Angel Evolution - David Estes Page 0,3

in a vault and throwing away the key, only to thrust it back into the open now. Two weeks ago. The two Beings: one dark and one light. The black snake. While the snake had appeared in many of her dreams, never had it been accompanied by the two Beings that had assaulted her. She remembered what she had felt that night:

Fear. She had awakened from the nightmare in a cold sweat, issuing a terrified scream that could have startled the dead from their resting places. As she had started to separate the horrific dream from reality, her heart rate had finally slowed from an accelerated 150 beats per minute to just under 100; however, her chest had continued to heave with short and choking breaths. Wide-eyed, she had looked out the window into the darkness, half-expecting to see the two foreign Beings standing in the backyard. When she had checked the blue digital numbers on her iHome alarm clock, she had noted it was only 2:39 in the morning.

Normally, she slept on her back, like a vampire, with her arms directly at her side, her head lolled to one side or the other, but that night she had found herself curled into the fetal position, all balled up in a cocoon of blankets.

She had heard frantic footsteps in the hallway and her door had swung open.

“What happened? Are you alright? Are you hurt?” her father had questioned in one breath.

She had been unsure of which question to respond to first, but had managed to squeak out, “I think so…,” which had caused her dad to rush to her side in a panic.

“You think you’re hurt? Where are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt, Eddie. I was responding to the middle question of, ‘Are you alright?’ which I think I am. It was just a bad dream.”

“Are you sure? It sounded like you were being tortured in here,” he had replied. His forehead had been crinkled in concern for her well-being. He had looked older than usual.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I promise, Dad. Can I please just go back to sleep? I want to get enough rest for my first day at college.”

His face had finally relaxed and he had said, “Okay, no problem. I love you.”

As he turned to pass through the door, she had said, “You know, starting tomorrow you won’t be around to worry about me every time I have a nightmare.”

Before closing the door, he had smiled and said, “But for tonight, you are still my little princess.”

Taylor couldn’t help but to smile. “I love you too, Dad,” she had said.

For the rest of that night, she had tried to turn her mind off, but sleep continued to elude her, as the blurry visions from the dream continued to flash through her mind. She had wondered: Who were the Beings and, more importantly, what were they? And did one of them really want to kill her? If so, which one? Although they were both beautiful, it had to be the dark one. Dark signified evil and light signified good. At least that’s what she was always taught in Sunday school. Or did they both want to kill her? She had racked her memory, trying to picture which one had given her the water and which had given her the sand.

As light began to appear across the horizon, she had finally drifted off to sleep from sheer exhaustion.

Taylor sighed as the vision ended and her mind began to clear. Until now, she had managed to ignore her fear from that night, chalking it up as an anomaly, possibly due to something she had eaten—Sloppy Joe’s always did weird things to her. But now she was scared again. The boy, Gabriel Knight, reminded her of one of the Beings in her dream: the one with the subtle glow around his body.

She looked at her hand, the one that held the four-leaf clover. Gabriel’s gift. Without realizing it, she had plucked the four leaves from the stem, leaving it leafless, naked. She had desecrated it, destroying any luck that it might provide. Her fingers were rigid and curled, claw-like even. They looked deformed. She shuddered, finally feeling the effect of the cold, damp clothing on her skin, as the skeins of rain continued to assault her.

Chapter Three

Gabriel Knight still had an amused grin on his face. He was smooth. It wouldn’t be long before he had her eating out of his hand, figuratively speaking. The trick with the four-leaf clover