We’ll Meet Another Day

I'm not sure if they were real...

The memories collided in my mind, sliding over each other and sweeping back and forth, becoming nothing more than lost and twisted recollections that haunted the edge of my dreams.

Yet I saw the soft lines of their face, the glistening tears in their eyes that could have been blue or brown or even grey. I couldn't really tell through the flames... Leaping up at me from below, crawling down from above, blistering heat searing into my face and singing my hair as screams rang out from below.

Then the stranger appeared in the haze, donning a mask of amber and sulphur fire. The only things visible were his eyes... and the shadows dancing across his gaunt, sunken cheeks. He reached his hand out toward me as a violent cough escaped my throat and I made a weak attempt to meet him halfway through the blaze.

Collapsing to my knees in front of him, he placed a hand on my shoulder. The ridges of his bones clawed into me, as if they were protruding from his skin. It... it was freezing. His hands were clammy, void of heat or warm blood. I'm not sure if the feeling should have been a welcomed relief to my heat-stricken body or a new obstacle to fear. But I could still look into his sunken eyes and they told me I was safe. Soon the roaring scene of destruction blinked out around me as the darkness swallowed me into its clutches, the stranger's hand still cold against my back.

Then chills raced across my body and ice seemed to course through my veins as I realized I had awoken in a hospital bed, the lemon fresh scent of Lysol invading my fevered thoughts. I couldn't remember if he was real. The scars etched into my skin from the blaze were real. The charred sweater next to my bed was real. And death is something that is very real. Had I met Death as a stranger parting ways? And had he decided, that just maybe we'd meet some other day...?