"What did you just call me?" Mathis looked almost as if he was about to jump on the young woman, who after noticing the look on his face felt like she had just stepped on a mine.
She lowered her head and didn't dare to look the man in the eyes. "I'm sorry. My lord wasn't responding and… I didn't mean to call my lord by his name…" It seemed that the young woman thought that Mathis was angry because she called him by his name, but that wasn't the matter.
What made Mathis respond in such manner was the fact that he recognized that name as his, when it wasn't. It was the fact that the woman called him by that name and he responded to her, when he knew very well that his name wasn't Yue Zian or whatever this strange name is. The more time Mathis spent in this place, the more things were added to the already too long by his standards list of strange things that had happened in such a short period of time. It hasn't even been… what? Two hours? And his head is going to explode from all these unexplainable things that were happening to him.
No matter how he thought about it, there's no way to explain any of this. "Maybe I finally went mad." He thought, burying his head on his hands. The hair fell in front of his face, covering it like a black silk curtain, hiding his panicking self from the eyes of the woman. "I have lost my fucking mind." Mathis muttered to himself with such a low voice, the woman couldn't make out his words.
She didn't dare move a muscle, still holding the tray and the cloak on her hands, not daring to even say anything. It's not like this man hadn't acted oddly before. Actually she had even witnessed the man snapping for no reason, throwing fits like a child, but this? What the fuck was this? And so, just as if she was in front of a wild animal, the woman didn't dare to avert her eyes in case the beast would suddenly attack. Mathis wasn't paying attention to her, not noticing the way her gray eyes looked like storms. He didn't notice how her muscles unconsciously tensed, her body taking a defensive position, preparing herself for what could possibly happen, yet her legs shook underneath the long dress, not knowing if she should walk forward or backwards, hesitant to approach or just simply leave, but all she could do was bite down on her lip. It's wasn't exactly fear…
"I'm daydreaming. That's it. What else could this be?"
While the young woman was going through a horrible turmoil, Mathis somehow came to the conclusion that he must be dreaming, even though everything around him, his senses and even his heart, told him otherwise. "There's no way I have gone mad. I'm perfectly healthy. I must be dreaming. That's it. How else could I have became part of my book?��� He thought, unconsciously shaking his head as if the body didn't quite agree with the thoughts roaming his mind.
Even though it was debatable, if either he was dreaming or not, one thing for sure was undeniable. Mathis Bauer was inside his own book. The very one he just published. That would explain half of the odd things around here. It would explain, why the room felt so familiar and why he recognized the woman standing in front of him, looking as if she was about to faint every minute now. It was all because he had seen these things before. He had imagined them, and had played with these images for months while writing the book. Coming to this realization, for some reason that can't be explained, Mathis forgot all about his worries and a wave of excitement took over his body.
He was inside his book. Either this is a dream or, not, can a chance like this ever come again? He could explore the world he wrote and see his characters from up close. With these thoughts in mind, he abruptly stood up, his eyes flaring up, scaring that little soul that was left in the woman's body. Being held in anticipation for so long drained all her energy and now that she got startled by Mathis' sudden movement, her body couldn't take it anymore and went limp. The tray and the black cloak fell on the ground, the silver hitting the floor with a loud clash. The woman's body was about to hit the floor too, but Mathis reacted in time and got hold of her, supporting her back with his right arm. The woman's head fell on his chest.
Given the fact that he does nothing but lock himself in a dark room and stare at a screen, either it was for writing his masterpieces or to simply watch anime, Mathis' body wasn't that strong. Even his housemaid had more muscles than him, and that was undebatable. This is because for research reasons or maybe even for his own entertainment, one day, Mathis asked his housemaid, Maria, in an arm wrestling match. Needless to say he lost and had a sore arm for a few days while dear Maria kept on cleaning the house, humming some kind of melody under her breath, as if nothing had happened. To most men, such devastating defeat would be a blow to their ego, however Mathis found this rather amusing and impressive.
However, having such lack of physical strength, also meant that he didn't have any chance of holding the woman from falling face first on the floor and break her nose, yet for some reason, not only was he capable of preventing her from falling, but he also took her in his arms. Such anomaly didn't occur him up to the moment the woman was in his arms. Finally realizing that, among other strange things that was happening to his body in this weird dream, he had became stronger. Such thing surprised Mathis Bauer so much, he accidentally shrieked in surprise and the woman almost fell off his arms.
Mathis laid the woman on the bed and tapped her face a few times. "Nadia? Nadia?" He called her name.
"I can't believe I'm holding Nadia in my arms." He thought with so much excitement while the poor woman still laid on the bed scared to death. For some weird reason that even he couldn't understand, Mathis thought: Is this how a father feels holding their child in his arms for the first time?
He was almost tearing up.
The story Mathis Bauer just published was a book with magic, magical creatures and amazing battles, and Nadia just happened to be one of his characters, and not just a simple one at that. While writing her character, Mathis made sure to give her a timid personality which would explain why she reacted in such way and fainted, but being fully convinced that this is a dream anyway, Mathis didn't worry much and studied her face carefully, with the expression a father sees his child, filled with pride. She was exactly how he had imagined her, down to the smallest details. The white hair that looked almost like melted silver flowing down her petite figure, the braids with the hair rings, the details on her face and skin which, if you looked closely, you could notice how it wasn't quite the skin of a human. Quite the opposite actually, the texture of the skin was more like that of the wings on a butterfly, most noticeable on the cheekbones and her shoulders.
