Chapter 6__Dreams and Training
1689 Words
I woke up gasping, my sheets soaked with sweat. For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was. My room. My bed. The Mortal World.
It had all been a dream. Except it hadn’t. Not really.
My hands were still shaking from what I’d seen.
Raya’s broken form. The screaming souls. That nightmare realm of endless suffering.
And my parents, the revelation that they’d been murdered, that their deaths weren’t an accident at all.
“Kaiden, are you alright?”
I jumped, looking toward the window. Gia was standing there, translucent in the early morning light, barely visible but present.
“You’re here. In my room. How?”
“I told you. I’m bonded to your awakening power. I can reach you in the space between waking and sleeping.”
She moved closer, her form solidifying slightly. “We need to talk.”
“About what I saw? About Raya?”
“About everything.” Gia sat on the edge of my bed, or appeared to.
She didn’t quite touch the surface. “What you experienced tonight wasn’t just a dream, Kaiden.”
“You actually traveled to those realms. Your consciousness, your essence, moved between worlds.”
“But my body stayed here.”
“Yes. That’s the only way you can travel right now. Through dreams.”
“Through the space where your mind is free to move beyond physical limits.”
I ran my hands through my hair, trying to process. “So I can’t just portal into those places whenever I want?”
“Not yet. If you tried to physically enter the Cilios Realm right now, you’d die.”
“Your body isn’t ready. Your power isn’t developed enough.”
Gia’s expression was serious. “This is going to take time.”
“How much time?”
“That depends on you. How fast you learn. How much you’re willing to sacrifice.”
I thought about Raya, about all those suffering souls.
Every day I took the train was another day they spent in agony.
“When do we start?”
“Tonight. When you sleep. That’s when I can guide you properly. But first, you need to understand the rules.”
“What rules?”
Gia stood, pacing my small room. “When you eventually master your powers, when you can physically enter the realms, time will work differently.”
“One hour in the Liminal or Cilios Realms equals one day in the Mortal World.”
“If you spend seven hours there, a week passes here.”
“That’s insane. What about my life here? My job? Andrea?”
“That’s the sacrifice. That’s why you need to be careful about when and how you use your power.”
“But there’s a loophole.” She looked at me intently. “If you enter through dreams, time distortion doesn’t affect you.”
“Dream travel keeps you synced with the Mortal World.”
“So I train in my dreams.”
“Every night. For as long as it takes. I’ll teach you to sense the dimensional barriers, to feel the flow of cosmic energy, and to recognize when souls are being torn from their proper path.”
“And then what? I fight Xarath?”
“Eventually. But first, you survive. You learn. You prepare.”
Gia’s form flickered slightly. “Get some rest today. Tonight, the real work begins.”
She faded, leaving me alone in my room with too many thoughts and not nearly enough answers.
The day passed in a blur. I went through the motions at work, delivering pizzas, smiling at customers, and pretending everything was normal.
But my mind was elsewhere. In the Cilios Realm. With Raya. And the thoughts of my murdered parents.
“You good, man?” Marcus asked during our shift. “You seem off.”
“Just tired. Didn’t sleep well.”
“You’ve been saying that a lot lately.” Marcus studied me. “Something going on?”
Nothing I can talk about, I thought. Nothing you’d believe anyway.
“Just stress. I’m fine.”
But I wasn’t fine. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw suffering.
Every quiet moment, I heard screaming. The weight of what I’d learned and what I was supposed to do pressed down on me until I could barely breathe.
When I got home that night, Andrea was waiting in the kitchen.
“We need to talk,” she said.
My stomach dropped. “About what?”
“About you. You’ve been acting strange for weeks. Muttering in your sleep, spacing out, looking terrified half the time.” She crossed her arms. “What’s going on, Kaiden?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired.”
“Don’t lie to me. I’ve been taking care of you for three years. I know when something’s wrong.”
I wanted to tell her. Wanted to explain about Gia and the realms and my parents’ murder.
But how could I? She’d think I was losing my mind. Maybe I was.
“I’m handling it,” I said quietly. “I promise.”
