Samie Sands - Through Space and Time

Silence filled the room. It had been that way ever since the three of them decided to rest the night before. Miguel didn’t seem to even notice it, but to Raegan, the whole thing felt incredibly uncomfortable. There was a tension in the air that she couldn’t work out how to slice it.

“Should… should we move on?” she spoke, more to Hali than anyone else.

“Is that would you would normally do?”

“Sure, yes.” Raegan nodded slowly. “We would. We’re always on the move, trying to get to Earth.”

“Earth, yes.” All of a sudden, it was Hali’s turn to sound strained. “Earth.”

“Are you worried about something?” Miguel rested his hand reassuringly on Hali’s shoulder. “Are you concerned about Earth?”

“I… I suppose so.”

Raegan watched with morbid curiosity as this beautiful witch starred at Miguel like he was the most incredible man alive. Jealousy twisted angrily in her gut. She wanted to drag her eyes away to stop this pain, but she couldn’t seem to manage it.

“I think I’m just concerned that humans do not like witches. After everything that happened in the past, it seems like we might be enemies.”

“Oh no, we don’t have any issues with any other races. You don’t need to worry.”

Miguel’s wide smile was almost too much for Raegan to handle. Especially since he couldn’t know for sure that his words were truthful. They had no idea what was going on. Since he’d left her father’s group, any kind of war could’ve happened… although if she knew her dad, there wouldn’t ever be any violence or hatred under his command.

“We just want peace. And well… we do owe you our lives, so…”

They laughed, a joyful sound, harmonious together. There even appeared to be flirty eyes between the pair of them which was enough to finally tip her over the edge.

“I think we should get a move on,” Raegan snapped. “Find the exit hole quickly. Get away from here. I know it seems safe now, but we have no idea what’s going on.”

The silence was back with a vengeance. She shouldn’t have said anything at all. She had to fix her eyes away from the pair just so they couldn’t see how red she’d become.

“Yes, come on. There isn’t any reason for us to stay. Let’s go.”

Raegan was grateful to Hali, she seemed to sense exactly what she needed, and she agreed with her. This allowed them to hurry up, to get ready, and to get outside to find the hole. That was what she needed, a goal to focus on, to take her mind off anything else.

“So, this is what you have been doing for years?” Hali asked while they walked. “Doesn’t it get exhausting?”

Miguel nodded. “Of course it does. But we have no other choice. Our world was torn apart by the war, and we were all shot about for a reason. If that wasn’t to get back home, what was it? Keeping on going is all we can do.”

“You don’t think it was to settle somewhere else? To start again?”

“Oh no, we are all separate. I think humans need to be together.”

“But you don’t think the war was to tear you apart?” Hali continued. “You don’t think humans need to be apart because they cannot live together?”

Miguel didn’t answer that which wound Raegan up. How didn’t he feel the same intense passion that she did? Sure, he defended their plan for a moment, but at the most important question, he backtracked? No way, she wasn’t going to have that.

“Humans made mistakes,” she practically growled. “But we will learn. We always do. Good can come from this evil, we will make sure of it. I have been traveling for ten years, most of my life, and I have learned a lot. I’m sure everyone else will as well. We will be better.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.” Hali’s tone turned quiet. “I was just asking…”

“We cannot get negative, we cannot question what we’re doing, we have no choice.”

“I understand.”

Raegan didn’t believe that she did because Hali had no desire to go back to her home planet, but she couldn’t be bothered to continue arguing. Instead, she stomped on ahead of the others, unable to bear them any longer. She could hear them conversing between themselves, almost whispering secretly. It wasn’t like she cared anyway. Not at all.

Just keep going, she warned herself. Nothing else matters.

Eventually, she realized she’d been walking for an extremely long time, without coming across anything. But this wasn’t like the white world which was empty, this was something else. There was an odd atmosphere about it, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“What do you think lives here?” she asked, finally spinning around to face the others.

Raegan caught Miguel gazing at the witch, and her looking lovingly back too. Her heart sunk down into her feet. What the hell? Sure, things were complicated between herself and Miguel, but that sure as hell didn’t give him the right to allow his eye to wander elsewhere.

Should she say something? Break up the moment?

She wanted to, she wanted to tear them apart really badly. She wanted to kiss Miguel with everything within her and stake her claim. But she couldn’t. She just physically couldn’t move towards him. She was just stuck there, in one place, watching. It was like torture.

She coughed a couple of times, but when that got no reaction, she span around and carried on walking, hoping the others would follow.

And stop damn well looking at one another.

This was a nightmare. Angry tears pricked her eyes as she considered Miguel slipping through her fingers like grains of sand.

This is nothing, her brain screamed. I need to focus on the future, on moving instead.

She focused on her dad, on finding him and the others, they were more important. Miguel and Hali would soon be a distant memory once everything else fell in place. She’d have too many other people to distract her. They could just be together if that was what they wanted… she wouldn’t care. Not one bit.

As they walked and walked, not stopping even as Raegan’s body became exhausted and ravaged, she did everything that she could to talk herself around, to tell herself that she had to be fine with what was going on behind her. After all, they were traveling buddies. Unless she wanted to go off on her own again, she would have to get used to Miguel falling for Hali.

And why wouldn’t he? She might’ve been a witch, but she was stunning, and Raegan had rejected him too many times, she’d pushed him away, consumed with the worry that any romance would lead to them being killed.

I just need to make out that I’m okay, she told herself determinedly. Fake it until I make it.

“Should we rest?” she called behind her, plastering a fake smile on her face.

“Yeah, we could do,” Miguel replied, the happiness in his tone like a knife to Raegan’s chest. “I don’t know about you but I’m feeling shattered.”

They found a place to sit for a while, giving their bodies a moment to rest. Hali took the opportunity to use her magic to conjure up some food. Raegan devoured it gratefully, but it was still incredibly hard for her to look at anyone else.