Wild Sage

She didn't take me. Something's wrong. And I've had another nightmare.

I spent most of the day at the beach. I took my time with my final novel, my final playthrough of my favorite album, my final beer... I took my time so it could all sink in.

I called up my mother. I wanted to say sorry for everything, and I wanted to thank her for everything too... but I couldn't do it. So I just checked up on her really quick. I didn't call John. I didn't want to bother him. I thought he'd probably be busy at work or something.

And Peter...

I got back to the apartment around 5. I went into my room, and took that old chest full of photos out of my nightstand drawer. I gently picked out that picture of Holly, and I fell asleep with it facing me.

I was consumed in those memories once again, but this time, I knew from the start that something was wrong about them. Everything felt so fake, so unreal. Like we were literally on a movie set, just reciting from an actual script.

It started off at the earliest part of the end; us getting into that car. We were teasing each other, as usual. We didn't think about it at all, just leaving that office behind and heading towards our new mission.

Usually, in the memory, Holly reads out the info surrounding the case, and we discuss it. But this time, as soon as we entered the car, ... she disappeared. I couldn't even really fully register that fact because then something wrapped around my throat, and I'm pulled back through something that wasn't my chair anymore.

I'm drowning in water. Bubbles escape in a flurry away from my mouth; my oxygen was leaving me behind. I don't try looking back to whatever was killing me. I decided to just accept death.

But of course that didn't work. My lungs are filled with air once again, and I'm standing in a field. The sky radiates green, and a foul creek-like smell blows with the wind.

It feels like I've been here before, but it's become something different in this nightmare. It feels like something took something familiar and their presence made it... foreign, to me.

Something manifests behind me. I'm afraid to look back, but I do it anyways.

A green substance floats in the air. It felt so alien to me, that substance. It was like a cross between smoke and some type of liquid; and yet, also like some type of flame.

That presence felt so wrong. It didn't belong in my dreams. It wasn't a piece of me, it was something else.

And then it spoke.

"Hello, James."

That's when I woke up. It's morning.

What was that thing?