They shared exclaimated glances at the wood surrounding them. Jamie, the boy, had the power to create hallucinations. He couldn’t control when they came or went, or even what they looked like, just like he wasn’t able to choose who saw them when he did. They were always too real to be fake. You could reach out and touch the red leafs on the forest floor, feel their texture. If you wanted to, you could even take something from them—an item—and once the hallucination was over, you’d still possess it.

A warm breeze that smelled strongly of honey and roses blew through the draping branches of great trees. The sky above, they coundn’t catch a glimpse of, but everything was lit in a hazy peachy pink. So he imagined the sky was like strawberry juice streaked across a white surface.

“Have you ever seen so much red?” Amela shivered. He understood why. They’d seen so much of it over the past five years—an endless river of despair that they’d yet to escape. So seeing such a color has to be the last thing they wanted to encounter.

Imagine being fearful of a shade?

But this great ruby forest is different. It symbolizes something other than death or pain. And no matter how much his mind told him to escape, there was also this sense of…peace.

He grabbed Amela’s hand. “This is a safe place.”

“Where are we?”

It took him more than a moment to answer this. The girl watched him patiently, and stayed quiet, letting him think. “We’re in…my head.” he concluded with a sure survey over the area.

“Every hallucination is in your head, Jamie. What makes this one any different?” she asked—in a polite way of course.

Jamie met her eyes. Everytime he looked into them he saw a great river of chocolate. They were always so deep and understanding, no matter where they were. And her hair was the same dark brown color. It was right then, that he got it. He finally had an idea on what this place really was. If he was correct on this, this gave him a clear shot at telling Amela…

“This is a reflection of one of my emotions.” he answered.

She paused. “I don’t think I understand…”

Jamie never let his gaze stray away. “Why would you ever be allowed to see one of my hallucinations?”

“Because…they want me to?”

“—Because the emotion of this place is love.” he said bluntly.

“You—I—”

“I didn’t ask for you to see this. I— was never going to tell you because I knew it would ruin us—”

“You love me?” the intensity of her soft tone made him pause in his tracks. The boy was beginning to walk away in lost hope. He could practically feel the color of the leafs changing into a gray despair, until he heard the sound of her voice. It wasn’t as though she were asking in a disgusted way. She spoke in a way that hoped his answer would be—

“Of course.”

There was a space between them that Amela slowly filled, with ten steps. She stared into him, searching. “I…love you too, Jamie.”

She laid a gentle hand on his chest, just over his heart. He dipped his head down and she slowly rose on her feet. They were mere inches away from the one thing he’d longed for for so long. Just a kiss. He didn’t wish for anything more. Just a sign she truly loved him and wanted him as much he he wanted her.

But before their lips could meet, the forest melted away in a hurry.

Jamie sucked in a heap of air as Amela shook him awake. “Jamie! Thank the skies, you were passed out for so long!”

_It was all fake_…

“What?” he touched a hand to his damp hair. When he removed it there was blood on his palm.

“I thought you were dead. Looks like one of your hallucinations just saved your damn life. I’ll answer questions along the way. We need to go!” Amela turned around just in times to stop an arrow from flying into her skull. “Get up Jamie!”

He rose and she grabbed his hand, pulling him along behind her as they maneuvered around the broken walls of an old mansion.

They jumped over a grand clock that had fallen on the floor. “You were standing under an unstable ceiling. The thing was about to collapse on top of you so I pulled you away, but not fast enough before part of the thing fell atop your big head.”

He would’ve laughed at that last part if he wasn’t still so shocked. Never had a hallucination ever created a _person_. He’d seen animals and rivers, animated clouds and shooting stars—villages that flickered with hues of orange, but never an actual, living human. Never Amela.

And he’d been healed by it? There was nothing on his forehead but the absence of a great wound—and the blood, of course, that was still warm on his face.

He wanted to ram his head into a wall over and over again just because of how stupid the whole thing was. He’d been healed by something that didn’t exist between them. How absurd is that? A delusion of Jamie’s, saved his life. And he could never tell Amela what he saw. If she knew, they really would never be the same. Because _this_ Amela, he knew for sure, did not love him. At least not in the way he wanted.

She pulled them out of a doorway. The sun blinded him and he had to shield his eyes. How long had they been in there for? He remembered they were retrieving a precious power item. Had they gotten it?

They ran clumsily down a hillside, half tripping on the way, before climbing onto the back of a great white horse. Amela held the reigns and road them away, while Jamie wrapped his arms gently around her waste.

“You might wanna hold on tighter unless you hope to fall and be cought by our perusers.”

He looked past the feeling of stickiness above his brow. “Where is it?”

She laughed victoriously. “Check the bag!” she called back.

Once he opened the satchel wrapped around Amela’s neck, a sense of relief overpowered any other feeling he was trying to avoid at the moment. Jamie let out a sigh.

_We did it_.

That’s all there was to think about. Nothing more.