Thinking of wings, Mathis gasped at loud his eyes finally tearing up when he noticed the things on Nadia's back. Three sets of wings, like transparent glass, could be seen from underneath her body. Mathis couldn't control his excitement. He didn't have kids himself, but he always thought of his characters as his children. The ones he liked at least, even though he killed most of them just because he felt like it and justified it with the overused sentence "it was for the plot". The other characters were just… "adopted". After all he wrote a lot assholes that even he hated, let alone the readers.
Nadia opened her eyes. The sight that greeted her was the very same man that was feared by everyone in the palace and everywhere else, standing right beside her, his eyes focused on her with a strange expression on his face. It was probably this expression, that made her eyes widen and jump off the bed as if she was set on fire, her head almost colliding with his. She rushed to grab the things that had fallen on the floor and with a timid voice, she rushed to speak. "I'm so sorry, my lord. I…"
"This is amazing." Mathis' words interrupted her and whatever words she was trying to say, died in her throat. Nadia wasn't sure if it was the words, the tone of the voice or that it was this man who said these words that caught her by surprise, either way she took a few steps back when he stood up from the bed and walked towards her. The man didn't seem to notice in what emotional condition she was, her heart beating so fast it felt like it would leap off her chest. He brushed his long black hair behind his ear and rubbed his chin. "Absolutely amazing. Perfection." He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from crying: My child is so beautiful. He felt like one of those one hundred year old grandmas whose goal was to compliment the grandkids and whine "put some meat on those bones".
"My lord..." Nadia's voice trembled again as she took a few other steps backwards, wanting to run out of the room but scared to do so. What the fuck is wrong with him today? He has never been like this. Did he hit his head back then? Or… her face paled even more.
The man dismissed her words with a single wave of his hand, a soft smile on his face. She couldn't recall a single time she had seen this man smile, let alone do it with such a soft expression on his face. The colors on her face came and went, not knowing how to react to such situation.
"Don't call me that. Ma-" Mathis' voice stuck in his throat, the smile dropped from his lips, his face paled. Why did his own name felt so foreign? So foreign he couldn't even say it at loud without feeling like he was talking nonsense. Then as if suddenly remembering something, Mathis shot Nadia a flared glance that terrified the poor girl, making her blood run cold. "What did you call me earlier?"
"My lord, I already apologized. I didn't mean to…" Nadia began to apologize again but Mathis cut her off impatiently.
"Tell me." He tried to not scare her, but his patience was running short and the words came out harshly.
With a pale face and cold sweat running down her face, Nadia managed to appear calm, her fast beating heart eventually slowing down bit by bit. The two words rolled out of her mouth like pearls. "Yue Zian."
"Yue Zian…. Why does it sound so familiar?" Mathis thought rubbing his chin again. "Where have I heard this name before?"
As Mathis fell deep in his thoughts upon hearing his name, totally forgetting about Nadia, the poor woman could only stare at him in confusion, fear and unexplainable emotions. She had never seen this man loose his cool and act THIS kind of strange. He would always have a stoic expression plastered on his face, saving his words as if they were gold, not speaking until it was necessary, and even then it would usually be less than five words, two of which were just "hmm" and "mhm", appearing as if he didn't want to waste his breath on anyone.
"Who is Yue Zian?" Mathis asked Nadia, who was left dumbstruck upon hearing this absurd question. He has gone completely mad, she thought, her face paling even more, not believing what she was hearing and seeing. He has totally lost it. Did he hit his head?
For a brief second Nadia had the urge to go check his head just to make sure. How else could all this be explained?
"That's… that's your name, my lord."
Mathis looked at her face and deep down he knew she wasn't lying. Her eyes, her voice, the way she was standing… it all told him she wasn't lying. But even if she was telling the truth, Mathis still had no idea who Yue Zian was.
"No, no. You…" Mathis wanted to make things clear. He wasn't this Yue Zian she was telling him he was. Mathis was just Mathis. The writer. He didn't even know anyone with that name. But as he was trying to voice these thoughts, his body froze as he finally remembered. I'm who, now!!!
Long hair… dark clothes… red sash…
"How could I forget?" Mathis thought.
His face paled even more and now he looked like he was about to faint. When Nadia saw this, she wasn't sure what to do. Should she help him or stay where she is? Not being able to decide on anything, her body just remained frozen in place with only her hands extended as if she would catch Mathis if he fell, but the look on her face made it clear that Nadia was terrified of the thought of touching him while being in such state. It would be like patting the head of a dog with rabies.
Right when Mathis's body titled a bit ahead as if he was going to fall, the whole internal monolog he was having finally burst out with a high pitched voice that gave poor Nadia another heart attack.
"I'M THE PSYCHOPATH?!" Mathis grabbed Nadia's shoulders, failing to notice how terrified to death she was, and shook her violently. "The fucking lunatic who kills everyone?!!!"
