Where was he? Nothing looked familiar to him. He was in a white room and it was empty. People were yelling around him but he didn't see anyone. Someone was running past him and felt air rush by his face.

Reaching up, he touched his face and pulled his hand back when he felt something wet. Looking down, he was blood. He touched his face again to find more blood.

Pulling off his shirt, he noticed it was covered in mud and had a ripe in it. Trying to clean the blood off, he pulled it away to see that the room had changed.

In front of him was a girl. She wasn't clear but it was more like a TV channel coming into view. Slowly she became solid and it felt like he was watching TV.

The girl was chasing a dog as a little girl jumped on her back. She was laughing and looked up to the girl who had her dark brown eyes. Suddenly it became dark and her laugh died away as she pulled the girl from her back and into her arms.

The dog was barking but it was cut off and arms shot out around the two girls and pulled them away. A boy no older than the girl herself, pulled the two into a house as they ran into a closet.

Just as fast as the vision came, it was gone. The boy was back in the white room when he noticed an old guy before him. “Time for you to meet your Fate,” he said as a flash of light blinded him and left him standing in a dirt drive way. 

***

“Fate, where are you?” Mae called out as she walked into the barn. When I didn't answer her on her fourth call she left. I let out a sigh of relief until my phone started to play Angel With A Shotgun. Shit!

“I know you are in here,” she called out as she came back. Crawling on my stomach, I reached the edge of the loft in the barn and looked down. Eighteen year old Mae was standing by my horse, Crow, and was holding her hair back with her hand as she looked up at me.

I tried to smile but I failed. “Sorry, didn't hear you calling,” I lied.

“Bullshit, why are you up there? You are supposed to be getting ready for that blind date,” she huffed.

“About that,” I said looking away. Her eyes shot open wide and I knew what was coming next.

“You said you would go! He is so excited to meet you. Why do you keep doing this to yourself? It has been years, I want you to be happy and you aren't!”

I laid there and got the same speech for the hundredth time this month. Tuning Mae out, I watched the sun ray coming in through the open door.

“Fate! Please listen for once,” Mae cried out. “Fine, I'll call and tell him you can't make it,” she mumbled as she turned and left.

Flipping onto my back, I watched Crow hanging upside down. When I had my daughter, she loved him. He was her birthday present for her third birthday and loved him to death.

Since her funeral, I hadn't ridden him and wouldn't let Mae sell him. He snorted and another snort answered him back. Looking over, I saw Cas standing in his stale. Cas was Mae's and was a surprised gift when I won him at the fair a few years back.

Crow was all black and Cas was white with brown spots. They were the same age and were unseparateable. Mae and I use to be that way. But things changed after the funeral.

The sun had set by the time I climbed down from my loft. Before leaving, I cleaned the stales and fed the horses. When I finally left the barn for the night, I was too busy thinking about the guy Mae had set me up with that I didn't see the boy in front of me.

A cloud of dirt made me look up and I saw a boy with shoulder length hair and a plaid shirt on, staring at me. I stopped and looked around to see where he came from and when I saw no car I took a step back. His face was dirty and his jeans had some rips in them but he looked to be in good shape.

“Sorry, but who are you?” I asked eying him up and down. I really hope this wasn't the guy I was supposed to meet up with. If this is what he was going to wear to meeting me then I'm glad I didn't go through with the blind date.

He stared at me wide eyed and looked around. He opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. Closing his mouth, he tried to clear his throat and tried to talk again but still nothing came out. Okay, this is going down hill fast,I thought.

“Do you need a drink?” I asked pointing to the house. The boy didn't answer, he looked like he was surprised I was even talking to him. I looked around again for a truck or a car but didn't see any. Turning back to him, I found him gone. Turning around in a circle, I looked around for the boy but found him no where. I am not going crazy, I am not going crazy. I hope it's a side effect from my new anti-depression pills, I thought as I turned to head to the house.

Walking in through the back door I see Mae standing at the stove cooking soup. She glares at me as I walked past her and head for the bathroom down the hall. I haven't stepped upstairs since that day and I wouldn't be going up there anytime soon.

