Our Future

I chased after Gabriel, worried.

“Do you really not remember how you got into that alley?” I ask quietly after catching up to him.

“I told you, no. It’s blurry. I don’t know what happened, Nathan,” he replies.

“Well, what can you make of the blurriness?” I ask.

“Nothing, aside from colors and shapes,” he mumbles not wanting others to hear I assume.

“Gabriel, slow down. I’m just worried, please,” I plead.

“I know you’re worried, you’re my boyfriend. You’re supposed to worry,” he comments quietly.

It’s the first time he’s said that out loud without really caring that people are around.

As we approach the hallway that has the three rooms the people we brought from the school we hear the children’s voices, screaming and laughter. Unlike at the school the children’s room is filled with toys as well as beds. It’s like one giant sleepover room in a rich kid’s house. Somehow this place still had working electronics like laptops. I wasn’t sure if the internet was working here but at least the children were entertained.

Anna was playing dress up with Mark, she was a princess and he was a pirate. Sam was concentrating on a video game, something called Alone In The Dark, must of been an older game cause I’d never heard of it.

Gabriel seemed enlightened by seeing his sister happily playing with someone her own age. They were like us when we were kids; accept we didn’t play dress up. Gabriel smiled; it was nice after everything that had happened.

“Gab!” Anna called excited. She hobbled over to us in her little pink dress holding a shiny, gold crown.

Gabriel knelt down. Anna placed the crown on his head. He fixed it so it was straight; it was a bit small for him though.

Sam was beyond that age, he’d start growing out of it just before the apocalypse started. He became more independent, entertained himself and toke me for granted. I use to love playing cars, and dinosaurs with him, it reminded me of being his age. The apocalypse had just made it happen faster because I wasn’t around as much.

“You can be the king, Gab, okay?” Anna squeaked in her toddler voice.

“Sure,” Gabriel replies.

“I’m a pirate and I’m here to steal your treasure,” Mark babbles pointing a fake sword at Gabriel.

“Please spare me and my sister,” Gabriel joked.

I laughed.

“Give me your treasure,” Mark squeaked.

Anna came back carrying a leprechaun hat full of plastic gold coins with four leaf clovers on them.

“Shu, pirate! This is our treasure go find your own,” Anna replies.

“Treasure!” Mark remarks gleefully taking hold of the other side of the hat and tugging.

Gold coins go flying all over the floor. Mark and Anna scramble to collect the coins. Mark starts stuffing them into his pockets and Anna back into the hat.

“Give my coins back,” demands Anna still pretending.

“No,” Mark remarks running away.

“Why don’t we share our treasure with him?” Gabriel suggests.

“Okay!” says Anna happily.

She dumps the hat on the floor and starts dividing the gold coins into two. She slides Mark’s half towards him and puts hers back in the hat.

“They’re cute,” I mumble. “I wish I could be that naïve again.”

“But then they wouldn’t exist and we wouldn’t know who we truly are,” Gabriel whispers.

“I know but it would solve a lot of our problems, too,” I whisper sitting down beside him.

“Dammit, stupid game,” Sam cursed as his character fell from the side of a building.

“It’ll be interesting to see them grow,” Gabriel replies.

“It would be more interesting if the world was like before,” I mumble.

“At least we’re alive, we could have died,” he whispers quietly.

He reaches over and grabs my hand. I look down but everything is blurry. I sigh, stupid visions. They were nice to have but they hadn’t saved Melody from dying or Gabriel from being shot.

Everything turned static, like the first TVs in black and white. I could still feel Gabriel’s hand in mine but his grip had tightened, he was probably concerned about the vision. Even if there was a reason now for why I had powers didn’t mean we didn’t worry something could go wrong in the process. The flicking exploded with a white light and a minor symbols sound. Gabriel’s grave appeared to me, but the plants around it had grown and the headstone impressions had faded a bit.

I saw Anna who looked about twelve which meant it had been four years since Gabriel’s death according to the vision. A fifteen-year-old looking Sam appeared. He looked a lot like me. They didn’t seem to know I was there. Anna toke Sam’s hand, it was cute even if technically if we ever got married they’d be brother and sister by law. Sam looked down at Anna and then back at the grave then he seemed to notice me.

Shock spread across his face, like I was a ghost or something, had I died in their reality? No, how? It was bad enough we had to worry about Gabriel’s death happening within the next two years we didn’t need to be worrying about me, too. The scenery changed and I saw myself hanging from a tree on a hill. No, I couldn’t of... In their reality, did I commit suicide? Why, I know I’d be sad if I lost Gabriel but I thought I would have been strong and moved on and find someone else if I wasn’t able to prevent his death. It’s what he would have wanted.

I looked at myself closely, my face was bruised. Suddenly I seized up. I reached for the rope but then saw myself. “Cain,” I said choking, “Responsible. Watch out for the river.”

I went limp again.

River? What river? The vision ended and I jumped when I awoke.

“You’re up,” Gabriel breathed. We were still sitting on the floor of the children’s warehouse room. I had been resting against Gabriel so it looked like I’d fallen asleep.

Sam was still playing his video game and Mark and Anna were playing store now, using the gold coins to pretend to buy things.

“How long was I out?” I ask nervous they might have noticed.

“Five minutes,” he mumbled. “What did you see?”

“Cain kills us. We’re supposed to watch out for a river for some reason, too,” I whisper.

“A river? Do you drown?” he asks.

“No, he hung me in a tree, I don’t know why the ‘me’ in the vision said to look out for a river,” I reply.

“You talk to yourself? That must have been creepy,” he adds.

“I saw future Anna and Sam, they looked a lot like me and Grace,” I whisper.

“How old were they?” he asks nervously.

“Anna looked twelve and Sam, fifteen,” I reply.

“We die within the next six years, that’s terrible,” he whispers.

“That’s why we have to try and prevent it,” I counter.

“I remember what happened,” he mumbles.

“It came back?” I ask surprised.

“I left and I remember someone calling my name and I followed it, I followed it to the alley and then something flew past me and scratched me, then something hit me in the back of the head, they probably gave me a concussion causing the memory loss, I saw a black figure with wings over me. Jasper wouldn’t do something like that, neither would you or Daniel. If it were Cain he probably would have killed me so I don’t know who it was,” he replies. “I fell unconscious and woke up just a couple minutes before you found me.”

“There’s another angel,” I whisper.

“Yeah,” Gabriel comments.

Anna and Mark have started to play restaurant, Anna is pretending to cook a plastic egg and Mark is sitting at a table with a plate and utensils. Sam is still concentrating on his video game.

“Nathan,” I heard Daniel call.

I turn towards the door and rise slowly. He was no longer on crutches so Jasper must have healed his leg.

“We just found two survivors who claim to be your friend and cousin,” he replies quietly.

“Okay, do they want to see me?” I ask puzzled by who it could be.

“You and Gabriel,” he replies quietly.

Gabriel joins me at the door.

“Bye,” Anna calls.

She didn’t seem as worried that Gabriel might not return. Maybe it was because she sensed he wasn’t in danger, it was hard for me to believe Sam and Anna had no angel genes at all.

Gabriel waves to her and Mark and we follow Daniel down the hall. We follow him out to the open part of the warehouse.

There were two young people one a girl and one a boy. The girl looked about my age. The girl from the back looked like Melody. But I knew that was impossible. The male looked like my cousin Toby; he had black hair and looked younger by a year or two.

Daniel tapped the girl on the shoulder and pointed behind him at us.

The girl turned around. It was Melody. I noticed the remains of the bite from the zombie on her arm; it was just small white scar marks now. It had to be a ghost. This was impossible.