Don't judge me. Anyway, on to the teaser!
“This is not the balcony,” Annahya said from her spot beside her.
No. No it wasn’t. The only thing she could think that was even remotely similar to this landscape was desert. Barren, hard ground spread in all directions around her. Skeletons of what she thought once might have been trees rose out of the ground to spear and scratch at a burned sky. Thorny brambles hung like snakes from their branches and littered the ground.
“No,” Behzad said shakily as she rose to her feet. “Definitely not.”
“Don’t you like it?”
She spun around and nearly fell over. Her legs felt like jelly, unsure and wobbly. Annahya gripped her forearm, steadying her.
“You,” Behzad breathed. All she could see was the white hair and blue robes; everything else seemed to blur. She squinted, trying to bring his face into focus, but it remained blurry, like an image seen through wet glass.
“Indeed,” he laughed. “Me.”
This wasn’t a drunk delusion. She was sure of that. Mostly sure. It was more vivid than anything she’d ever imagined before. Even the heat of scorched land and air burned her lungs.
If this is a delusion, it’s a damn good one.
“You don’t know, do you?” He chuckled and swayed a little. “No one’s told you what a ride you’re in for?”
“Yeah – you are definitely a product of my mind,” she muttered and stepped back.
“So they’re letting you think you’re crazy?”
“I’m letting myself think I’m crazy.”
“What a sad girl you are. Much sadder than you were four years ago. At least then you had a little drive.”
“Girls who’d rather be dead tend to lack that,” she quipped and stepped back yet again.
“Oh, don’t do that,” he said with a laugh and beckoned her with his hand. With a sick, twisting feeling in her stomach she watched the space between shrink without either of them taking a step.
“Much better.”
“This is the worst hallucination I’ve ever had,” she muttered.
“I suppose it would be,” he was chuckling again, his voice smooth and heavy. “But the next one is going to be a little bit worse, I think. Something to convince you that I am real.”
“I can’t wait.”
