Something was wrong. Luke could feel it in his bones, like an off-key note humming beneath reality. The frat house ahead was alive with music, laughter, and flashing lights—but the shadows moved wrong.
Several bright lights lined the front of the house, throwing the front yard into a stark contrast against the depths of darkness surrounding it. Luke didn't know if his eyes were playing tricks on him or not, but it seemed like the shadows were moving out of time with the breeze.
He looked up, but there were no stars in the sky; none that he could see, at least. The leaf covered branches, sprouting from a couple of old oaks in the yard, swayed back and forth above him in the wind, casting those eerily moving shadows at his feet.
Bass thumped from inside the house, shaking the floorboards. Shadows twisted under flashing party lights, distorting reality. Luke hesitated on the sidewalk, gut screaming at him to turn around.
The party was loud as the first few drinks of the night started to take their toll. But the party-goers weren't so far gone yet as to be sloppy and falling over drunk. Luke debated turning around and walking back to his dorm, but he told his friends he'd be here, and he was a man of his word.
Luke took a deep breath, steeling himself for the inevitable descent into chaos. He still couldn't get rid of the eldritch feeling crawling through him.
He walked forward on the small stone path leading up to the front porch of the sorority house, dreading every step he took. The people around him were pretty much oblivious to his presence, the only sign of anyone noticing him being a couple of completely disinterested glances thrown his way.
He climbed up the stairs and stepped onto the massive front porch, then walked through the open front door. The atmosphere was immediately suffocating, but he pushed through the crowds anyway. He squeezed through the bodies, trying to keep his anxiety down at a manageable level.
Eventually, Luke made his way into the expansive kitchen, where there was a little more room to move and breathe. He looked around at the few people mingling there, but saw no one he knew.
Not knowing what else to do, he took a seat at the large, vacant table in the far corner of the kitchen. He inhaled deeply, and exhaled forcefully, trying to release some of his irritation. His chest hurt, though, and he felt the need to breathe deeply again, as if he wasn't getting enough air. He continued to breathe heavily, and more rapidly, as the pain in his chest grew.
Suddenly, his lungs wouldn't expand. Too tight. Too shallow. He gasped, but it wasn't enough. The walls closed in, the music twisted into a distant hum. His fingers tingled. His chest hurt. Too much. Too fast. He was going to pass out.
He looked around, wanting to tell someone, anyone, what was happening, but he couldn't speak. The lights appeared to be moving, and dizziness racked his brain as he tried to focus. He began to worry that he might be dying, such was the pain.
Is this how it ends? I'm going to die? Really? Here, of all places?
Suddenly, Luke heard broken voices near him, "Hey- okay-? -wrong?"
He managed to lift his head from where it fell onto the table. He didn't remember that happening. People were beginning to surround him. He tried to speak, but all that came out was garbled and incoherent noises.
Suddenly, Luke's entire body seized as the worst pain he'd ever felt erupted inside of him. He tried to scream, but to no avail. It felt like he was being burned alive from the inside out. There was no way for him to know how much time had passed… All he knew was the pain. He just wanted to die. He needed to die. Darkness and nothingness surrounded him.
He fell. Not through air, not through space, but through something vast—like slipping between the pages of a book too grand to read. The weight of his body vanished, his mind unmoored. And then—light. A throne. A presence that shook the fabric of existence itself. The King sitting on the throne, shrouded in light too bright to look at, leaned forward and touched Luke's forehead, and everything disappeared.
Suddenly he found himself kneeling on a sea of smooth sapphire. Time seemed to stretch into eternity as he rested there, feeling no pain, no anxiety. He stayed immobile, basking in the peace and joy emanating from the throne.
A deep rumbling spread through the atmosphere as the King spoke, "PROTECT MY CREATION."
Those words settled deeply into Luke's soul, overriding every other hope and desire. He could refuse, if he wanted to, but that was the farthest thing from what he really wanted. He didn't really know what that meant, but it was true, all the same. There was no question in his heart. He would do anything, suffer any pain, to do exactly as the King ordered.
Abruptly, light shone brightly all around, penetrating Luke's closed eyelids, lighting up every bit of darkness in him. The light was the same color as the translucent, sapphire floor. He was overtaken by joy, and peace, and love, and he never wanted to leave. He would stay in that place for eternity, if possible, but he knew he would have to go back and fight.
It was over all too soon, and he felt a burden settle inside. It was foreign, and strange, but it seemed to be the weight of a new power of some kind. It felt like some part of him was expanded, or added to.
He felt the warmth start to fade away, and before he knew it he was falling…
…falling…
…falling…
Soon, he felt a hard surface against his face. Someone was yelling nearby. He opened his eyes and everything came rushing back in a torrential flood of emotions and confusion. He lifted his head from the table, breathing in deeply, feeling as though he hadn't been able to breathe for far too long.
The air felt muggy as Luke's vision cleared. The scene before him was chaotic. People crowded into the kitchen, suffocating any chance of fresh air penetrating the atmosphere. They all seemed to be staring at him, their faces in different stages of worry and bewilderment.
