Most Ardently

It seemed like a warm summer day. Santana stood before me, the sun bouncing off of her medium brown skin. The light also caught her eyes in the most phenomenal way – her enchanting brown irises looked golden brown, like caramelised sugar candies. Every bit of her radiated love and kindness. How did I ever find her, how had I ever convinced her that I was worth her time? She scrunched up her nose, the freckles that lay scattered across her cheeks and nose rippled along with the movement. "What are you looking at, James?" She asked, but she already knew. I was always looking at her. I wanted to spend all of my time doing just that. That was not what I was going to tell her, though. The last thing I needed was for her to realise exactly how much of a lovesick puppy I was. "You have something on your lip," I said, and I leaned in, kissing the cinnamon sugar from the churros we had just enjoyed off of her bottom lip. I felt her smile as she kissed me back. It was warm and soft and filled with affection. It lit a fire in me and filled my stomach with butterflies. I felt her play with my hair before briefly resting her hand against my head. She was driving me crazy, and taking her time with it. I would let her. She pulled away, her naturally rosy and full lips even more plump after our intense kiss. She always looked incredibly kissable, even more so now. I want to do it again. "Let's swing for a bit," she started skipping away. I was still flustered from the kiss we had just shared. My face might be as red as a stop sign right now. I followed her to the swing set. I pushed the swing that she had hopped on for a while. Every time she reached the highest point she would yell something extremely 80's, like 'rad' or 'gnarly'. I laughed every time. When I had gotten her high enough, I sat on the swing next to her. I didn't want to go as fast as she was going, though, so I swayed gently back and forth. Like a mother siting in a rocking chair, rocking her baby to sleep. The motion felt slow and comforting. Slow was good – I never wanted this moment to end. It would end anyways. The sky turned grey, storm clouds gathering and blocking out the sunlight. A strong wind started whipping around us, ripping leaves from their trees. It was drizzling. Santana kept swinging. I called out for her to stop. Maybe she could not hear me, maybe she did not want to hear. Either way, she kept swinging. I called out to her again as she passed me. This time she did not come back down. She stood up on the swing and, when she got as high as she possibly could, she let go. For a few seconds she flew upwards. It looked like rapture, like she was being pulled chest first into the sky. Then she began plummeting to the ground. I ran to catch her, I could not let her get too badly hurt. She had flown so far that there was no way I would reach her in time. I did not. All I heard was a dull thud as she hit the ground. She did not even scream. The sky grew darker, the wind blew harder. Fat rain drops beat down on my back. Goosebumps crept across my skin, but I was not feeling cold. I hurried to where she had landed. She was not okay. "Santana," I called out to her. She stirred, I saw her move. Her black cardigan was splayed out across her, it covered her face. I went closer, wanting to evaluate her injuries. Something flew out of the pile that I had just thought was Santana. It was large but skinny, like an oversized bat the size of my forearm. Thin skin webbed across a few bones to create wings, I could see veins pulsing in them. It screeched and flew up. It was leaving. What happened to Santana, where did that thing come from? The black cardigan was gone when I looked back. It was never a cardigan, it was that thing. Santana was never here. Where could she be? I was certain that she had fallen here, I saw it with my own eyes. The wind blew harder. It whipped the sand into a frenzy around me. Fast moving grains of sand flew into me and I couldn't see for a while. The wind subsided, the miniature sand storm abated. There was a dark smudge in the sky when I turned around. It was not just a smudge, it was the thing. It dived towards me. I began running away but I would never be fast enough to escape it. It got to pecking at me. Small chunks of my flesh were being torn away by its sharp incisors. The thing screeched as it went at me. "Why would you do that to her?" It asked, "why would you hurt someone who loved you that much?" The voice was familiar but I could not put a finger on where I had heard it before. I woke up, drenched and feverish. I had been sweating. It was all just a nightmare. I went to the bathroom to wash my face, cool off a bit. I felt marginally better when I climbed back into bed. The nightmare was still fresh on my mind and I doubted that I would be able to get anymore sleep for the night. "Is something wrong, baby?" Betty asked, sleep thick in her voice. She was barely awake. "Nothing's wrong, honey, go back to sleep," I kissed her forehead tenderly and turned around in bed. I slept next to my wife every night, but she wasn't the one I saw in my dreams.