Time Flamen

I stand outside the hospital, wrapped in his hoodie, staring at my phone trying to understand how the boy I watched almost die yesterday is suddenly on his way to take me to the movies. There was no sign of him in the hospital, not even a record. 

I text him back with shaky fingers.

Me: I'll meet you at the theatre.

Dean: See you there!

It's only a few blocks away. I walk because I need air, because my thoughts are too loud to be trusted with a steering wheel. When I reach the corner across from the theatre, I stop.

Dean is there. He is on the other side of the road, stepping off the curb with a small gift bag. He looks up, spots me and he breaks into that familiar smile. He lifts his hand and waves. My heart shutters as déjà vu crashes over me so hard. The scream lodged in my throat. Yesterday afternoon replays itself. 

“No,” I whisper.

A blue Buick barrels through the red light. Time slows, I see it all at once. The panic in Dean's eyes, the gift bag flying. The impact is achingly familiar. His body hits the pavement, the car slams into the lamp post with the same metallic scream, in the same place, at the same angle. Exactly like yesterday.

I run.I don't remember crossing the street. I drop beside him hands hovering over his bloody body. Everything becomes blurry, I feel my body drop and then darkness.

When I wake up the lights stab into my eyes.

Hospital, again.

I sit up, Dean is not there.

No machines, no trace, nothing. 

I stumble out of the room, down the corridor, past nurses and strangers, until I am outside. The world seems to be spinning.

“What is this?” I whisper.

“I have completely lost my senses.”

“Raina.”

I turn, and there's a girl about my age standing right behind me. She is in the exact same clothes as me.

“Do I know you?” I ask.

“No, But I know you.” She says, “Because you are the only one who can fix this.”

I look at her confused. She steps closer. 

“ My name is Axi, and I am a time guardian.”

I laugh, " Wow, I have really lost it, must be the side effects of watching sci-fi.'

“Dean Lake will die everyday,” she says calmly. “Until time becomes extremely unstable that lives will change, wrong families and wrong outcomes. chaos.”

My stomach twists. “Why me?”

“ Because you are a time Flamen, You were made for this, a fail safe meant to save humanity if time ever got corrupted, like now.”

“What's the catch?” I ask, already knowing there has to be one, thanks to the sci-fi movies.

“You will disappear. this kind of damage requires an anchor that will burn through the corruption.” she says softly." No one will remember you, not even Dean."

The words drain me. I think of Dean's bloody face, his laugh.

“What happens to Dean?”

“He lives, normally.”

I close my eyes. The world is beautiful. Dean's smile is beautiful.

“Let's save the world.” I say.

Axi nods and gestures forward as the air splits open, revealing a shimmering passageway, visible only to us.

“Once you go through,” she says, “everything will be normal again.”

I take a deep breath, for the world and for Dean. I step through and the corridor hums. I see moments flicker past- My first kiss with Dean, the time mom got me a car for my birthday. Then memories that aren't just mine, but those of the rest of the world too.

The light fades and I am back at the hospital.

Dean sits in a wheelchair, near the window. He looks alive, he is alive.

That beautiful smile as he flips through a magazine.

He looks up.

My heart breaks beautifully.

For five seconds his eyes meet mine, before he looks away.

I want to touch his face but I can't. I am not really alive, no. I am like mist shaped into a person.

Outside, the wind brushes against what's left of me. I smile through tears as I begin to fade.

Dean lives.

Time heals, the world is safe.

Then I am gone.