The Dream That Bled
831 Words
The sky above Keal shimmered with mirrored stars. Not real stars, not the familiar constellations that marked navigation and fate across the known realms—but echoes, reversed and cracked, like reflections in broken glass. He stood in a place that might have once been a field, or a battlefield, or the ruins of something older than civilization. The ground beneath his feet pulsed with veins of dim light, breathing like a slumbering beast.
This was no dream. This was a vision.
And something inside him—the same instinct that had once warned him to duck before a sword reached his neck, the same whisper that saved Nyra when her breath caught for the first time—told him this place was not a warning.
It was a price.
"Where am I?" Keal's voice didn’t echo. It was swallowed.
A step forward. The sky blinked.
From the dark horizon, mist rose, thick and weighted. It dragged with it the sound of weeping and laughter, of whispers too soft to understand. It coiled at his feet. Something took shape in the mist. A tree. Then a tower. Then a cradle.
All of them burning.
The mist thinned. Shadows emerged. Figures. He recognized some by posture alone.
Ava, blood on her blade. Seraphina, her hands aflame. Lima, eyes sharp, cloak torn.
They stood around a broken table. The map on it flickered between flames and void.
Behind them, the children—Nyra, Kaelen, Siora—stood motionless. Not injured, but still. Their eyes were not their own. Each glowed with a different color.
Red. Blue. Gold.
Not alive. Not dead.
Possessed.
"This isn't real," Keal whispered, trying to move closer.
But something pulled at him. Held him.
He turned.
A figure stood alone in the darkness. Tall. Hooded in robes the color of ruin. No face. Just a crack in the air where a face should be. And from that crack, whispers poured.
"Who are you?" Keal demanded.
The figure did not speak. But the visions changed.
He saw Nyra, standing alone in a forest, birds dead at her feet. He saw Kaelen carving runes into his own arms, drawing power from pain. He saw Siora floating above the ground, her mouth open in silent scream as fire engulfed a palace.
Then he saw himself.
Older. Broken. Kneeling. Surrounded by ashes. Holding nothing.
"NO!"
He reached for his blade. There was none.
The hooded figure lifted one hand. Keal was lifted too—not by force, but by understanding.
This was not an enemy.
This was fate.
The vision twisted. Warped.
He was falling now.
Into the sky.
Above him: the stars of the sigil. Below him: a spiral of fire and stone.
He landed in water that burned.
He stood. The world was upside down. Cities floating in the sky. Seas boiling beneath them. Time ran sideways here. He could feel memories passing him like gusts of wind.
He heard voices.
"You failed them." "You waited too long." "You thought love was enough."
Keal fell to his knees. His breath came ragged.
Then came a child’s voice.
"But you can still choose."
He looked up. A boy stood before him. Maybe four years old. Auburn hair. Emerald eyes. Familiar.
"Siora?" he asked, confused.
The boy smiled. "No. But like her. One of many that could have been."
"What is this place?"
"The Echo. Where paths converge before they exist."
Keal stood slowly. "Then show me the path where I save them."
The boy tilted his head. "All paths demand something. The more you want to keep, the more you must give."
Again, the world changed. Now Keal stood before a throne. Black stone. Burnt metal. Someone sat upon it.
Himself.
Crowned in fire. Alone.
No wife. No children. No war. No peace.
Just a world forged in victory and silence.
A voice echoed: "This is the path where none suffer. But none live."
Another vision.
The stronghold, overrun. The children taken. Ava slain. Lima turned to crystal. Seraphina roaring in rage before being consumed by her own fire.
The world drowned in shadow.
"This is the path where you did not act."
A third vision.
Keal at the edge of a cliff. Behind him: everything. Before him: a black sea.
A choice.
"This is the moment. The hinge."
The boy appeared again. "Will you pay the price?"
Keal asked, "What is the price?"
The child didn’t answer. He just held out a hand.
Keal took it.
He awoke screaming.
The room was dark. Moonlight slashed through the window. His chest heaved. His heart raced.
Beside him, Seraphina stirred, then sat up. "What is it?"
Keal didn’t speak.
He rose, walked to the mirror.
In the reflection, his eyes glowed faintly red.
From far beyond the window, in the whisper of trees, came a voice.
"The Prophet stirs. The First Spark has kindled."
Keal turned away from the mirror.
The price had been named.
And whatever it was, he would pay it.
- Writer
