Three Futures Enslaved | Dream Team

Chapter Three

"A bet?"

"Yes. Do you really think you can escape Fate?"

"What, are you asking to relive all that again?"

"You were an assassin. Your skills were hardwired towards killing, and yet you refrained, befriending your victim. You say you believe in your friendship. I would like to test that. If you succeed once more, I shall let you stay in the world of the living."

"You... would you really?"

"Win this bet, and life is in your hands once more."

***

Dream was... someone. Anyone. He wasn't too sure.

He had woken up in an unfamiliar room, lying on a bed, completely alone, with no recollection of who he was and his past. A flurry of images flashed past him, but they were gone before he could reach out and grab one, taking his memories away and leaving in their place a large blank --- and questions.

Questions. So many questions. So many more appeared when a man entered the room, in a way that felt fluid and familiar. The actions of one who had been in the room many times before. Dream didn't know how long he had been in that bed for, but he was certain that the man would know.

Unfortunately for him, he had no clue who the mystery man was. Something about him felt familiar, but Dream wasn't too sure what. Was it the hair? Maybe someone he used to know had that sort of hair. Or maybe it was the eyes. The man had had very nice brown eyes.

What had caught Dream's attention most of all was the shocked look on the man's face. He wasn't quite sure if it was happy shock or scared shock, and the man's questions of how he was awake didn't help him to figure it out. But he was certain that the brown-eyed man had something to do with his past. He just needed to ask.

Then the teleportation had happened. One second he was there, in the room, listening to someone outside call to the man --- "George", he was pretty sure they had said --- and the next, he was sitting in a forest, surrounded by tall trees covered in white and snow as far as the eyes could see.

Dream felt less surprised and more confused in general by the change.

Now, sitting in the snow by himself, he felt an odd sense of peace. It was quiet in the forest. He liked it.

But quiet wasn't what he needed to get answers to the yawning gap in his mind. Dream stood up, brushed himself off, and turned in a circle, taking in his surroundings.

Something about the forest also felt familiar to him. He felt like he belonged. Even though trees stretched out in all directions, he could feel every inch of the ground they covered without having them in sight, not at all afraid of the unknown.

Add that to my list of questions, he thought to himself wryly. "Why do needle trees make me feel happy"?

He began walking. His feet were bare, probably because he had been lying in a bed and only really weird people wore shoes to bed, but trudging through the snow barefoot was also something only really weird people did. The cold sent a muted tingle through the soles of his feet, creeping up to his spine and settling down at the base of his neck like a freaky, coiled snake. 

Dream decided that he did not like snakes.

As he walked, he thought about what sort of person he might've been in his past life. A merchant? Maybe he was a king or a prince, and that was why he had been being cared for in a bed. But if that was the case, shouldn't he have been in a castle somewhere, not in a simple house?