

The speed at which his patient bolted from the couch - as if he had been picked up and bodily throw backwards - broke the therapist’s acerbic stare. “Mr. Frack!” was all he had time to say before the cameraman was crouched in a defensive position halfway across the room, a hiss of fear and surprise escaping his patient’s lungs in panic at something he had seen.

The doctor whirled around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Just his room, the wall across from his desk - and a mirror. 

He was at Zach’s side before the young man could quell his panic - in fact, the doctor’s approach actually increased his level of panic. His reflection…

His reflection…

Desperate to get himself under control, Zach closed his eyes, slowed his breathing. The dream. Think of the dream this morning. Don’t - just calm down, man, he told himself firmly.

“Mr. Frack. What did you see?”

No.

“What did you see?” the doctor repeated, insisting.

Keep your eyes closed, Zach, he thought. Keep ‘em shut, dammit! He wished the bastard would stop asking. “I - uh - nu - nuthing,” he stammered.

“That is highly doubtful, Mr. Frack,” the cold voice insisted smoothly. “Such a violent reaction smacks of post-traumatic - “

Zach’s temper flared. “Yeah, well, I ain’t got PTSD either, asshole,” he muttered, a flood of adrenalin and fear curbing his outward show of anger as he tried to back away from the creature...man...whatever…

But then, instead of the doctor trying to calm him down or curse him, Zach Frack was met with silence. Carefully the reporter cracked open an eye, focusing on the therapist, not the mirror. 

The doctor looked at him curiously, cocking his head. The gesture was familiar and for some reason, it calmed Zach down where words had not.

“What is an ‘asshole’?” the therapist asked.

It was almost comical. The guy didn’t know what an asshole was? “Uh, you’re kidding, right?”

Finally, with his fear under better control, Zach rose from the floor where he had come to rest, under the french doors leading out to the patio and water fountain beyond. “I’m - I’m going to get some air,” Zach stammered. Before the therapist could protest, the wiry young man had unlocked the door, opened it and escaped the room, coming to rest at the edge of the garden’s central water sculpture.

He watched his patient quickly relax, the man running a hand through his sandy, brownish hair,  straightening his leather jacket. The doctor looked back at the mirror that has inspired such terror in his restless young patient. Ah yes, of course, he grunted, making a note in Zach’s chart.

Turning back to the patio, he was surprised Zach was gone. He had only glanced away for a second.

The psychiatrist frowned. “Dammit, of course he fled. Especially if he were one of her - “

“Dr. McLaren?”

“Yes, Tora, what is it?”

“Do you want me to run Mr. Frack’s card for the visit?” the receptionist asked.

McLaren glanced at the mirror, his eyebrow raising. A red dragonfly had flown in and was clinging to its surface. Frowning, the doctor grabbed a magazine from his desk, rolled it up and slowly approached the insect. He raised a hand, making a harsh gesture at Nurse Tora when she threatened to speak again.

SLAP!

The dragonfly, thoroughly squashed, slid towards the floor. It was only then that McLaren turned back to his assistant. “Yes, Ms. Bearilou. Zach Frack will not return. Run it at once.” As she began to leave, he said as an afterthought, “and bring me my medical bag. I have a bug to gut.” He smacked his lips, feeling a twinge of relief and thirst for reasons only he knew.

When he returned to the now-dead invader, it was gone.

Cursing his careless distractedness, he sighed. “Of course. Mirrors tell the truth - for both of us.” He bent down, capturing a drop of dragonfly’s blood on the tip of his finger. It shimmered and disappeared before he could raise it to his lips. Sighing in disappointment, he stood up, straightening the mirror, but on second thought, put it in the closet, just in case. 

For next time.

Dr. McLaren closed the french doors to his office, shutting out the natural world beyond. “You will be quite sore tonight, Mr. Frack.” A cruel smile graced his lips. “I wonder how you will explain that to your roommate?”...

Fini