Yesterday's Gone: Season One

to ask since he had arrived with Luca. “You said you had dreams about us. What happened in the dreams? How did you know to trust them?”
    Will looked shy. “I can’t really say what happened. Long story short, whenever I tell people what happens in my dreams, it never turns out good. It’s best if I can just do what I can to try and help as much as possible.”  
    “But you can tell me what you saw with Paola, what already happened, right?”
    “I wish I could. But in her case, the details were vague. It’s not even a matter of me not wanting to tell you, I’m really unable beyond a feeling.”
    “What was the feeling?” Mary asked, leaning so far on the edge of her seat, she might fall at the slightest jolt.
    “There was something bad in her.” Will said, “Something that’s bigger than all this stuff going on. But I also knew that Luca could help her.”
    Mary stared at Will, then over at Luca, not sure what to say.
    “He’s a good kid, Mary. The best. He gave his soul a beating for Paola, and it left him with a temporary scar. You’re not sure how to feel about this, are you?”
    Mary looked down, ashamed. “I don’t know why, but I feel like something’s wrong with the whole thing, and hate that I do.” She looked up, a tear sliding to her chin. “I know what he did for her, and for me, but something feels so ugly .”
    “Look at it like this.” Will leaned forward. “Whatever happened between Luca and Paola helped her, right?”
    Mary nodded.  
    “So if there was something terrible inside Paola and now there isn’t, that means Luca took it away. So where do you think the terrible thing went?”
    Mary gasped. “Into him? That’s terrible.”
    “I think that’s why you’re sensing something bad in him. But he’s gonna be fine. Trust me. He’ll process it. If he weren’t able to, we wouldn’t be here right now. He’ll be good as new in no time. Then you’ll see what I see, and I’ll get to hear you tell me I was right.”  
    Will winked and Mary smiled.  
    “It’s all just so hard to believe,” Mary said. “I mean, how do you even know any of this? How did you know to trust your dreams and come here?”
    “I don’t, but I tend to see things a lot of people don’t.” Will said, “Most people see things from their own limited viewpoint. And that makes it hard to accept things like what we’ve got going on here. But when you consider possibilities, the things we don’t know, and keep an open mind, weird things like this, oddly enough, are a bit easier to grasp. Are common dreams really harder to believe than any of this?” He waved his hands toward the parking lot and its lurking monstrosities.
    “No,” Mary said. “Not at all. Much easier, actually.” She sat quietly, then asked, “Any theories on the aging?”
    Will scratched his head. “Sure, I got theories . Which one you want? I got the one you won’t like, the one you’ll like even less, and the one that probably won’t bother you at all, which also happens to be the one I’d say is most likely anyhow.”
    “Let’s go with that one,” Mary smiled uncomfortably then shifted in her seat.
    “You ever heard of rapid aging diseases in children?”
    “Not really.” Mary shook her head. “I mean, I think I saw something on Oprah , but I’m going to sound like an idiot if I try to tell you what I know.”
    “There’s a disorder called Progeria. It’s a genetic mutation, hereditary but just barely. Kids who get Progeria rarely live past their mid teens or early twenties. And most of the minutes spent between birth and death are misery. The disorder’s rare, but indiscriminate, hitting both sexes and every ethnic group. There are other accelerated aging diseases, but what makes Progeria different is that while other diseases are caused by DNA damage in the body’s cells, Progeria is caused by a gene mutation. With me so far?”
    Mary nodded.
    “Kids with Progeria show symptoms around a year and a half to two years old. These are the kids you’ve seen on TV: hair loss, crinkly skin, brittle bones. Even their teeth are mangled, either barely there or missing entirely. Sound like our boy to you?”
    Mary shook her head. “No, not at all.”  
    “If Progeria is a gene mutation and the other disorders are DNA related, and none fit with what’s happened to Luca, where would you guess the problem lies?”
    Before Mary could answer, John was three feet away, clearing his throat. “It’s