04

MILO DOESN'T DREAM often, but when he does, it always goes the same.

Here he his, kneeling by a river in its muddy banks, watching the murky grey water run endlessly in reverse. His hands are coated in dried blood. His or someone else's? He never knows, but it doesn't matter. Despite how hard he scrubs in the river's icy water, it stains his tawny skin and seeps into the carved lines of his palms like dark crimson veins. The rest of him is untainted-his shirt is clean; white, even-but his hands are always red, red, red.

Here he is, alone in a forest where the tenebrous night sky weaves itself between whispering trees. It's like looking into a memory that's been contorted-twisted into a shape that's entirely unrecognisable.

This is when the owl appears, its mahogany-coloured feathers rendered almost invisible against the forest's wooden backdrop. Milo knows it's the same owl because of its single white feather, almost concealed by the rest of its plume. It watches Milo with a regal sort of curiosity as he scrubs, scrubs, scrubs. His hands are now raw and numb and redder than before.

Then the owl screeches.

The sound registers in his gut before it registers in his ears; a visceral sound that's pierced through his dreams a thousand times before. It's a knife scraping against old porcelain; metal grinding against metal. Rubber tires against rain-slicked asphalt. And every time his blood turns cold, recoiling from his veins like the river's retreating water.

Here he is, turning towards the source of the owl's distress like he's in some B-grade horror movie, not because he wants to, but because the dream tells him to. Here, he is nothing but a puppet with strings pulled by his own subconscious.

This is when he sees it, the nothingness. The viscous darkness that drips from the sky like a molten shadow. It creeps towards him now, slowly, purposefully.

Silently.

Because the river is no longer making a sound and neither is Milo. He isn't breathing. The darkness is already seeping into his shoe.

And this is when he wakes

up.

- ✧ -

Lenore Turray knows that this is the year Milo will have death on his hands because she heard it through the radio yesterday.

Though some would think this makes her a gifted psychic, Lenore thinks this just makes her a good listener.

She had been marking a seemingly endless pile of student papers with a pen that doubled as a miniature flashlight - an item of stationery taken from Milo's desk that she certainly wouldn't have resorted to using had her own regular pen not run out - when Fate had whispered to her through the old Motorola.

At first, she thought it was merely static and tried changing the channels, but the crackling had pursued. The longer she listened, the easier it became to make out a word or two between the white noise until the message came to her all at once as clearly as though it had been spoken right in her ear.

This is the year he will have death on his hands.

Lenore's still not quite sure how she had reached the conclusion that he was in fact Milo. Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps it was reading between the lines given that things she hears and sees involuntarily rarely extend beyond her immediate family. Either way, it was all a bit vague, which is why she doesn't let this news trouble her - not yet, anyway.

Even when Milo had arrived home earlier that evening, barely conscious and leaning heavily on the shoulder of Anais Ferrand, she had managed to restrain herself enough to postpone her questioning until later tonight.

Which is why, as of this moment, she's marking papers on the kitchen floor using the refrigerator door and (shamefully) the pen torch as her only source of light. With nothing but a very strong tea and sheer will power to keep her going, she waits for Milo to blindly stumble into the kitchen for water at approximately 1:42 AM.

Lenore isn't one for subtle interrogation, nor is she one for discussing matters of fate at such an ungodly hour, however, she feels tonight - or this morning, rather - calls for an exception.

And just as her premonitions had suggested, at precisely 1:42 she hears the betraying creak of the third step that Milo would have normally avoided had he been a little less sleep-deprived.

In hopes not to alarm him by her loitering around the corner that separates the kitchen from the stairs, Lenore shines the pen right in Milo's direction.

"Holy shit, what- Mom?"

"Watch your damn mouth," she chides, though she's barely able to hide her amusement from her own irony. "It took you long enough, I was starting to worry the food would go off."

"Is that my pen?" Milo asks, shielding his eyes with his hand, "Why didn't you just... You know-" he gestures vaguely above himself to compensate for the faltering communication between his brain and mouth, "-the lights?"

Lenore shrugs. "I didn't want to wake you."

Seemingly unable to argue with this logic, Milo rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands in a way that makes him look far younger than his seventeen years. He looks at his palms and frowns and then looks relieved, then frowns again.

Lenore says calmly, "I think there are a few things we need to discuss."

Milo shifts awkwardly, shoving his hands into his pockets. He's still in yesterday's clothes Lenore notes, but decides now's not the time to mention it.

"Could you be more specific?"

"Well-" she says motioning him to join her on the kitchen floor. Surprisingly, he joins her without hesitation. "You could start by telling me about your night out at the diner."

- ✧ -

To her credit, his mother's expression remains inexplicably neutral as he recounts the tumultuous events of the last eight hours (Milo's still undecided on whether he's grateful for this or not) from the migraine he experienced right through to the recurring dream he woke from barely ten minutes ago.

Only, he doesn't tell her about Anais's bleeding face - or the boy in the bathroom - because that would mean acknowledging that the two events had in fact occurred (or at least his brain tricked him into thinking they were occurring). Regardless, he hopes that his mother won't pick up on it.

After a long moment of silence, Lenore takes an equally long sip of tea before greeting their cat, Beatrice, who had apparently snuck in without Milo taking notice. To be fair, she's an entirely black cat, save for her single white paw that Milo used to imagine was a little white sock, rendering her nearly invisible in the kitchen's dimmed light. After watching Lenore fuss over Beatrice for far longer than necessary, Milo says grimly, "I'm taking questions."

Lenore pauses for a moment before asking, "You really came home in Valerie's car?"

"Seriously? That's your question?"

"Absolutely," Lenore says, setting her mug down beside her before placing a heavily ringed hand on Milo's shoulder, "I couldn't tell you the last time you hopped in a motor vehicle that wasn't sitting dead in the garage."

Milo absently runs his finger across the raised scar that runs along his collarbone. "It was against my will if that makes it any easier to believe," he mutters.

Lenore hums in agreement before looking distant once more. In the eerie yellow light of the refrigerator, with the glasses on her head being the only thing keeping her dark curls somewhat at bay, Milo thinks she looks far less like a tireless collage professor, and far more like a tired oracle plagued by other people's pasts and presents and futures.

"A reading," Lenore says suddenly, drawing Milo from his trance, "I should give you a reading-"

"Oh." Milo's stomach drops. "Now?"

"No, tomorrow. It's far too late to be dealing with matters of fate."

Milo squints at the clock mounted haphazardly on the opposite wall, without his glasses he can only make out the hands. "It's... morning?"

"Don't be difficult," Lenore says, jabbing him lightly in the side-the same side Anais had jabbed him a few hours ago. "We're both too tired for technicalities."

Milo closes his eyes and lets his head rest against the low cabinets behind him. He didn't want this to be a big deal, but withholding information from his psychic mother would have been as effective as politely asking Beatrice to stop chasing every bird that enters her line of sight.

"Okay," he says as he exhales, "What do you need me to do?"