That was going to change soon. I could feel it in my bones, in the strange hum of my blood, which seemed to be getting louder day by day. I left my head on his shoulder, and I left my eyes closed. I knew, without being able to articulate the question, that the time for moments like this was coming to an end. Soon enough, everything was going to change. Whether it changed for the better—whether it was possible for it to change for the better—was anybody’s guess. I didn’t think so, though. I was pretty sure that, as far as the people of Earth were concerned, things were about to get much, much worse.

4.

The forest again: always the forest. There was a time when I could dream of other things, of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, of cabbages and kings … but that time was in the past, covered by a mist of pollen that smelled like honey, sweet enough to lure in almost everything. It was a little shocking to open my eyes and find myself standing there: I hadn’t been sure I could reach the forest when I was on an airplane, hurtling through the sky at such great speeds that even the clouds couldn’t keep up.

It was hard to tell whether this was a vote in favor of the forest being real, or a piece of proof that it was all a figment of my imagination, a construct I had put together to protect myself from whatever it was out there that I imagined was a threat to me. It was also hard to care. I was walking in the shadow of the trees. I was safe.

The nagging itch at the crook of my left arm distracted me from the study of the rippling colors in the bark around me. I scratched at it idly as I walked, looking for the shallow bowl of flowers. They could tell me what to do. The flowers never left the forest, and they always knew what to do.

“H-hello?”

I whipped around, startled, and found myself facing a man around my age. His skin was darker than mine, brown a few shades deeper than his eyes, and his hair was black and straight, flopping down over his forehead. There was a bandage taped to his right cheek, shockingly, almost obscenely white. He stared at me. I returned the favor.

“You can’t be here,” he said.

“I was going to tell you the same thing,” I countered. I took a step back, still scratching the interior of my left elbow. “This is my forest.”

In the distance, a sound like dragonfly wings rattling together, and the thick, oddly spiced scent of honey. The man cocked his head, clearly listening to the sound. I frowned, wary to the last.

“It’s not yours,” he said finally. “It’s not mine, either. It’s theirs.”