Rewind (Vanish Book Three) by Sonny Daise

wouldn’t think that would be possible,
but if it was, it was nice to know for future reference.
    Dante turned over and looked up at me
with half-opened eyes. He smiled and for a moment, I got the same
feeling I’d had many times before. I wanted to run; I wanted to be
normal, and I wanted to be with him.
    “ What time is it?” he
yawned.
    “ I don’t know, but I don’t
think I can fall back asleep.”
    “ Why?”
    “ I had a nightmare,” I said,
embarrassed. He got up and sat next to me on the couch. I had the
only blanket, and as he sat, I threw it over him.
    “ What was it
about?”
    “ The Alliance, but I don’t
remember what happened.”
    “ I’ll go get you some water
and see what time it is.” He was trying not to sound as nervous as
he looked. I forgot about his dreams of us; he knew my dreams
always meant something, and now we were both worried.
    He came back in with two glasses of
water. He sat across from me and just stared. It looked as if he
was concentrating on something.
    “ What?” I asked when I
couldn’t handle it anymore.
    “ It’s only three, are you
sure you can’t go back to sleep?” he said as he snapped out of
it.
    “ No, but you can go back to
sleep if you want. Here take the couch,” I offered as I got
up.
    “ No, I’m fine. I’ll stay up
with you.”
    “ Okay,” I smiled as I got
back under the blanket.
    “ So, what is your absolute
favorite thing to do? Before everything happened, I
mean.”
    “ I would have to say hanging
out with you—well and Grace obviously, how about you?” I
wondered.
    “ Well, lately, dreaming.
I’ve been having some crazy dreams—most of them were about you. Us
playing in my backyard, we couldn’t have been much older than ten.
I just don’t understand why I’m having these dreams.”
    “ I have a theory.” It was a
theory that I just came up with. In my mind, there were two
Dante’s, but now I wholeheartedly believed that there was only one.
“Dante’s ghost came to me the other day. He said the future no
longer exists. I mean, there will be a future, just not the one
that I came from. So if that’s true, that means Dante never died, I
think his ghost—“
    “ You think… you think that
he’s a part of me now?”
    I sighed. I didn’t know how else to
explain it, “basically, yeah.”
    “ Wow, so I guess we’ve
already been friends….”
    “ In the best of my memories
and in your dreams, yes,” I said. “But it’s alright if you still
want to be only friends.”
    He looked down, “okay.”
    “ So, how do you think
tomorrow’s going to go? I’m a little concerned,” I
admitted.
    “ I don’t know. I have no
idea what to imagine. My dreams have helped me in other aspects of
this, but I can’t even imagine how the Alliance is when they’re
prepared and determined enough to get something.”
    “ Yeah, I don’t know what to
expect either; I don’t think any of us do.”
    We sat there for a while, huddled under
the blanket together, even though it was no colder than sixty
degrees Fahrenheit. After a while, Dante fell asleep, and I was
left alone with my thoughts.
    I looked toward the window;
the sun was just about to come up. I saw something blur past it.
Dante was fast asleep next to me, and I didn’t want to bother him,
so I got up and looked out the peep hole. I saw nothing. I looked
for a few more seconds and finally, saw someone walking around the
front yard. It was a girl with long, flowing brunette hair; she
wore a dress that was torn near the bottom. She looked like she
couldn’t possibly be any trouble. In fact, she looked like she
might be in trouble.
    I opened the door slowly, trying not to
wake Dante. When she saw me, she stopped dead in her tracks and
stared at me. I went closer to her; she looked
frightened.
    “ Are you okay?” I
asked.
    “ Yes, but you’re not,” she
said in a small, sweet, but disturbingly truthful voice.
    “ What do you mean?” I
wondered.
    “ You’re not the only one