by Joshua Laack
Chapter 12
When he came to again, Andrew didn't want to open his eyes. He was afraid that when he did, it would have all been a dream and the world would be dark again. So he kept his eyes closed and stared at the bright picture of the setting sun that his memory played back for him. Johari and a male voice talked in soft voices on the other side of the room. Andrew caught a few words. It seemed that they had orders to do something and Johari thought it wouldn't work. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes.
He was laying on a couch back at Josefina's house. Inside, it was dark as there were no lights on. Outside of the large windows, the sky was dark with the lack of sun, but instead of the black of night he was accustomed to, the color was the deepest royal blue. As he looked, his eyes pierced through the night and he found that he could see much farther than he ever had in the dark.
Andrew turned his eyes to the inside of the house. Every color around was so vibrant that he almost didn't know what to look at first. The starlight and moonlight fluttered in through the windows traveling on rays that scattered in different directions. The dust motes hanging in the air lit up from the moonlight, each visible as if it were a bright dot of light all its own. The texture of the couch he lay on jumped out at him looking unlike the smoothness he had come to expect from fabrics and more like dried and cracked earth. His eyes also noticed amazing grain variations in the wood floor that he had never seen in wood before. He jumped as the light crashed into his eyes. The room flooded in the unnatural florescent lighting, destroying the beauty of the moonlight.
Johari and her friend walked into his view from where he lay on the couch. Andrew pulled himself up into a sitting position on the couch and looked up at the beauty with the golden glow.
“I'm sorry,” she muttered in such a soft tone that he had to strain to catch her words. “I have no choice. We have our orders.” What did she mean? The man stepped forward and stared into his eyes.
“You will forget everything you think you know about demons or about Josefina or myself. She is just one of your classmates. That is all you know.” The words were compelling, but he had been controlled by another being twice now and he refused to be forced ever again. The lines of light inside of his mind reached out to the powerful words. He pushed and the words floated out of his head without doing as they intended. The man stood up, believing his job done and walked to the door. “You did the right thing,” he said. Andrew understood him, but his words were different and strange. Andrew didn't know what to make of it, but said nothing to show he even saw the man there. He was not supposed to register the man's presence since he had been told to forget him. Despite his recent help in fighting the demon, Andrew didn't trust the man who had just attempted to control him. What he couldn't decide was whether or not he could trust Johari either. He wanted to believe in her, but how could he ever know for sure? She had hidden a lot of things from him.
The man opened and closed the door. Johari stood staring into the air for a moment after he left. She cocked an ear to the air as if she were listening like a dog would. Andrew did the same thing and for a moment, thought he heard fading footsteps, though that was impossible. No one could hear that well. As the last footstep seemed to fade, Johari turned to Andrew.
“I know you may not remember anything about the last few days, but you deserve to know the truth. You may not believe any of this, but I promise you that every word is true.” Andrew smiled at her, decision made for him by this beautiful creature that he now knew he could trust.
“I remember.” Andrew said in whatever language it was that they spoke. It had come to him almost unbidden, as if he had spoken it for many years. It must have been within the knowledge that he and Johari had shared while they had been connected. That knowledge and much more stayed with him just like the strands of light that even now coursed through his body. He felt that there was a lot more knowledge now locked away in his head, but he couldn't access most of it.
“What in the world?” The look on Johari's face was so shocked that Andrew couldn't help but grin at her.
“For whatever reason, my mind seems to be able to ignore your commands. As mesmerizing as your voices are, I still know what you are.” She smiled down at him on the couch, though her look was still a little uncertain.
“To be honest, I am glad, even though whatever you think you know may not be the real truth. It is nice to know that you see me and remember.” She stepped up to Andrew and her small hand reached out and touched his own for a moment where it rested on his leg. That small touch reacted with the current still within him and those strands twisted and spun within him sending an explosion of current through his hand and arm.
Johari jerked back and dropped into an attack stance.
“What was that? Is the demon still with you?” Andrew shook his head.
“No. The demon is destroyed. The power is just us.” Johari relaxed after a moment and sank into the couch next to him, a puzzled expression on her face.
“I was going to be the one explaining things to you, but it seems you are the one who must explain. I thought we had destroyed the demon following you, but somehow we missed another one and it managed to possess you right in front of me. You speak a language you should not even know exists as if you had spoken it for years. You contain a power that should incinerate you at the barest touch and yet here you sit as if it were the most natural thing in the world. You used that power to destroy something thousands of times stronger than you and far older when you shouldn't have been able to recognize either the demon or use the power.” Andrew smiled at the beauty beside him. Even with his new clearer vision, he still could not find a single imperfection on her face. He knew he should be worried about the same things that seemed to bother her, but Andrew just could not focus past the presence of the creature beside him on the couch. Silence filled the room for a long minute before he tried to answer her questions.