Andrea looked like she wanted to argue, but something in my expression stopped her.
“Just know I’m here. Whatever it is, you don’t have to deal with it alone.”
“I know. Thanks, Aunt Andrea.”
I went to my room, closed the door, and lay down on my bed.
My heart was racing. Tonight was the night. Tonight, the training started for real.
Before you sleep, think of me. Gia’s voice whispered in my mind.
Focus on my presence. That’s how you’ll find me in the dream space.
I closed my eyes and thought about Gia. About her dark eyes and sad smile.
About the weight she carried, being dead but still fighting. About the responsibility she’d placed on my shoulders.
Sleep came faster than I expected.
When I opened my eyes, I was standing in that misty in-between place again.
The space that looked like New Eden but wasn’t. Gia was waiting for me, more solid here than she’d been in my room.
“Ready?” she asked.
“No. But let’s do it anyway.”
She smiled, just a little. “Good answer. First lesson: sensing dimensional boundaries.”
“Every realm has a signature, a feeling. You need to learn to recognize them.”
“How?”
“Close your eyes. Reach out with something deeper than your physical senses.”
“Your bloodline carries the memory of countless dimensional crossings. Let it guide you.”
I closed my eyes and tried to do what she said. At first, there was nothing.
Just darkness. Then, slowly, I started to feel something.
A pulling sensation, like currents in water. Each one felt different. One warm and peaceful. One cold and wrong. One familiar and solid.
“I feel them,” I whispered. “Three different… places?”
“The Liminal Realm, the Cilios Realm, and the Mortal World. Good. Now try to touch one. Just with your consciousness. Don’t try to cross over yet.”
I reached for the warm current, the one that felt peaceful.
The moment my awareness touched it, images flooded my mind. The green hills. My parents laughing. Souls at rest.
Then something yanked me back hard. I stumbled, opening my eyes.
“What happened?”
“You pushed too far too fast.” Gia caught my arm, steadying me.
“You have to be gentle. Treat dimensional barriers like living things. They’ll reject you if you’re too aggressive.”
“How am I supposed to know the difference?”
“Practice. Over and over until it becomes instinct.”
We worked for what felt like hours. Me reaching out, pulling back, learning the feel of each realm.
My head started to ache. My consciousness felt stretched thin.
“This is harder than I thought,” I admitted.
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it was easy, anyone could do it.”
Gia watched me carefully. “But you’re doing well. Better than I expected for a first session.”
“Really?”
“Really. Now, let’s try something more advanced.”
“I want you to try creating a small portal. Not anywhere specific. Just a tear in the fabric between spaces.”
I focused, reaching for that deeper part of myself.
The part that carried the Kaelix bloodline. I felt the energy building, felt something start to shift in the space in front of me.
The air rippled. Twisted. Started to tear.
Then everything went wrong.
The tear exploded outward, wild and uncontrolled. Energy lashed through the dream space like lightning.
I felt something massive and terrible turn its attention toward me. Something ancient and hungry that had just sensed my presence.
“Stop!” Gia shouted. “Close it now!”
“I don’t know how!”
The presence grew stronger. Closer. I could feel its attention like a weight crushing down on me.
This was Xarath. This was the thing that had killed my parents. And it knew I was alive.
“Kaiden!” Gia grabbed my shoulders. “Look at me! Focus on my voice!”
I did, tearing my attention away from the growing portal.
Gia’s hands moved in patterns I couldn’t follow, weaving something that looked like light through the air.
The wild portal started to collapse, shrinking down to nothing.
When it finally closed, I dropped to my knees, gasping.
“What was that?”
“That was you losing control,” Gia knelt beside me. “And that was Xarath sensing your power awakening.”
“He knows you’re out there now. He knows you’re alive.”
“So I’ve painted a target on my back.”
“Yes. Which means we need to train faster. Work harder.” She helped me to my feet.
“But it also means you’re dangerous to him. He wouldn’t have reacted that strongly if he didn’t fear what you could become.”
“Great. So now I’m being hunted by a cosmic horror.”
“Welcome to the Kaelix bloodline.”
- Writer
