There was life after death, Mum always said so. She would whine on and on for hours at a time about how important it was to be good, to spread more kindness than you took because some afterlives are worse than death. Alek mustn’t have been good enough.

  One too many times slacking off when Dad needed help with the cattle.

  One too many times not listening to Mum.

  One too many times teasing Charlotte.

  One too many times leaving her behind.

  They died that night too, and it was all Alek’s fault.

  After death he woke to wolves, smoke and blood. A man appeared from nowhere, he was cloaked and carrying long, curved knives smeared with black blood. His calf was mangled flesh. He reeked. The kind of stench that got caught in the pack of your throat and pushed. A wolf that wasn’t a wolf opened its jaw and tried to eat Alek, but the man killed it. Alek didn’t know what it was, maybe another demon.

  Alek was getting sick of seeing demons.

  Time wasn’t quite right, because before he knew it, the sun had risen. A group emerged, each as sweaty and exhausted as the last. They ran to the man on the ground. A short girl in a witch’s hat carrying a long stick - Aria - collapsed over his body, crying. Another man - Rowan - who was scrawny, brown skinned with glasses and a thick moustache put his hands over the hooded man and magic came out. Golden-green light that healed wounds.

  This is a strange dream.

  Alek always had vivid dreams, the type you could smell and feel, but this dream wasn’t quite right. Alek couldn’t move. He felt like if he tried really hard he could, but if he moved then he was acknowledging something he didn’t want to.

  If he moved it meant they were really dead. Mum, Dad, Charlotte.

  The hooded man - Jarrah - woke up. He had dark skin too, like Alek’s mum’s. Charlotte had inherited this from Mum, but Alek had pasty skin like his father. On the top of his arms were deeply tanned from helping on the farm, but his belly and under his wrists were milk. Mum said that he didn’t look like her or Charlotte because she had eaten too many lemons when he was in her womb. Alek’s father wouldn’t comment.

  The group that emerged from the forest tried to speak to Alek. He could hear them, but his brain didn’t process it quite right. He couldn’t respond because then it would be real. When Rowan finished with his healing magic he knelt in front of Alek and pulled out a revolver that he aimed directly between Alek’s eyes. Alek could see the tips of the rounds peeking out of the chambers. It looks like Dad’s. Alek continued to rock slowly, unable to look anywhere but down the barrel.

  Another man, broad and muscular - Eddie - studied Alek. He had shaved the sides of his head and knitted the top into a blonde braid, but the sides were already a few weeks overgrown. Mum would have hit dad for looking sloppy like that, even after he spent a full day out with the cattle. Dad never minded though. When Rowan gave up with the revolver, Eddie kneeled over Alek, blocking out the sun. ‘WHAT’S YOUR NAME BOY?’ Eddie asked in a booming voice so loud you thought he was yelling at someone on the horizon instead of inches from his face. Specks of spit flecked Alek’s face. But he couldn’t respond, because, well he couldn’t do it.

  Soon Alek would wake up, he just needed the dream to quiet down.

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  Please quiet down.

  Mum can’t be dead.

  Dad can’t be dead.

  Charlotte cannot be dead. She can’t be.

  I promise I will bring her with me next time, just please let me wake up.

  I don’t really hate her, I never did. I wish I could take it back.

  Please let me take it back.

  I’ve learnt my lesson; I know better now.

  ‘He’s an invalid, we can't bring him with us.’

  ‘He will die out here. We have to take him with us.’

  ‘We can’t turn around, Kerioth is too far gone.’

  ‘If he is an invalid, he’s already as good as dead.’

  ‘What the fuck is a kid even doing all the way out here, this is strange.’

  They really wouldn’t quiet down. Alek closed his eyes and continued to rock, back and forth, hugging his knees, back and forth. This didn’t count as moving, Alek wasn’t doing it on purpose.

  I promise I won’t leave her behind ever, ever again.

  If he moved, then this group - Broken Fang - would take him with them.

  Then it would be real.

  The demon said I wouldn’t have to do anything, just sit still and close my eyes. He told me just to die. To sit and wait. He told me if I died, I would be reunited with them, with her.

  A voice, a familiar voice whispered in his mind. It told him to stay still and die. It told him if he could move then he should bite off his own tongue. It told him if he died again, just one more time then he could see Charlotte again and take back what he said.

  He'd die again if he didn’t move, this was certain, Broken Fang said so themselves.

  Mum told me not to listen to him. No matter what. She had screamed it, over and over again as the man in the suit had… Alek’s mind went blank, refusing to remember.

  Alek promised, through blabbering sobs, he would always listen to Mum. He would never not listen to his Mum ever again.

  The man told him to die, so she told him to live.

  Alek moved, only a little, just his mouth.

  ‘Alek Howell,’ he said, barely a whisper.

  Their argument stopped.

  Eddie turned to him. ‘Did you say something boy?’

  ‘My name.’ He paused, unsure if he could go on, but he had to, he couldn’t break another promise. ‘It’s Alek Howell.’ Alek looked up to meet his cold blue eyes. 'Please don’t let me die again.’