“I can answer a few things, but most of it is uncertain for me as well.” Andrew told her everything that he knew. All about how he had always felt this darkness, discovering what it was and how he had destroyed it with the power that flowed between them. “After the demon was destroyed, I opened my eyes to this bright world and I knew more than before, like the fact that your name is Johari and how to speak your language.” The name flowed into his mind. “Aramaic.” Johari's eyes were still wide, but she seemed to have it under control.
“I have heard of some of my kind experiencing flashes of this kind of power when fighting demons in their spirit forms, but nothing of this magnitude. Certainly never between one of my kind and a human. You have defied every expectation I had of you. I don't understand how you are able to do what you have done.” Andrew shrugged and let his shoulders drop.
“I don't understand it any more than you do. I just know it happened. I don't understand much about you or your kind either. I know that you are demon hunters, but that is about it.” Johari smiled a half smile.
“That's more than any human is allowed to know.” Her brown tresses wavered as she shook her head. “I can't believe I am about to tell you any of this. I will get in so much trouble.” She squared her shoulders, “What do you want to know first?”
“Did you mean it when you asked me on a date?” Josefina stared at Andrew for a minute and then began to laugh.
“You could ask me about my strength, my speed, the ability to control memories or a myriad of other things, but you ask me that?”
“It is the only question that seemed important.” Andrew stared at her with eyes opened to the true beauty of the world around him. He could see the extraordinary brightness of it with no hint of gray in his way. With that new eye opening vision, she was still the only thing he wanted to look at. The rest of the world was more beautiful than it had ever been and its newfound beauty was plain in comparison to her.
It was unnerving for Andrew that he felt this way for someone. It was a more than just beauty. It was desire for a real connection with someone else that h
e had never experienced before and she was the one with whom he wished that connection to occur. He wondered if there were any chance that she would want the same thing. His mind flinched at the current line of thought and prepared for the rushing return of the bleakness that always accompanied that kind of negative thinking.
The fear was unnecessary. Despite the depressing line of thought, the world around Andrew remained bright and beautiful. A surge of optimism flared up within him. It was a incredible. He had always had the small hope of escaping the darkness, but this new uninhibited hope that his life could remain beautiful for the foreseeable future was beyond amazing. For the first time ever, Andrew was at peace with where he was and confident that no matter what happened from here on, life would work out for the best.
“Would you really want to go on a date with me knowing that I am so different,” Josefina asked, interrupting his thoughts, “and how are you so calm?” Andrew struggled to find the words to express his new hope.
“Partly because I know that you and your kind protects us from the threat of the demons. Most of all, it has to do with the incredible change for the better that meeting you has brought to my life. I was filled with the darkness of that demon for my entire life. It was such a profound, dark barrier between me and the world that I just avoided everything and everyone. Then you walked into that bleak scene as the brightest beacon of light that I had ever seen. Once I saw the light, I wanted nothing else. It was a long, hard battle, but you helped me to defeat the darkness and for the first time, everything around me is filled with bright light and hope. That change is so profound that I feel with every fiber of my being that there is nothing that won't work out the way it should.” Josefina was staring at him again, shaking her head. She grinned at him.
“You would have liked our creator a great deal. He was fond of light as well. I think He wanted this meeting to occur. Knowing you and seeing the hope that can be brought to those in the darkness has reinvigorated a desire within me for the mission we have.” She shook her head at Andrew. “You amaze me. You have fought an impossible battle your entire life against an enemy you weren't even aware of. It puts the small battles I have fought in a new perspective.” She smiled at him, and once again laid a hand upon his arm, but did not pull away at the tingles of power flowing back and forth. “I don't know why, but I would like very much to go on that date with you.” Andrew grinned at her, a smile that filled his face and danced in his eyes, a real smile. Johari responded with her own signature half smile.
“Do you have any more questions,” she asked?
“You mentioned a creator. Who created you and how did you end up fighting demons?”
“That's a complicated question. With more than one right answer.” She looked into Andrew's face. “How do you feel about religion?” Andrew shook his head.
“I don't know what to say to that at the moment. I never believed much of it growing up. I just didn't think any religion could be real. It seemed so fantastical. However, after my experiences over that last few days and the fact that some of the fantasy worlds I read about are coming to life before my eyes, maybe I should have a more open mind about the possibilities of there being a God.” Johari nodded.
“That's kind of what I thought. I believe I will stick to the simpler explanation for the moment.” She paused, gathering thoughts and then began a story that was the most fantastical thing Andrew had ever heard in his entire life.