Yesterday's Gone: Season One

to shake and the red light within them grew brighter, hotter.
    She closed her eyes and started slowly rocking back and forth, chanting to herself to keep the voice’s long strings of nasty words away.  
    “LEAVE!” the voice thundered.  
    Thick smoke smoldered through the room. It was what was left of the creature.  
    Paola smiled. Its anger was making her stronger.  
    The Oz-colored meadows outside flickered with ash, then turned warm again.  
    “Looks like your lie is wearing off,” she said.  
    The voice bellowed. “I’ll kill everyone left in the world, starting with your mother.” The black smoke swirled through the room, then added, “Your father’s next.”  
    Something collapsed inside Paola. The evil had found her single biggest creeping fear. She tried to keep the whimper inside, but lost it anyway.  
    The voice went still and every inch of her world was quickly turning to black, the red walls of the castle now cold and dark. Wind howled through the room, wet and so cold.  
    She squeezed her eyes shut, bit her lip and started murmuring.  
    You’re not here. You left because you’re an empty disease and I was too good for you. You can’t hurt my mother and you can’t hurt my father. You want me to leave because then you can take over.
    “But I won’t let you,” she said, standing up and opening her eyes as the smoke swirled, gathering strength from the wind, growing thicker, and louder.
    “Gooooooooooooooo!” it shouted, its voice an almost mechanical echo.
    “You go!” she yelled, “YOU GO!”
    The clouds above met the swirling smoke around her, spiraling into a funnel cloud of chaos that picked her up and lifted her toward the unseen ceiling. Scraps of memories slammed into her from all sides, coming and going so fast they blurred into one another, causing her to cry, fear, panic, rage, and scream all at once.
    I won’t go.
    She lifted higher, her body now spinning in the outer band of the swirling cloud, as if Dorothy caught in the tornado.
    She closed her eyes and thought of her parents, struggling to hold onto good memories as bad ones continued to assail her from all sides. Each time they hit her, they ripped into her body, piercing it like knives.
    I won’t go.
    Something slammed into her and she felt her body fly higher and higher, fear coursing through her, certain she was going to hit the ceiling. But she kept flying upward, caught in the tide.
    I won’t go.
    And then, like that, she was in free fall through the clouds, the dark smoke gone. She closed her eyes, praying she wouldn’t plummet to the earth only to die. Before she fell, though, she passed out.

    When she woke, she was back in Oz, under blue skies and a warm sun. She was still in the dream, but reality seemed closer than ever. She ran as fast as she could through the daisy-covered meadow to find a boy her age, or slightly older, swinging on a swing set in the middle of a clearing.  
    He slowed to a stop. “Would you like to swing with me?” he said pointing to the empty seat next to him. “I’ve been saving this one for you.”

    * * * *

LUCA HARDING

    This doesn’t feel like I thought it would. It’s like swimming, except it’s air and not water and everything is clear instead of blurry. It’s like swimming through the sky with special goggles.  
    Everything faded to white and Luca found himself walking through a large meadow with a tall wooden swing a hundred or so feet in front of him. Two empty seats were there. Luca chose the one on the left and started to swing, saving the other for Paola.  
    He could see her not too far off, stuck in the shadows with that thing that hid in the terrible scary and made all the good dreams go bad.  
    Once she knows I’m out here, she’ll want to come and join me.  
    Luca knew it with certainty, so he wasn’t at all surprised when Paola managed to make the bad disappear, then stepped outside and into their shared sun. She saw Luca, then crossed the meadow and stood beside the empty swing as he slowed to a stop.  
    “Would you like to swing with me?” he said. “I’ve been saving this one for you.”
    She said yes, then sat and started to pump her legs back and forth.  
    Up and down...up and down...up and down.  
    Luca swung too.
    Up and down...up and down...up and down.  
    They were quiet for a while until Paola finally broke the silence.  
    “Thank you.”
    “For what?”
    “Coming to help me.”
    “I’m not really sure what I