Pompeii on a different planet, a short story of fiction

I knew I was dreaming, the sky was red and the colors overly saturated, I was flying more than walking. The area was familiar, it was my childhood house, the one I liked the least from them all. Both of the volcanoes were active, too active for the first time in thousands of years.

''It will start with the flaming mountains and unravel like an avalanche, the world will return to dust again.''

I had heard that invisible tone before, my gift was to see in the future, sometimes, rarely, when the voice willed it to be so. I turned around, trying to catch it but there was no one, just me on the street. A burning sensation went through my body, I grabbed my hand, where there had landed a piece of lava. It should have melted my skin, it was scorching my palm but all I could do was just look at it. It was meant to be there.

Finally, after being glued to the lava on my palm for what seemed like an eternity, I could look up again, where hot red goo was evaporating from the depts of the earth. Our volcanoes were big, huge, the legends stated that they could swallow the whole continent. I was not convinced of that but it sure seemed possible from where I was standing right then and there. There were bits flying all over the place, I wanted to run, I knew how bad the feeling was when one landed on you.

''Stay, don't move, you have to see it! You are the only one who can stop it. The goddess of Earth has chosen you to be the representative of men of this world. You are the one who has to make the choice of the worthiness of your peers.''

That voice again. I had learned to listen to it, It had never let me down. Now it scared the hell out of me, though. The end of the world as we knew it, the end of humanity. And supposedly it was in my hands. I hoped for it to be a usual dream but I knew how to tell the difference between the visions and imagination, this was not my own creation.

''They will all die unless you stop the first step from being made. Depending on your conscience it will be done or pushed back.''

There was a pull, I was being woken up, the voice was throwing me out. The bright orange, red, black flames mixed in a color wheel as I was jerked back to Earth, to wake up in a morning filled with bird songs.

''Oh, and Eveline, you never know what comes after your life here...''

The voice was just a whisper now and it was soothing to some extent. No more the high pitched tremble. I woke up paralyzed, my limbs did not move for seconds that turned into minutes. Slowly, my fingers started tingling, my senses came back at a speed of a snail. I breathed in and out, just like I had been taught, panic was not what would help.

I lay there for even longer, to collect my thoughts and search for new information in my brain. I knew it was there, it was always there after such a dream. I would be guided through my road to stopping whatever was coming. I was determined.

You never know what comes after life here... echo

Was that just what the voice said to soothe me? Maybe there was no real exit, maybe the doom was bound to happen and it was just showing me the inevitable.

I knew what the news would say so I skipped the morning paper. The volcanos were awake, it was visible from my house, the smoke carried everywhere and my heart raced. Maybe it was just a dream. But I knew it was not. It was not just my uncertainty and worries about the monsters awake, the Earth was coming to an end. But what can I do, alone? Nobody would listen to one silly girl.

I was thirsty, oh so thirsty. It felt like what I had experienced in the dream had affected my breathing ways. I had a glass of yesterdays water on my nightstand. It would not taste nice but it had to do. I gulped it, in one go there was an empty pitcher left and only when I was putting it down, I realized the throbbing pain in my palm.

The shock was over, my senses were back and for some reason, my palm felt inflated. I looked at it and almost let out a scream, stopping myself, to not wake up my sister in the next room. There it was, that volcanic burn. From my dream. I had never had that, a proof that I had not been just unconscious but gone, completely. My mind shivered into the deepest corner of my head. It was too much, I had a burn from a dream. How crazy would that sound, to anybody?

I touched it and the pain went through my body once again. No, I was not sleeping. You should go Yeah, but where? What am I supposed to do? If Earths faith truly lays on my shoulders, where should I go? Up there, into the smoke. The volcano touched you once, it can tell you more. Madness but I knew, it was that voice. It had planted the knowledge in my head.

---

I closed my eyes and I looked up in the skies, I was just under the mountain. It had been two days since I started my journey. It had gotten worse, the volcano started emitting more than just a tower of smoke a day before. I looked up and I knew it was going to happen now, it was now or never that I had to stop it. I looked up and screamed. I knew my people did not deserve to be swallowed by flames. They were good, compassionate, loving. Everything that I admired. It was not fair.

''WHY?!'' was the last thing I said and with it, the eruption started. It was as if I had caused it with my pleas for my gentle people. It was hot and then it was dark, I was floating into nothingness.

''You see, you never know what comes after living here, it might be better, more of a paradise with no danger at all. Your people, the purest of them all, are the ones that have been bestowed a new world. The same Earth but this time called serving as paradise, the last level of ascension. The beauty of mountains and forests, no danger.

I woke up in a field. The most marvelous place that I had ever seen. Cherry trees, apples, soft grass and millions of flowers. I had never seen such beauty. My people were there already as well, helping each other and looking around. We all got the message that day. It was loud and clear.

You do not know what comes in the life after

---

Another day another dream. This was something that was actually painful throughout my sleep. I felt a burning sensation when I was sleeping and I had no idea I was dreaming.

Have the best day, today, tomorrow and forever,
Linda