Twice Lived, Twice Loved

Chapter Four

"You know I cannot give you the drug without good reason. So why do you need it?" Her therapist asks her.

"My dreams have been chaotic lately." She says. "And it is really affecting my work life. I can barely concentrate anymore, talk less of dance. And I have a big show tomorrow. I cannot afford to have my concentration divided."

"Elizabeth dear, that sounds like you just need to sort out some personal matters, not drug yourself. Tell me about these dreams you are having." Kiara says. She is one of the best therapists on this side of the world, catering to clientele that have to pay fortunes for an hour of her time. She has been Elizabeth's therapist for up to five years now, and for all that she knows, the woman is worth every dime of her charges. She listens with an open mind and ninety nine percent of the time, pinpoints the exact problem that needs to be addressed within thirty minutes of the consultation. What sets her apart from her counterparts is that she puts in all of her efforts, uses all of her resources to find lasting solutions to all of her clients' problems. Elizabeth has no doubt that if she told her everything that has been happening to her over the last two days, she would unerringly find the best solution; to lock her up for her own protection.

"I don't remember them." She lies. "All I remember is the feeling of having terrifying dreams, so bad I wake up trembling and sweating. And that takes a toll on me all day."

"Did you ever have such dreams before? Perhaps when you were little?" Mrs. Kiara Anderson asks and she shrugs.

"I think everyone does. I used to, now and then. But I thought I had outgrown nightmares."

"Noone ever really does." Her therapist says sagely. "Our nightmares just take different shapes as we grow. I empathize with you, really. But it is still not enough of a reason to get drugs. You should try something else, meditation maybe."

"I don't have time for meditation, Kiara. Like I said, I have an important performance tomorrow. If I don't make use of today to perfect the dance, then that will possibly be the end of my career."

"And we can't have that." Kiara says.

"No. We cannot. Come on, you know I would not be asking if I felt that there were other choices." She says, attempting for persuade her. "Just enough of the drug for a few days." She says and Kiara's eyes jump to hers.

"Not just for today huh?" She asks and Elizabeth winks at her.

"A few days, Kiara. After my performance, I can work on cleansing my mind of all the junk." She says.

"As you wish, Elizabeth." She says and rises. She strides to a tall drawer and pulls out one of the compartments,rummaging through. A few moments later, she strides back to her.

"This should do the job. A dose of this and you'll sleep like a baby. The perks? A night with no dreams. But it also has side effects." She says.

"I don't care. I just don't want to dream." She says and holds a hand out for the drug. Kiara however hold it out of reach and tsks at her.

"You must never take a drug without knowing its effects and side effects. Have I taught you nothing?" She asks. Elizabeth drops her hand back to her lap with a pout.

"Fine, what are they?" She asks.

"Prolonged use of the drug is dangerous, which is why you must discontinue usage and find a more lasting solution within the week. Or else, it can lead to disorientation, convulsions, and also hallucinations." She says.

So in a nutshell, the cure to her madness also has the ability to escalate it. What could possibly go wrong with that?

She holds her hand out for the drug. "I understand. You just listed three absolute avenues to end my career."

"Glad you recognize the risk." Kiara says and places it in her palm. Her hand closes on hers and she gives it a supportive squeeze.

"Whatever it is you are going through, I want you to know that you can always talk to me, Elizabeth." She says.

"I know." She says with a smile. "It is what I pay you for."

"Little minx." She says with a fond smile and goes back to take her seat. "I hope that is the only problem you are facing."

"Sure. Everything else in my life is exactly the way it should be." She lies with a smile on her lips.

There are extents to how much a therapist can help her, her sudden problems are beyond Kiara's control.

###

The music soars high, trilling through the room, enhanced by the high walls. Her eyes are closed as she spins three times in the air before landing on the balls of her feet. Her leg slides to the back and her body tilts backwards in a wide arc, accentuating the soulful music and then she leaps and performs a split in the air, landing to do a six-turn pirouette. The song continues, the low thrums of sound tapping on her like a pianist's fingers on his keyboard. She feels light, she feels complete, she feels beyond beauty. She feels integral. Letting the music guide her, she splits on the floor and lets her body arc backwards until her shoulders are nearly touching the floor then she rises and swipes her legs over the floor in front of her before tucking them underneath her and arcing to the side. Her high ponytail grazes the floor lightly before she arcs to the other side. Her mind is gratefully empty and the steps are second nature to her from how many times she has drilled them into her muscle memory.

Finally, the last chords of the music soars through the room and her dance also comes to an end.

Elizabeth wipes her forehead glistening with sweat with a hand towel and gulps down half the content of a water bottle. A glance at her wrist shows that she has been in here for more than three hours. She can feel each of those hours in the twinges in her muscle. If she does not get her body rested, then she will turn out to be useless tomorrow after all of her practicing.

