Marianne Schultz

We were in Paris. In a maze of airy industrial buildings full of large, light-filled atriums and long staircases. I was chasing someone so she wouldn’t chase me. I forced her into the sunlight and told her she was beautiful over and over again until she believed me.

We ran away, your black suit with its elegant cut making you a dapper figure among the Parisians who never looked at us. We ran to yet another flight of stairs with Jake behind us trying to keep up, but his claws gave him no purchase on the slick floor. I look back just in time to see him miss a step on a stairway that was suddenly rickety and swaying from side to side. He fell to the concrete floor far below at the bottom of the atrium.

I screamed as he fell, the long sound a mournful mix of surprise and horror. I heard the muffled crunch of his back breaking when he landed.

I rush down the broken stairway to the ground, seeing his legs twitch as I approach him. I’m crying.

I wake up with a gasp, the terror and sadness still bright in my heart. I sit up and look over to Jake’s bed on the floor to see him curled up nose to tail, snoring gently.

I can’t go back to sleep.