"Luke, are you okay?" Abruptly, he was struck with reality, and the disassociation disappeared.
Luke turned his head to see Ella Blake leaning over next to him, a worried expression on her face.
"Luke, did you hear me?" Ella asked.
"What?"
"I said, are you okay?"
"I... don't know."
Ella crossed her arms, sighing like she was already done with him. "Next time, maybe pace yourself before blacking out in front of half the school?"
"Wait, what? I didn't even…" before he could finish, Ella rose and walked away, not looking back once.
"Great," Luke muttered. "There goes the girl of my dreams, thinking I'm some drunk idiot."
Luke rose from his seat, wanting more than anything to just leave. He'd seen none of his friends, and the one person he had seen that he actually knew on some level clearly thought little of him now. He swiftly made his way back through the still-crowded house and out into the front yard.
People were still milling about and getting drunker by the moment as he walked quickly through the yard. He decided he was just going to go back to his dorm room and get some sleep. Maybe he'd wake up and all of this would turn out to have just been a weird dream.
"Hey, where are you going?" A melodic, feminine voice sounded from nowhere and everywhere simultaneously.
Luke froze in his steps, fear gripping him. He waited, unmoving, sure that he was delirious.
"Are you just going to stand there?" the voice asked.
"Am I… hallucinating? Is someone pranking me?" Luke asked in return.
"Nope, it's not a prank. Though if it were, I'd expect a better reaction than that," the voice said. "My name is Lila, and I've been waiting for you."
"Great, a strange voice from nowhere is waiting for me in the dark," Luke muttered. He really needed to get some sleep.
"I'm not a strange voice," Lila said. "Why do you gotta make it seem so creepy?"
Luke chuckled in spite of himself, "It is creepy. I'm not making it that way." It was creepy to wait for someone alone in the dark, but at least the voice didn't sound threatening.
"Okay, well, I see your point," Lila replied. "Still, I'm not being creepy. I'm here for a reason."
"Here?" Luke asked. "I don't see you anywhere."
"Oh, you humans and your need to see to believe. It's so frustrating sometimes," Lila complained.
Luke remained silent for a moment before saying, "Sorry?"
"Yeah, that sounded genuine," she muttered.
The air folded, reality bending like a warped reflection—then she appeared. Luke jerked back, almost tripping over his own feet. His pulse pounded so hard it hurt. She wasn't human. Not even close. She floated, her skin glowing with moonlit fire, her ember eyes cutting through the night like distant stars. Luke's breath hitched. Was he dreaming? Dying? Was this even Earth anymore?
"What the crap!" he shouted. His heightened state swiftly calmed down, though, as he looked at the figure more closely. Was this Lila?
She was radiant, her skin glowing softly like cool moonlight. She was ethereal and seemed to have a fluid grace unlike anything Luke had witnessed before. She had large eyes that glowed a soft red. Along her arms and neck, intricate lines of light pulsed softly, tracing paths like veins of gold, or threads of circuitry. These markings, delicate and symmetrical, flowed across her body and the armor she wore. They were like glowing trails of a motherboard etched into living flesh.
"Happy now?" she asked, a look of frustration on her delicate face. She was about 5 and a half feet tall, with flowing white hair that reached her waistline. She floated a few inches off the ground like that was totally normal.
"Uh… hi?" Luke said, making it more of a question than a statement. "What is happening right now?"
"As I said, my name is Lila," she responded, expression softening slightly.
"Okay…" Luke trailed off, having no idea what to say or do next.
"And I've been waiting for you, not creepily, for a reason."
Luke stayed silent for a moment, trying to come to a conclusion on whether or not what he was seeing was real or just a figment of an overactive imagination. He definitely had an imagination, but it had never caused him to see things that weren't there before.
"Why are you just staring at me?" Lila asked after a few more moments of silence.
"I was trying to figure out if you're real or not," Luke answered honestly.
Lila's expression shifted into something less pleasant. "What!? You don't get to decide if I'm real or not. The King is the only One with that power," she shouted.
"No, no, no," Luke stammered, "I am not deciding if you're real, that's weird. I mean I don't know if this is a hallucination or not."
Lila humphed and crossed her arms. "Do I look like a hallucination to you?"
"Well that's the thing about hallucinations, isn't it? You can't tell if they're real or not," Luke said, shrugging his shoulders.
"I'm not a hallucination!" she shouted.
"Okay, okay," Luke put up his hands, conceding the point. "Then what is happening here? This isn't something that people experience every day, you know?"
"You know, the more I talk to you, the less I see why He chose you, but it's not my decision, is it?" She muttered quietly. "Alright, there's a lot to explain. Perhaps we should speak inside?"
Luke chuckled softly, still not sure if he was losing his mind or not. "Okay, fine," he said. "We can talk in my room."
With that, Luke began walking back toward his dorm room, Lila floating along silently behind him.