“Rest now, you have a couple hours. Do eat, and that water below the rock should be safe.” We were now a lot further down the cave, and it was even more damp and cold. I had pulled my cloak tighter around myself, but I was still cold, even more so as I sat on one of the boulders. I felt myself start to shake. “There is nothing I can do about the cold,” Calypso said to me as he just stood there watching. Each time I rested or stopped to eat something, he did nothing except studying me closely.
This time I ignored his staring and drank some water. Then I pulled out the plastic bag in my pocket. It was empty. This meant it was time for me to go to my hidden pockets. I gently slid out a high-protein bar from the one on the left side. While I was in the castle, the guards insisted on keeping me on a strict diet to look more ‘princess-like’. So as soon as I found a guard’s stash of these chocolate covered high-protein bars, I hid a bunch of them in several locations including this cloak. I then proceeded to eat the one I had taken out. From the other side of the cloak, I took out a matchbook from one of these hidden pockets. Next I put small rocks in a circle on the ground. I also collected some small pieces of wood and other materials that were lying on the cave floor. Lastly, I took the scratches of paper out from my normal pockets and started a small fire.
“Color me impressed.” I look up to see Calypso still watching me.
“I am more than just a princess,” I told him with a smirk of my own.
“Oh that I know. You are something else all together.” I quickly looked at him after this response. My smirk was gone. Something was up with those comments he kept making. He always looked so taken aback after saying them and having me look over at him. It was sort of like he never meant for them to come out of his mouth, but it kept happening.
“How exactly do you see me?” I asked trying to probe this great mystery before me.
“You are exactly as your name says.”
“Eliana you mean? The Latinized word meaning ‘to have been answered’. Like if your wishes had come true.” That was what my mother use to say. I could still remember that about her.
“I have always understood it to mean blessed. Like the best was given to you.”
“I’m surprised, that was actually beautiful.” I was now leaning against the wall behind me. I was feeling so tired that my eyes were beginning to close and my mind was starting to drift.
“You have so much more than you are aware of, you can do so much more. You just…”
Everything went dark again, but not for long. Yet another time I had that sky dream. It now had been even longer since I last had seen even a chunk of blue back in reality. So having it in my dream was in part a relief, but this dream did not start off like all the others had. Instead it started where the last one let off. That bat from the cave and from my last dream was in front of me, and was staring me down. The soft blue sky and ever growing green grass were cast aside by the view of this bat. At first the bat was the same as ever, a light warm brown with even lighter piercing eyes that were somewhat familiar. Until in the next second this bat was no more. Instead, a larger shadow was in front of me. It was as if the bat had been stretched out and formed into this black shadowy creature with the slightest bat image. This new shadow bat was still staring me down, and then it was moving and coming right at me. I had a sudden urge to step back and out of the way, but I couldn’t. It was like I was magnetically attached to this beast in front of me. I felt it within me. As weird as it sounds, it was as if energy was filling me up and connecting me to this shadow. All the while we kept eye contact, this creature and me.
Next thing I knew the sky was turning dark. At first it was slow, but quickly enough dark clouds and a tense atmosphere had completely surrounded us. Then I heard sounds of something coming. There was a rumbling; a deep roar was heading our way. And with that the shadow bat gave me one last look and then sprang away from me and towards the loud noise, and it was as if the energy within me was springing out with it. I was being pulled along, at least a part of me was. I tried as much as I could to pull away, to get rid of this feeling, but the shadow was stronger than me. So I kept at it. I used everything in me to get away until finally the bat was gone and I fell straight backwards.
“Wait!” I gasped. I quickly realized that I was back on that boulder in the cave. I kept breathing rapidly. “The bat?” What in the world was that? I quickly got up and started to look around. “Calypso,” I nearly shouted. Breathing was still hard. I was feeling tired even though I just had been resting.
Where was he? I kept looking around for him a little bit farther down the path and then back the way we came, but he wasn’t around. I was starting to shake again just a little. He was always right there whenever I woke up watching me with big eyes. Had he gone on without me? He wouldn’t have. Not after all this time. He couldn’t have left me now, not with that bat dream. Not with all these questions that were making my head spin.
“Calypso,” I shouted again. “Where are you? Calypso!”
“Almost there. Wait for me.” That was Calypso’s voice. I looked around, but he wasn’t there…yet I had heard him.
“Did you leave?” I could not believe how shrieky my voice was coming out. I really couldn’t help it. Where was he? I was turning back and forth looking up and down the path when all in a flash I saw a bat zooming past me overhead. Then I heard a swoop sound from behind me. I quickly turned around and bam! I fell forward and down to the ground. Except, I wasn’t on the ground. Underneath me was Calypso.
“You are kind of heavy.” I could feel his breath on my cheek. I was back to breathing hard again.
“You never have been gone before,” I told him quietly. My throat was now feeling a bit sore.
“You woke up earlier than I had expected,” he told me as he started to push me up some. I stood up the rest by myself and then wiped some of the dirt off of my dress.
“I got scared by a dream. There was this…” I stopped myself. I was about to say ‘bat’, like the bat that had just flown over me right before Calypso reappeared. That could not have simply been a coincidence. There was much more to this man before me, and apparently there was much more I did not know about myself as well. That force I felt within me...that connection to that shadow bat…it was not just a part of my dream. I could still feel it a little.
“It was that bad?” he asked me as he started to move closer to me again. I quickly stepped away from him. I tried to hold up my hand to let him know not to move anymore, but they were shaking too much.
“What…are you?” He just looked at me after I asked this. He was looking right into my eyes. I guess he was trying to read them, trying to tell how serious I was right now. So I held firm. “What are you?”
And just like that he was back to smirking. I could see that hint of darkness in his eyes. He started to laugh a little and to pace about some. Then he walked up to me and quickly held me by my forearms. He pulled me closer to him as I continued to shake, but I did not pull away. Instead I looked right back at him letting myself be held up.
“That dream was about me right? I felt the connection myself, but I was going to try to play dumb and be comforting for you. I was going to try to push it all away, to keep things as they were…for you. But now you are looking at me like I am some kind of monster. Now you are scared of me, finally!”
“No,” I interrupted somewhat softly.
“What do you mean no? Look, you are shaking.” He was laughing at me again all while holding me upright and close.
“No. I am scared of the unknown, of this feeling inside of me. You do not scare me.” I was trying my hardest to get my words out smoothly enough to sound convincing. His smirk was now a lot less sharp.
“Not scared of me? Are you sure?” He then slowly took his hands away from my arms and moved back. “I am not so sure that you are connecting all of the dots here, princess. That, let’s say shadow in your dream, was no shadow. Oh princess…you are looking right at it.” It took me a second for his words to sink in, though he didn’t even give me that long. That very instance Calypso’s form changed right in front of me. This man was no more. In front of me was now a seemingly regular bat, the bat.
“Whaaa?” I fell backwards and right on my ass as I stared up at this creature in front of me. And then he was gone. The bat was now flying over me. I looked up and behind me as he flew away. “Wait!” The word had come out of me even before all of that was going on had really sunk in. “Calypso!”
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