Day Dream

Pale gold contrasted sharply with rich blue heralding the approaching sun. Memories of a sixteenth birthday filled the girl's mind as recent events proved it was impossible to outrun fate. The girl, Dylan, shivered and pulled her legs close to her chest as a breeze off the water ruffled her fair blonde hair. The spot she chose to be her perch was a precarious one, but possessing the ability to ignore gravity at will made a fear of heights obsolete.

She listened to a repeat of that evening's news broadcast as it drifted up from below out of someone's apartment. Off in the distance but still too close for comfort sirens blared as an audible reminder of the events that had recently transpired. The city was still in shock and probably would be for days to come. Now two men were arguing on the broadcast. One of the men arguing made the assertion that metahumans were a threat to society. How did you control someone who could walk through walls or lift five tons singlehandedly? The truth was you could not control them. That was what made them so dangerous. Dylan sighed, for two years she had avoided using her powers and simply blended in with normal society like the angry man on the broadcasted wanted her kind to do. It was a harder thing to do than the angry man knew.

Now Daniel was a man who simultaneously blended in and appeared at odds with his surroundings. To the girl he would appeared as a young man robed entirely in white. His skin was equally devoid of color and his eyes were like two dark stars. He sat down on the edge of the building next to her and looked out at the coming dawn. "You picked an odd place to sit. Not afraid of falling?" he asked with a hint of playfulness in his voice.

"No, are you?" the girl replied.

"I have no reason to be," he paused, "Why are you here?"

"I dunno. Just seemed like a good place to sit and think."

"About what happened yesterday?"

"Yeah..."

"Why do you hesitate?"

"Because, and I don't know why I'm telling a stranger this, my entire life I thought that masks and capes were a part of the problem not the solution. But then seeing how helpless the police were despite their best efforts it made me wonder: what do I owe them? Do I owe them to do everything that I can to help? Or do I owe them to hold back and look the other way when lives are at risk? It just feels... wrong, I guess, wrong to not do everything I can when there's something bad happening."

"There are those who will always despise you for what you are and for what you have the potential to become. I can see that in your heart you have already made up up your mind. Now is the time to follow through with that choice, Dylan."

The girl jerked her head around to look at Daniel and for the first time she noticed how unusual he looked. "Who are you and how do you know my name?"

"That is a question for another dream," he replied with a smile. He reached out to touch her forehead just as another question was forming on her lips.

Dylan woke up in bed. Quickly she got out of bed and crossed over to her window pulling back the curtains to look at the sky. It was early morning, just like in her dream, only now she was not convinced it had only been a dream. A name came to her from somewhere in the back of her mind the way that familiar things once forgotten always do: "Dream of the Endless". Dylan supposed she should get use to such strange occurrences. They would be a part of her life now.