She finds herself walking to her bathroom with springy steps. Apart from the dance having cleared her head, she is very hopeful about tomorrow. With the drug Kiara had given her in her arsenal, she can at least buy some time until she can address her current biggest issue adequately. She turns the heat on the shower to near blistering and steps in, relishing the feel of it on her tense muscles. It is all the therapy that she needs. When she is done, she wraps her hair up in a towel and stands in front of the mirror.

"Mirror mirror on the wall." She says in an ominous voice. "Who is the fairest of them all?" The bathroom echoes back her voice at her and she snickers. How had she ever thought that there could be anything wrong with her? She swipes a hand over the surface of the mirror to clear it of fog and places a palm on the surface, staring into her own eyes, their brilliant blue shining with a happy light. She is fine, she has always been and she will continue to be.

When she steps out of the bathroom, the first thing she does is swallow the pill dry before taking a sip of water. With a stretch, she collapses onto the bed and folds her legs beneath her, dragging her laptop over to her. Once she is done replying her mails, it is back to a night of peace and normalcy.

###

The familiar scene of the forest comes into view. This time around, she does not have the luxury of waiting around to get her bearings. She is crashing through the thicket with her heart beating rapidly against her throat. The forest eagerly rips into her exposed arms and blood flies in all directions but she dare not slow down. She can feel him not too far behind her, the forest parting to let him through as much as it hinders her. Almost there.

And then she clears the edge of the forest and the tall expanse of the volcanic rock comes into view. Noxious smoke billows from the top before disappearing into the ever blue sky.

Without hesitation, she runs for it and begins climbing, setting her heels on fire to aid her speed. A roar of rage resonates through the air, causing her to stumble but she dare not look back. Almost there. Finally, she crests the hill and stands before the wide expanse of molten volcanic fire. The heat billows out to enclose her in warmth, hot enough to boil the skin right off most others but not her. She was born and forged in fire and fire is but a plaything to her. He crashes into the open and she knows that he has seen her when his roar rips through the air once again. Without hesitation, she takes a step forward and then the floor gives way underneath her.

Her scream is swallowed by the heat and it is so hot inside that her skin blisters. She lands on her two feet inside the volcano, surprised to find solid rock beneath her feet and not molten lava like she had expected.

In front of her stretches several entrances to different tunnels. The woman takes a step forward and then the whole scene pitches and changes once again.

There is complete silence as she finds herself in a huge chamber with arcing pillars and huge floating balls of light. The chamber is immaculately designed, with aesthetics that would boggle a human mind. Enchanted art moves fluidly over one wall, to another side is a circular table which defies gravity by hanging suspended in the air. An image flashes through Elizabeth's mind, the same room but different. Then it had only had a huge mirror in which her reflection had been another woman, but this time it is a fully functioning chamber. Floating balls of light glide lazily through the air all around the room, their glow shining softly on the face of the only other occupant of the chamber.

Deep within the woman, Elizabeth recognises the curly haired male His face is entirely illuminated this time, his regal features highlighted.

He opens his mouth to ask her something but Elizabeth cannot hear him. The woman however understands what he is saying and yet she keeps mute.

The male towers over her by over a foot, his features broad and wide. His curly hair falls to the level of his shoulders, slicked to the back and accentuating his high, wide forehead and his deep green eyes. His face is unlined, arrested in eternal youth and his long pointed ears jut out on either side of his head.

"Where is it?" Elizabeth believes he shouts though she can hear nothing.

The woman however does not twitch a muscle even though their combined heart pounds in her chest like someone took a hammer to it.

From nowhere, his fist rams into the side of her head and she staggers to the side, though she keeps her balance. She straightens and glares at him and he repeats his question again.

The woman once again, does not utter a word and the male's eyes ignite in fury. His fist descends once again and hers rise up to block it. She sees the moment that something snaps within him and then he descends on her, his fists coming down in rapid strikes and she falls back as she works to block him.

He yells questions at her in between his strikes, most probably asking about where something is but the woman's lips are sealed. And then his fist finally connects to her chin and she staggers back, spitting out blood.

His hand dips into his cloak and in a flash, he whips out a dagger.

Even deep within the woman, Elizabeth recoils from the sight of the dagger. The hallowed dagger. The only weapon capable of taking an elf's life.

Her eyes flash to his, wide and panicked and he sneers at her as he questions her once again. Even in the face of death, the woman in the dream does not open her mouth to reveal whatever secrets she keeps.

The fight resumes once again, and she has to work harder to stay out of reach of the dangerous edge of the dagger. They keep it up, fighting with a speed nearly as fast as light. But finally, the male slams her hard against the wall and crushes her throat.

Bringing his face close to hers, he looks in her eye as he asks her the same question that he has been asking her one last time. She holds his eyes as she lets him see that he will never get the answers he needs from her. With a roar, he raises the dagger high and plunges it down.

