Unreal City by A. R. Meyering Read Free Book Online

what I craved most was escape, and in those few moments I realized that he was absolutely correct. I wanted to break free of my life as it was.
    As this aching longing came over me, I lost control. In a frantic motion, I plucked the cake out of the box and shoved it into my mouth, feverishly chewing as the explosion of flavor swept over my tongue. It was worlds better than I remembered, so enticingly delectable that my heart and head fluttered. The light sweetness and soft cream blended together to form an experience I imagined heaven would be like. I wanted it to last forever, but I was so hungry for its taste that I gobbled it down in seconds. After I swallowed, I began to pant. Panic set in. I’d actually done it. There was no going back. Now I’d just have to wait and see what escape really meant.
    “Am I gonna be okay?” I wailed, the words spouting from my lips like steam from a kettle. My legs felt weak and I didn’t know whether it was from nerves or if the petit four had reached its destination.
    “You’re going to be more than okay. Just let it slide over you…I’ll guide you all the way there….” Salem’s voice soothed, comforting now, evoking memories of youth and safety. I grew even more afraid.
    What have I done? What have I done? I’ve got to stop this, somehow.
    Drowsiness overwhelmed me and I sank to the ground. The bed of wet needles now seemed like a bed of feathers and silks. I lay my head down as Binx circled me, a shark around a helpless rowboat. He was purring, and the noise lulled me even further toward sleep. The rain sounded softer now and far away, and as my lids grew heavier and blinking them turned laborious, I marveled at how gorgeous the boughs of the trees looked when crystallized by the downpour. If this was dying, then dying was beautiful.
    Felix’s circling was hypnotic, and my eyes attempted to track him with each ring he made around my body, which had drawn into the fetal position of its own accord.
    What came next is still too foggy for me to remember. It was that sacred zone between waking and sleep, where your mind is just barely clinging on to the things that make sense in the world but looking forward with rapture toward the infinite possibility of dreams and the fathomless peace that lies in the darkness on the other side of them. Years could’ve gone by. I didn’t care. I was in heaven, floating on my little cloud of needles and leaves.
    The thing that drew me from my stupor were his green, green eyes. They were above me now, bobbing. The more I focused on them, the higher they got. They beckoned for me to follow, and I did. We rose a few inches, then a few feet into the air, my head feeling like it was filling with helium. I made the mistake of looking down.
    I was above my body. I saw it lying there in the mud and rainwater, my chest still rising and falling gently. I tried to scream and it came out as a wave of dark ripples of bent light around me. I was stuck. I couldn’t budge from where I was, and at that point in my life I had never experienced a terror so complete. It felt like hours, hovering there and watching myself sleep, but then I saw his eyes again. They swam into my vision, and that comforting feeling of home quieted my tempestuous heart.
    Follow me, the eyes seemed to say, and I found that I could move freely once again. We were swimming now, upward into the air and gaining speed by the second. We pierced through the weepy cloud cover and its halo of mist, then through the atmosphere. I was too stunned by the beauty of the stars to feel afraid now, and as I let those brilliant, cold points of light fill my vision they began to expand. The light was growing, blinding me, but it didn’t hurt at all; it was peaceful. It surrounded me, and I was traveling through it.
    I have no memory of the time between then and when I returned to consciousness. My eyes focused and I sat up slowly, a shower of shining sand falling from my hair and shoulders.
    I was on