Azur Lane: Tides of Fate

Chapter 2 - Crossed Path's

Help.....them.....

What was that voice?

Please...spare them at least....

A woman's voice?

Blurriness seemed to accompany a deafening ringing in the ears, the surroundings seem to move in stagger motion as confusion. As Asher looked around he noticed something was off from the get go. Explosions and the sound of ricocheting bullets enveloped him as he was picking himself up from the wooden deck of a large battleship. Amongst the chaos was the shouting of orders trying to overcome the screams of mangled or bloodied men crying for help who were scattered along the deck. Flames and pillars of smoke towering the entire ship and the surrounding fleet was a scene straight of hell itself, yet everything had a strange familiarity. Asher somehow felt that this chaotic scene presented before him was not lost to him, that in fact he knew in his dazed mind what was going on.

Please.....save them......

That voice again? Save who? What am I suppose to be saving?

Before he could get some response a rising whistling was heard from above, looking up Asher saw a formation of white planes with red circles on each wing, but this meant little when he noticed the source of the sound, a bomb rapidly descending towards him. He couldn't react in time as it seemingly landed on him but what was strange was that it didn't explode but rather in a second after supposedly landing Asher felt a gaping hole over his heart.

Upon looking down he in fact noticed a large, gapping hole in his chest. The pain surged throughout his body as he started coughing up blood, gasping for air with each fit. He quickly started to collapse to his knees before falling over his side as the ship he was on began to tilt and slowly descend into the water.

No.......

That voice again, this time it's tone seem to echo one if immense misery and pain that Asher seem to share with his current circumstance. The blood that was spilling from his chest started to turn into a solid black, a strange phenomenon if it wasn't for the fact that the young man felt the fading sensation of the blood loss taking over.

Help them....at least.....save them.....please.....

Despite slowly losing consciousness the voice still cried out, the muffled cries from within the ship could be heard, holes made from earlier bombing were wide enough for Asher to see some hands reaching out of the water, attempting to grasp for something or someone to reach them but to no avail.

Save me!!!!

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Asher spring forward from his bed, deep and heavy breathes filled the room as cold sweat riddled his body. With reality finally setting in the young man reached for his chest to feel no hole from earlier, looking at his surrounding Asher could tell that it barely the morning, a small flint of the sun was barely starting to rise from his room windows. Reaching for his phone he saw that is was only 6:26 am, a bit early than his usual time to wake up. Upon recollecting himself the young man set the phone down and head to the bathroom towards the sink to wipe the sweat off his face.

Amidst splashing water on his face Asher pondered for a moment over the contents of his surreal dream or nightmare.

"What the hell was that? Why was I even dreaming of something like that?"

Somewhere in his mind the young man wondered if there was some subconscious reasoning behind the strange dream, yet at the time it felt so real. The stench of burning oil and metal, the heat of the flames and....the hole in his chest.....Asher knew dreams tend to tell about someone's inner deep thoughts but this clearly wasn't the case. Also that voice, he never heard it before. He doesn't know anyone with a voice like that.