At the same moment, the door to the chamber flies open and several other males stream into the room. Magic rips through the air from one of the new occupants, icy and familiar but too late. The dagger is already descending for her heart and in the span of a millisecond, it plunges into her chest and directly into her heart. She gasps and holds the wide eyes of her killer who has his fists wrapped around the hilt of the dagger, blood gurgling out of her mouth. Sound returns to her ears once again and she hears the soft sound of her lifeblood escaping from her body.

There is an unholy roar of rage from behind them and magic rips through once again. In the split second before the tide of magic can reach him, her killer pulls the dagger out of her chest and plunges it into his own. She collapses onto the floor, unsupported and her killer falls to his knees beside her, the magic from the new man ripping his body into shreds. She can feel it working, the magic of the dagger unraveling the magic that makes her up and she knows that there is no reversing what her killer has done. She is not long for this world.

A pair of booted heels comes to rest in front of her face and strong arms lift her from the floor. She looks into his crystalline eyes, impossible tears glistening in their depths and she opens her mouth.

"I'll be back." She promises him before everything fades from her consciousness.

###

Elizabeth jerks awake with a gasp, her hand automatically going to her chest to press against it. Relief ripples through her when she finds out that is unharmed and she collapses back onto her bed. It takes her heart a few moments to slow its staccato beating and when it finally does, the bitter tang of dread and disappointment takes its place. The drug did not work. More than that, she remembers nearly everything about the terrifying dream.

A strange chamber that defied all of the laws of physics that she has been taught, someone stabbing her in the heart with a dagger that was designed to kill her kind. Her kind. She thinks and lets out a laugh.

Her madness is so pronounced that she does not even imagine that she is from a different race or from another country, but from another world entirely. What was that all about? And the man at the end? Who is he? Why does he feel so real to her? So real that she can picture his face more clearly in her mind at the moment than she can focus on her own room. What is happening to her? Why is she losing her mind all of a sudden?

She gets up from the bed and begins pacing. Why did the drug not work? She asks herself, spearing a hand through her hair. Perhaps she had taken the wrong dosage? But that can hardly be the case. The dosage is as simple as they come. A pill before you sleep and you're supposed to sleep like a baby.

Perhaps she should have asked for a stronger anti-psychotic? Her pacing is making her feel even less out of control but she cannot stop. An image of her grandmother fills her head, at the very end before she had been taken away. She used to scare Elizabeth with her empty eyes which would be looking at things that were not there. It had happened nearly on a constant then.

"Grandma." She would be calling her, pulling her sleeve, trying to get her attention. But wherever her grandmother had gotten stuck in in her head was apparently alot more appealing than attending to her nine-year old granddaughter.

She cannot become like that, she refuses to become like that.

The only other option is if she was not hallucinating. I'll be back. She had said right at the end of the dream, what are the chances? She asks herself.

It is far-fetched ad entirely unrealistic but what if her subconscious is trying to tell her something? As ridiculous as the idea is, what if the woman in her dreams is someone from her past life? The rest of it does not make sense but if that much can prove to be true, then she will be able to handle her warped interpretations of the scenarios surrounding it. But how can she prove that it is real?

She stops in front of her window and looks out into the blue-black darkness outside. The wind teases the hair around her head and the fresh air cleanses her mind. How to prove it?

She rummages through her accumulated memories of the warped world, as well as the new ones that infiltrate her brain as they do every morning, searching for a hint, a clue. Then she finds it.

A banner, on it printed a symbol which looks vaguely familiar. A carriage with no wheels but with wings. The woman in her dreams had noted it in passing in one of her new memories, a family that has managed communications between the woman's kind and others since the beginning of time.

Ignoring the ridiculousness of her thoughts, she marches to her laptop and logs into her web browser.

She types in a carriage with wings and gets a plethora of explanations for ancient carriages and how they worked as well as several images and offers to explain what a carriage is. With a groan of impatience, she cancels the search and starts anew, adding the word logo to the beginning of her search.

This time around, several search results come in with different companies bearing similar logos. Cars with wings, carriages with wings, just carriages, just cars. She scrolls down furiously, her patience stretching thin by the second and at the end of the page, she finds it.

The exact same carriage as the one in her memories. It has no wheels, but it has a two large wings fanning out from its sides.

She stares at it for a second, not believing that she has actually found an element of her made-up madness on the internet. Then she breaks into a wide grin.

"Got you!" She says excitedly, resisting the urge to pump her fist and yell in triumph. She clicks on it enthusiastically.

Thirty minutes later, she knows everything she needs to know about the company.

She picks up her phone and dials the company number. It rings twice before it is picked up by a cheerful sounding person.

"Hello, you have contacted Wild Ride. How may we be of service?" The receptionist says.