Twenty minutes later, I walk in with an old sweatshirt that was my dad's on and a pair of yoga pants. “You do look sick,” Mae said softly as she made me a bowl of soup. I raised an eyebrow at her as I reached for my pills in the cabinet. “I told Brad that you were sick and you better play the part,” she said answering my unasked question. With my back to her, I gave a small smile and took my pills. With them down, I turn and sat down at the table.

After a few minutes of silence she cleared her throat. I looked up to see her watching me. “What? Got something to ask?”

“Yeah, I do. I'm only asking so that I'll know to worry or to blame it on your pills. But who were you taking to outside? It looked like you were having a full on conversation with someone,” she said. Great, he wasn't real.

“I think I'm seeing things because of my new pills. There was a boy out there standing in the driveway. I tried to get him to talk but when he tried to speck, he couldn't.” I explained. Mae sat there and stared at me as I played with my food. I kept my head down and slowly looked up. “Can I please hunt his sorry ass down and kill him?” I asked as if I was asking to go to a movie that was coming out.

Mae let out a laugh and I let her see one of my rare smiles as she reached for my hand. “I want to kill just as much as you do honey, if he ever comes around her I give you promotion to kill him and I'll say it was self defense,” she said sweetly.

I finished my soup and stood up to take it to the sink. I was standing at the sink rinsing out the bowl when I looked up to see the boy from earlier walking into the barn. Not moving from my spot, I continued to wash the bowl when I heard Crow call out.

“Going to check on the horses,” I said as I turned off the water and reached for the shot gun by the door.

“What's wrong?” Mae asked as she looked up from her text book at the kitchen table.

“I think I saw something go into the barn, might be seeing shit again but just want to be on the safe side,” I said as I walked out the screen door.

Knowing Mae, I didn't have to look behind me to see her following me. Opening the barn door slowly, I looked in to see Sherlock rubbing against the boy's leg. He was bent down on the floor with a stick and was drawing something in the floor.

I turned to Mae and pointed to the spot in front of Crow and where Sherlock was meowing. “Do you see him?” I mouthed at her. “Who?” she mouthed back. Yeah, I am seeing crap.

Standing straight up, I walked in and walked over to the boy. Looking over his back, I saw a drawing of a little girl. I dropped my gun and it back fired into an empty stale. Crow and Cas got frightened and the boy jumped up and turned around. He looked some what cleaner now but still couldn't talk when he opened his mouth.

Not paying him much attention, I moved passed him and looked at the drawing. This had to be a sick joke, why would Mae or someone else do this to me. Spending around, I see Mae staring at me with worry in her eyes.

“What's wrong?” she asked rushing over. She looked down and gasped.

“Why would you do this to me?” I snapped as I dragged my foot in the dirt and erased the drawing.

“You think I did this? How could I? I have been inside all night cooking dinner,” she said acting surprised.

“Don't even lie, you could have done this when I was in the shower!”

“Fate, I can't draw worth shit! If I did this then I would have been working on it all day!” I looked away and looked back at the boy who was now petting Crow as he tried to calm him down. “Why is it so fucking cold in here?” Mae noted as she hugged herself.

The boy looked over at me and mouthed, “Sorry.” I shot him a glare and he looked away. Was I really getting mad at my own imagination? Dropping my head into my hands, I tried to take a deep breath. Counting down from twenty, I slowly calmed down. Mae watched as my freak out attack passed and then pulled me into a hug.

“Listening sis, I have no idea who drew that but who ever did better be gone or I'll use that gun on their sorry ass. No one messes with my family and above all else, they don't mess with you and use our little angel against you.” fighting back tears, I hugged her back and thought of how lucky I was to have her. It was hard to believe she wasn't my sister since we were so much a like.

“Come on, lets go inside,” Mae said as she bent down for the gun. Turning around, the boy was gone but a picture was laying in the dirt. Escaping Mae's arms, I bent down to get it. A smiling boy with his arm around an older women was smiling at the camera and looked like he was happy to be there. “Who is that?” Mae asked looking over my shoulder.

It was the boy, the boy I kept seeing. “I don't know, maybe it was who did the drawing,” I said as I slipped it into my back pocket. “Come on, I'm tired.”