(Opal.)

I flew above the clouds and through the windows of the old mansion. I wanted to be home before the storm. I hated storms.

It reminded me of the day I died.

"Would you be needing anything else, Miss. Bloomfield?"

Doug asked as the door opened.

"No thank you Doug."

With that, he closed the door. I knew where he was going, as I looked through the windows and watched the clouds turn as black as a phantom's robe. Doug loved storms.

It reminded him of the day he was given life.

Why had I returned to the mansion?

I asked myself. Yet after so many years, I felt compelled to come home. I grew up in this small town with its Ferris wheel by the ocean and endless fields of golden corn. I could hear the engines on the neighbouring farms shutting off from a long day of raking the soil for planting.

Shutting out the sound, I wondered if anyone would recognise me. If they did, which Bloomfield woman would they associate me with?

Looking up at the walls I saw pictures of the Bloomfield generation. I saw myself there.

I was a woman of about twenty years then, sitting under a tree, a book in my gloved hands, eyes looking out from beneath a wide, brim straw hat, a long flowing dress covering my ankles.

I recalled how I had hated those sweaty gloves.

I had smiled and just like that the photographer captured me and left me frozen in time, placed in a wooden frame on the wall.

Walking away from the walls and to the bed, I pulled the clip from my hair and let the waterfalls of black waves rush down my back. It spilled over the shoulders of my pink t-shirt and I bent to wriggle from my tight, blue jeans pants. I heard the clap of thunder then, it shuddered down my spin and I looked up just in time to see Doug, through a side window, lifting from the balcony and flying away into the storm. He went up, up and soon vanished completely from my eyes.

I smiled as I walked over to the bed, thinking about him.

My Doug, I thought, faithful to me throughout all his gifted, new life.

I snuggled under the blankets and thought back on the day Doug and I met.

I was travelling the world, a mission hidden in vacations. I stood by the glass door of the beach house and saw a small boat toppled over. A man was struggling in the water, splashing about like a playful child, only he was not playing, he was drowning. With a speed faster than light, I slid the glass door open, flew out over the sandy cliff and saw the almost unconscious man battling with the snapping jaws of a rough sea and then the arms of a muscular wave finally hurled him to shore. The water pulled back at his feet, trying to claw him back into the hungry, wet dungeon to devour him. I came down on the wet sand and grabbed his hands, tugging at him, fighting with the sea to give him up. I won the battle and dragged him to shore, he looked up at me with pleading eyes. His chest was swollen and his lungs were drowning in the grey, salty water. I was going to leave him there. I was. People were meant to live and die.

"Save me."

He said and opened his eyes to look into mine. When those dark eyes turned to me, I felt frozen in a connection that none could explain. My brother, my twin, had eyes like that. Dark as midnight, soulful as the tune of a weeping guitar.

Something in his eyes reminded me of the day my brother had fallen into the well at the back of the mansion. He had pleaded the same two words, as he stretched his hands up to me from the mossy, green waters.

"Save me!"

My brother had shouted before he went under the water. I was six years old then. The well was too deep. I was not tall, nor strong enough to reach him. My brother sank to a watery death. I ran to my Father, but it was too late. Father pulled his small body out, buried him in the family cemetery and sealed the top of the well off with steel and cement. I did not have the power then to save my brother, but I had the power now to save this man, whose stare caressed my heartstrings to play a lovers tune.

He was going to die.I felt his last breath fill inside him and I bit my lips open, then bent and kissed him. I can't explain why I kissed him. I only knew that by whatever means my blood entered his system, he would live again.

Why had I not bit my wrist and placed it to his lips? Kissing him just felt like the right thing to do.

My blood swept into his body and he sucked on my wounded bottom lips. I never knew that a dying kiss was so sensual, so promising. He then touched my cheek and exhaled his last human breath. His lifeless hand falls back to the sand.

Holding Doug's body in my lap, sitting on the shore, the wind pulling my hair and the sea screaming furiously at me, I granted him his wish. I did what I could not have done for my brother.

I saved him.