A Hidden Past

Chapter 14: Waking Up to Familiar Faces

Thankfully this only applies to stuff she truly believes in....thank God we don't talk about politics then. The idea of talking about what government should be doing what thing was both irksome and aggravating in equal measures.

"Daniel, you trust me right?" She asks. Daniel is surprised by the question, finding it to be absurd.

He gives his twin a fierce nod. "Yes, you know that I'll always trust you Sar. We're parabatai." Daniel places a hand over where Sara's parabatai rune lies on her abdomen.

The L patterned shape lights up the second he touches it, as does his own rune. The twins have been connected since birth, the parabatai rune yet another testament to the bond they share. I don't know what I'd do without her.

"And I trust you. I love you brother." She says this gently, a small smile adorning her face. It reaches up to her eyes and kindles them with a soft light. Daniel found every smile she gave him to be a gift, no matter how big or small.

"I love you too." He returns with the same sincerity. If there was one thing Daniel knew he could count on, it would be his family. They won't let me down.

And then the scene changed as time fast forwarded.

BOOM. CRASH.

A storm brewed overhead in the sky. The sound of fighting was raucous and split the air with shrieks of clanging weapons and cries of outrage. The metallic smell of blood coated the air with its thick, pungent feel.

Everything was happening so fast.

SHRIEK. WHOOSH.

Feathers spiraled from the air along with spritz of blood. Adrenaline rushes Daniel's movements as he fights on. Everything feels like it's turning red and he can't even see where his siblings are at this point, the burning familias rune on his right wrist the only way he knows they're nearby.

Images flash by him at lightning speed. They are not his imaginings no, they are memories.

And then it happens.

The swirling portal opens onto a landscape Daniel has only ever heard about in stories. He remembers his father's words back when the man described the world unto which Daniel and the rest of his siblings must never go.

"This is a world where the light has died. What remains here is nothing but darkness, and the few beings of good that exist here are squashed down and slaughtered savagely by the monsters within. A long time will pass before this place can ever be saved...it must never be any of you that goes there."

The scene that forms through the portal is one of abstract horror. The sky is an unaltered fuming red, the sun a red orb up against the cloudless atmosphere. Demons are crawling and flying everywhere, spewing black ichor all over the deadened chalky white floor.

There are no people that he can see there, but the remains of humans are still visible: crushed skulls, broken rib cages, gleaming bones from arms and legs picked clean of any flesh that once dwelled on them.

The sight makes Daniel feel sick, but what happens next is even more tragic, the memory so stark and clear in his heart yet it goes by in a blur in this dream. Sara's battered form disappearing into a world of darkness. Sara crying out for help. Sara....Sara being gone.

"SARA!!!!!" He cries out.

Dream Sequence ends....