Lorelei was getting depressingly used to seeing that stranger at the edge of her vision. He moved with the speed of thought though, so he was never there when she looked fully. At first, she wondered if she were haunted. There were stories of such things, a ghost hooking itself to a single person and then following them wherever they went like a lost puppy. However, it didn’t feel like a haunting and Lore was far too pragmatic to believe in a world beyond that of the five major senses. Instead, she searched for other, more pedestrian, explanations. A stalker perhaps? Someone who wanted to be in her life but didn’t have the balls to make an actual move? Possibilities, but it didn’t feel like that either.
It felt like, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It seemed as if those visitations were intentional but non-threatening. A strange feeling. Even stranger was the day she met him.
There was rain, the cold slashing kind which cut through coats and offered no quarter to those stuck out in it.
Rushing from her job at Mason Pharmaceuticals, she found herself waiting for the light to cross going back to her condo when she felt those eyes on her again. He stood in the rain, clear as day, a few feet away.
She took in the angles of his face, the set of his eyes, and the measure of his jaw as it worked for a word. Then he spoke.
“Lorelei.”
One word and for the first time, she felt fear. It, he, whatever or whomever knew her name. Gone as suddenly as he appeared, the rain colored the sidewalk where he’d stood the uniform color of soaked gray.
The light changed. She hurried across with the safety of home never feeling more necessary.
Alexander awoke with her name on his lips certain what he’d had was no dream. Over weeks, as he returned to his life, he would see her as if through a pane of glass. Sometimes she would turn toward him and he would blink, despite straining against it, just as he would behold her full face.
This time was different. His hair was damp against his forehead.
He had been there with her, standing in the rain. His suit jacket attested the same. Knowing his power, he knew he could move through space from place to place, but could he do more? Was his yearning for her stretching his abilities to the limit to be with her?
He sat down at his desk and swept his wet hair away from his face.
It wasn’t a memory.
He didn’t know the street they stood on. A different place, a different world, a different dimension. If he could harness this power. He closed his eyes. If he could harness the power, maybe he could find a way to have her back.