Lucid Nightmares - Fated Flowers Saga

Ch 31: Strangers from Space

Finally feeling refreshed and clean, I walk back to the camp with a slight skip in my step. I fuss with my thick curls and scrunch the ends to make sure they maintain their shape so they don't frizz as badly. For the time in a while, I take a bit of time in my appearance to avoid looking like a hobo.

During my dark four years, I often forgot to take care of myself. I fell out of practice in taking care of my hair and rarely wore anything but sweats and oversized sweaters. My skin was horrible until my mom bought expensive cream to help and I couldn't let it go to waste. Expensive things were rare in our household and I'd feel terrible not to use it.

I forgot to eat breakfast and lunch and my potions of food at dinner grew smaller and smaller until I couldn't stomach more than a few bites. I started losing too much weight around year two until my parents convinced me to eat more for my health. They practically bribed me with carb-loaded meals like pasta, thick-crusted pizza, and homemade bread. It was a long process and I am eating better now, but the damage it has done has not been erased.

A small part of me wonders if Orferio will like seeing me look normal.

I feel embarrassed for showing him the horrible state I was when we reunited. He saw me at my worst in McDonald's. He saw my delirious state while I was on stage. I begin to doubt his love for me, unable to understand why he would love somebody like me.

It's baffling to think he used his own life to save mine.

The cold feeling of death returns to me as I remember the dark space when I died. I shake it off and continue down the winding dirt path. I remember Raven's voice as she threatened to take my soul from me. For a terrifying moment, I felt like I was her. As if I were a fragment of her soul, finally joined together. Not only that, Raven is no longer a faceless demon in my mind. She is a traitor to the Flowers. My Other. She is more dangerous than I realized.

I think back to my theories about the universe and how some of my ideas confirmed the existence of Others.

"Our world was created from a break in time-and-space in another universe. It caused chaos to offset the balance and split the world into many."

Orferio had explained the "break" happened at the beginning of time when the souls were once together until they were shattered. The fragmented souls follow the patterns of life, over and over again, until they die to cope with the separation. Now, Raven is trying to take my soul to create Aureliana. She is trying to piece the original soul back together.

What happens when souls become one?

"Really? When I'm naked?" Orferio shouts in the distance.

I freeze at his voice and search the treeline before finding a river. I walk silently towards the thick line of shrubbery and trees and— oh shoot he's actually naked.

I avert my eyes immediately and duck down, making sure he didn't see me too. I crawl under the line of bushes and squint at the shadows moving along the riverbank. My eyes widen at the sight of the wild people beginning to surround him.

The strange people look like a combination between Star Trek and tribal fan fiction.

Their shiny armor is plated around their body in sleek designs. Electronic wiring and patterns lace up their arms like tattoo patterns. Some of the futuristic wildlings are painted with mud smears and capes of leaves for camouflage. Underneath helmets of metal and a black face shield, I catch a glimpse of their colorful hair underneath. Their weapons of varying sizes are drawn and aimed at Orferio with itchy trigger fingers. Their eyes appear to glow behind the face shield as if electrified.

"Can I at least put on some clothes?" Orferio complains mockingly.

Only he would be so bold to taunt somebody while stark naked.