Parallels

Chapter One: The long dark

It had been a long night, filled with visions.

Malcoulm woke up with the sweats, the visions never got old, regardless of how many times he experienced them. His father had always called them visions of his former self, but Mal knew it was more than that.

The visions were often of great battles, either in the void with such advanced weaponry the likes of no one in this realm had seen, other times it would be visions of fighting on horseback, wielding primitive firearms. Each vision varied in all sorts of manners, but always had a single constant, at some point in the vision the eyes he was gazing through would look into a reflection, and Malcoulm saw himself.

Always, without hesitation, he would wake up then, the sweats having soaked the bedclothes he found himself in at the given moment. On this particular eve, he was stationed in the port town of Astaria, off the great coast of the Eastern Continent, a painted lady in the bed next to him, not having stirred from her slumber as he startled awake.

"So glad someone can get some sleep around here," he said under his breath, sarcastically.

Rising, he walked to the water basin on the dresser and stared into the mirror, his eyes reflecting back in the dim light from the street outside. Eyes the color of milk, a rare genetic disorder that had followed the line of males in his family lineage. There were only 18 people in the world at any time with this disorder, as science had lead them to find out.

Splashing the tepid water onto his face he let out a low sigh, "Why can't we just go back to the times when I would of been worshiped and renowned for these fucking eyes? Much simpler it would of been." His voice was afflicted with sorrow as he spoke, the years showing their way through his words. He was 37 cycles old, and had been in the military for 22 of those cycles.

Colonel Malcoulm O'Dair, was what his badge and records would say, he however, would simply say, "Call me Mal." It was something he had been doing for years, and it always humbled him to any new recruits that found themselves in his camp. Making it easier to train them, and determine whether they were going to be soldiers or washouts.

He returned to bed, and to the visions, knowing as soon as sleep came, they too, would come to haunt him once more.

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­­­­­­­­­ Star Cycle: 6509, Date: 127 ­­­­

"Mal­­"

"MAL­­"

"MAL!"

The voice startled Malcoulm awake when it boomed in his ear, tossing him into the cruel reality that awaited him. A​nother skirmish, ​he thought, g​reat.​ His dream this time had been calm, easy, this time he had awakened into the nightmare. He pushed up from his bunk and shoved Johnson aside, his Corporal. Already in his battle dress, he didn't have to worry about donning anything other than his exo­harness.

"What's the situation?", he called over the battle station alarms.