SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 176

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Six

Warmth and comfort, shelter and protection, my fractured heart was being held together so it wouldn't fly in every direction by two huge bodies that coiled around me. My soul, my being, my core was in pain, weeping on the inside over everything I'd done and discovered.

Muzzles nuzzled me, long snake-like tongues brushing my cheeks.

Nothing helped.

"Poor Child, Mama Feng-Feng is here," the tongue on my right soothed. "We here, la-la."

"You have absolutely nothing to fear," Anurak said in a quiet, soothing voice, "the road ahead is still long and tumultuous but you will survive and you will eventually rise to the future you want to create. Whatever that path may be, we will be right here to guide you."

Thoughts bubbled out of me, taking shape, anguished and raining tears that held no form.

'Is the bad stuff over?'

'I killed and tortured people!'

'I'm just as evil as all the other vampires!'

'I couldn't stop Jasper! I'm too weak! He'll attack us again!'

'Why can't I just be happy now?'

'I have blood on my hands. I'm a murderer.'

"Silence fool talk, no no no!" Feng-Feng snapped, and the world rippled as her tail slashed through it aggressively. "You not murderer! You protect family, la! They in situation where no other method work right! You did right thing! Mama told you, la! Gut feeling is best feeling!"

"She is correct," Anurak said softly, "that... monster... would have not hesitated to kill you. Had you acted in any other way, your rescue attempt would have failed and all of you would have been killed. Do not grieve for your enemy, child... in war, you don't have that luxury."

War...?

Was that really what this situation truly was?

War?

"Just remember one thing and one thing only," Anurak whispered into my ear. "Call. Our. Names. At that moment of true fear, when you are trapped, when there is no way out and the one you love the most cannot and will not hear you. You must. Call. Our. Names. Wu Tao. Scream it. Scream it inside or outside, it matters not, even if it is subconsciously."

Confusion flooded through me when the warmth uncoiled.

Letting me drift away from them, floating towards an abyss.

"Once it ends," Feng-Feng called, lifting her bewhiskered vulpine dragon muzzle and regarding me with blue-eyes that saw more than I can ever fathom, "we come to you in waking world."

"Until then, Godspeed, my son," Anurak said, voice drifting away as I floated higher and higher. I was submerged underwater, sinking into a more dreamlike state. My mind was floating adrift in the universe. Flying past stars that put the sun to shame and planets with rings finer than any piece of jewelry. My consciousness saw nebulae, black holes, alien civilizations.

It was so quiet out here. So Peaceful. But... so very lonely.

I missed him.

I didn't even know who he was but I missed him.