Nightmare

2

"There you are ———! Oh dear, what did I tell you about getting the juice on your feathers?"

Huh? Where...who? Ceylan groaned and cradled his head, the throbbing unpleasant. This has been occurring too often to be a coincidence, though it's more of a bother when it happened. A frown settled on his lips, there has to be a reason for these weird...visions.

The beating of wings drew his attention and he looked up to see...was that a person?! They were coming straight towards him; Ceylan yelped and bolted, his instincts screaming at him to run. Frost surrounded him as he tapped into his Energy, the world becoming a blur as he sprinted through the forest.

Adrenaline rushed through his veins, heart pounding as he swiped fern out of his way as he ran. There was something ominous about that sound of wings beating, something that just screeched ill omens. Ceylan heard faint shouting, but instead of feeling relief of there being other people, dread washed over him. There's many things that the blue haired teen had seen: robots with elemental powers, weapons that shot out energy, a dragon, a bloody werewolf even! Sorry, he's drawing the line on avians! Too many mythological creatures that are now confirmed to be real for him, thank you.

Leaping over a river, trying to minimize his trail by avoiding leaving ice on the water, Ceylan just barely caught sight of an arm stretched out to try to stop him. Everything felt like it slowed down as he dropped to his knees, using the momentum to continue forward and froze the person's feet to the ground while he had the opportunity. Stumbling a bit to regain his footing, the young adult yelped when another arm swung at him. Ice responded to him subconsciously and shot at the arm, impaling the flesh; Ceylan flinched at the howl of pain as he began to run away again. Fighting and harming robots is completely different than human beings, the bots could always come back for one thing!

God, sometimes he misses Quarton. At least there he could leave whenever he wanted and was protected by his Tenkai Knight armor and suit. Here, he's completely vulnerable.

Ceylan panted as quietly as he could, even covering his mouth with a hand as more of those strange avians flew by. He was lucky enough to stumble across a tree that had an opening that he could fit in, but he still has to worry about these things, if they're adept at hunting or not. His mind goes to the corpses in the cage he woke up in, nausea hitting him like a freight train. No, don't think about that, Ceylan berated himself, uncomfortably swallowing the bile in his throat.

The rustling of leaves made him stiffen, he'd had the foresight to use the surrounding bushes to cover the entrance to his hiding place, but that still didn't take away the fear he felt when feet came in sight. Ceylan's heartbeat roared in his ears and he prayed to the guardians that he would not be found by them. His prayers were unanswered, a hand shot in and grabbed his arm, terror seized the teen and his Energy responded in kind. Ice and frost exploded from him, shouts of panic sounded from the avians outside and Ceylan squeezed his eyes shut as he heard ice claim them in a frigid tomb.

He tried to calm his breathing as he stared at the frozen hand gripping his arm, steeling himself as he wretched it free and watched as the cold limb shattered. Nausea crawled up his throat rapidly and he scrambled out of the den, throwing up as soon as he saw the frosty carnage in front of him. Ceylan heaved and trembled, his body refusing to respond to him.

"No, you idiot!"

Instinctively rolling away, Ceylan barely had time to register the arrow landing beside him before he flung an ice lance in the direction it came in. He watched in horror as the lance impaled an avian in the sky, eyes following the corpse as it fell before shooting up to the one who yelled. The other avian was staring at him, hazel eyes never leaving his as he landed directly in front of him. A whimper escaped Ceylan's lips, tears forming, "I- I didn't mean to."

The man glanced around the frost bitten area, his black wings ruffled a bit before he looked at the blue haired teen again, "So it seems." He reached out and grabbed Ceylan's shirt, "Apologies little one," he murmured before delivering a swift strike, knocking him out.

~

Blearily opening his eyes, Ceylan jolted when faces were above him; he felt his arms and legs bound to the table he was on and began to panic. He spotted one of the faces give a sadistic grin as they saw this and nodded to the others. The sound of metal made him almost freeze, the sight of a scalpel caused him to thrash violently. Ceylan screamed, he managed to headbutt one of the operators but in turn the same guy cackled as he cut just below the boy's left eye. Another decided to cut his brow just to hear him howl in pain, the smiles on their faces scaring him more than anything.

"No," he sobbed as he felt his chest being cut open, "no," searing pain shot through him as they broke his ribs, "NO!"

At last his Energy responded to his cries, though it felt different. His ears rung and everything was muffled, he looked on with fuzzy vision as the operators covered their ears, mouths open for some reason. He could've sworn that ones ears were bleeding while another dropped to the floor; regardless, they scrambled and covered his mouth, yelling at each other as he struggled under them. The next thing he knew a needle was piercing his mouth and dawning realization hit him, they were sewing his mouth shut. His screams were muffled as they stitched the last part of his mouth closed and they turned him over after doing the same to his chest.

How long it took for them to tear into his skin he had no idea, all he could feel was searing pain.

"Get them ready," the avian with a broken nose that Ceylan headbutted earlier chirped with a crazed grin, he leaned down to meet Ceylan's gaze, "I'm going to enjoy this, little bird."

Immediately, they ruthlessly tore into his back, seeming to relish in his pain as he squirmed. The feeling of something big was shoved into his back directly between his shoulder blades. Ceylan felt his throat tighten, a silent scream even though he could no longer open his mouth; it felt like his back was being ripped open to accommodate whatever they were forcing on him. Tears burned down his cheeks, the feeling of them sewing even that weight to his skin hurt like he'd never known before. And throughout it all was cackling. Crazed, sadistic laughter. His blood was everywhere, his vision fading, pain burning in his soul. Ceylan only heard one last sentence before he passed out.

"The Crow is now ready to awaken."