“Come on, Marsh!” he calls. “You’re slower than Grandpa’s old mule today.”
He rides ahead, always ahead, always too damn fearless for his own good. I want to yell at him to slow down, but the words catch in my throat.
They always do in the dream, same as they did in real life.
The trail narrows. The wind shifts.
My stomach drops.
Something is wrong. I feel it before I see it.
“Luke,” I whisper. My voice is barely a sound, swallowed by the forest. “Wait.”
But he doesn’t hear me. He never hears me.
Instead, he pushes his horse into a faster trot, humming some stupid tune, something about girls and cold beer and a summer that never ends, and I want to reach out, grab his shirt, pull him back.
But my hands won’t move.
My legs won’t move.
All I can do is watch.
There’s a crack, just sharp enough to slice the air.
The sound that has lived in my nightmares for over a decade.
His horse rears, front legs shooting skyward, eyes rolling white. Luke’s humming stops, replaced by a yell—surprised, scared, too late.
“Luke!”
I scream this time. I do. But the forest swallows it whole.
Everything slows.
His hands claw for the reins.
The world tilts.
And then.
Impact.
A sickening thud as his body hits the ground headfirst, the weight of the horse crashing down after. Bones snap loud as brittle twigs.
I feel it in my own chest.
It’s me breaking.
It’s me dying.
I jump off my horse, knees hitting the dirt so hard they bruise, and scramble toward him. But the ground stretches beneath my palms, pulling me back, holding me in place as Luke lies there, crumpled and still.
Too still.
His eyes might be open, but they’re staring past me at nothing. His lips part just barely—he’s about to say something, same as he always did after falling off a horse:“Don’t tell Mom.”
But nothing comes out.
