Dragons of War - Rising Storm

Chapter 26 (2/2)

There was so much life, so much silence, so much peace, to be found in that place above my head.

I'd once heard tales of the past about that strange place called Space. How, at the height of society, we had scaled Heaven's Ladder, and touched the stars. My mind, muddled as the pills wore off completely, and within the dream that formed in my mind, I noticed something.

The lights of the stars. The breath of the wind that blew by me. The movement of the trees, their leaves whispering in a low murmur. There were creatures everywhere around me. There was peace all around me.

Why had I been so worried?

I have to find him.

Why was I running?

I can't stop now, they need him!

Why is this my concern?

The argument so confusing in my head, I shook myself to drop the thoughts, but when I blinked my eyes back into focus, there was someone standing right in front of me.

It was me.

My eyes widened, my mouth dropped open and I jumped back, but the form in front of me remained motionless. Emotionless. It lacked any desire, yet I felt the awareness that radiated from it like a burning fire. They were as alive as I was.

"Who are you?" I called out.

"Who are you?" They replied.

Confused and scared, I looked to the ground, to try and bring myself back to reality. This had to be a dream, right? When I raised my head again, they were gone.

"Are you going to answer the question?" A voice called out through the trees.

My heart pounded in my chest.

Were they a real person?!

"I don't know, are you?" They replied to my unspoken thought.

If they can hear my thoughts then - I thought to myself.

"That's right. So who am I then?" The voice returned, the sound, so close that I whipped around and found them standing behind me.

Fear shot through me and I jumped backward. A root caught my heel and I tumbled to the ground. My head spun, the pain of impact shot through me, but I knew my confusion was more than just the hallucination I was having.

I had never been off of those pills since I first woke up Changed. Was this the result?

Why was I seeing myself?

"Why can't you answer the question?" The voice asked.

"Why don't you answer first?" I shot back into the open air, my head still spinning but my thoughts, for once, were clear.

"Me? I already know who, and what, I am. It's you who needs to figure it out." They responded.

A blurry shadow stepped above me, and the eyes that looked back down, no matter the familiar shade, shape and color, were completely foreign to me.

I really didn't know the person I looked upon.

"Why can't you answer?"

I squeezed my eyes shut, the sharp pain in my head growing and I felt a sickness rising in my stomach. But against the darkness of my closed eyelids, images flashed through my mind. Of entering that forest, of running away from the cries of those people. Of entering that battle the day before.

The images flew faster and faster until it was like a movie reel inside my mind.

I saw through my own eyes, the first day of my flight as a dragon. The countless hours spent in meditation. The hardships I went through in training. And then I entered into a nightmare. I felt a pain grow throughout my body, but this pain was more than just a feeling. It was a memory. It was familiar. It was from when I was inside that machine.

I felt a spear through my chest. Fire in my nerves, and ice in my bones. Images flew through my mind so quickly it hurt my eyes and the confusion became so overwhelming that I felt sick. I tried to shut it out. The sights, the pain, the memories. But I couldn't block what I had felt.

There was a calm peace deep within those memories. A chilly confidence I had never experienced before, but the images that accompanied it were of myself, standing on that ledge, choosing to jump. Of myself, standing on a pillar high above the people around, a feeling of superiority that was trumped by nothing, and no one. I felt so much arrogance that I feared the body that surrounded me. I feared the feeling, the expression.

I feared myself.

"Why?" The voice asked me.