It has been quite a while since Mathis had finished writing his latest book and he had already started working on another one, which made it quite hard for him to remember all of his characters. Unless he kept detailed, well-organized notes of every single one of his characters, he wouldn't be able to remember half of the things he had written about them. Mathis had written and published ten or so books, had at least fifteen drafts of books that have been started since he was in high school and will probably never be finished, and he had three or four works in progress. It's quite difficult to remember all of his characters, let alone their names. Usually he would remember only the main ones. With Nadia it was different. He remembered her, even though she wasn't an important character because she played a very important role in the development of the plot. Besides, he had always liked how she turned out in looks and personality. It was a personal preference.
But Yue Zian?!!!
Even Mathis knew he went a bit too far while writing his character. The amount of gore and disturbingly violent scenes this character causes in just the ten first chapters was so much, his manager made him tone it down a bit.
The story Mathis seems to be dreaming about, is about four clans in a fictional world. A fictional world with a lot of scary human eating creatures. There is this Zicia clan, which is also the clan the main character is from. There is the Grimsbane clan where Nadia is from, the Dramigary clan and the Keogon clan. The last one is where the main villain, as well as Yue Zian is from. Things get complicated after this, since the younger son of the Keogon clan's leader, plots against his father, tries to overthrow all of the other three clans and have them all under control and Yue Zian, the not so mentally stable Great General, being ordered around by him, is the one who does all the mass murders, inhumane and gory killings, while the son of a bitch villain sipped on his wine in his warm cozy room. And dear Nadia is telling Mathis that he is this Yue Zian? The Yue Zian?
Honey… sweetie… are trying to give your father a heart attack?
"I need a mirror. Get me a mirror. Where is the mirror?" Mathis said in a frantic voice, pulling on his hair.
Nadia was shaken at such scenario, staring at Yue Zian with wide opened eyes. With a shaking hand, she pointed at the door near the wardrobe but didn't dare to say anything.
Mathis ran to the door Nadia pointed at and almost slammed it open. What laid behind that door was a small bathroom, the size of his office. For some reason, it had a balcony on the right and a great window right in front of the door. The window could be partially seen as two sets of red linen curtains hung in the middle of the place, pooling on the floor. Behind the curtains was a white bathtub, right next to the window. What Mathis was searching for was opposite the balcony. There stood what looked like a bird bath made of dark green marble. The water came from the wall and fell on the "bird bath" and was drained slowly by a small hole in the middle of the plate of this "bird bath". On the wall behind this kind-of-sink was the mirror, a round bronze frame surrounding its surface.
Mathis ran to it and stared at the smooth surface of the mirror in disbelief. He noticed two things as he stared at the face in front of him. One- he really was Yue Zian. Wilde silky black hair fell on his face and shoulders, black obsidian eyes stared at him in shock, as if Yue Zian couldn't believe he was Mathis Bauer as well. The face on the mirror was handsome with elegant features, thin lips that had a soft red hue, straight nose and smooth fair skin that looked cleaner than Mathis' face had ever been. Two small birth marks dropped one on top of the other right under his left eye, looking from far as bloody tears. If it weren't for the fact that he was a psychopath, Yue Zian was indeed very handsome, but his face twisted and turned ugly when he went on a rampage and killed hundreds. However now that Mathis had his face and was him, he only looked like a normal twenty-six year old. A quite shocked and scared twenty-six year old man.
And two- this dream doesn't seem like a dream at all.
In his early years of writing, Mathis happened to publish a fantasy novel with lucid dreaming being a major point of it, therefore he did a lot of research regarding this topic. He even tried it himself. There weren't the wanted results, but Mathis did manage to get two or three lucid dreams in the process. This means he has some kind of experience in this. However, even though he was convinced a few minutes before that he was dreaming, he wasn't that much anymore. He pinched his face, poked the cheeks and stuck his tongue out at the reflection yet nothing weird happened, his reflection didn't change nor became distorted. His eyes focused on his hands. Except the fact that now he had ten fingers instead of nine and a half, his hands looked fine, detailed, there weren't any extra fingers nor did the look weird. He even had fingerprints. Mathis bit his tongue in hope that it wouldn't hurt and it would mean this is indeed in a dream, yet the teeth sunk in the muscle and caused him pain. He tried to poke his index finger of the right hand through the palm of the left one, but it didn't go through. Every reality check he tried failed, and if all these weren't enough, he had fallen asleep earlier. Such thing should have waken him up from this dream, but it didn't happen which made all this situation even more absurd and strange.
Meanwhile, Nadia stood at the door of the bathroom, staring at Yue Zian the way someone stares at a crazy person, scared and concerned, not knowing how to deal with him. She had no idea why this man would act in such way so suddenly, and honestly this only made him more scary. A couple days ago when she walked in this room he was covered in blood, eyes empty as if he was lost and didn't know where he was, blood dropping from his hands, yet this scene now looked scarier. What if he suddenly snapped?
"My lord, the Young Master is waiting for you."
Mathis looked at her and nodded. Even though he wasn't sure about anything anymore, there wasn't much he could so he decided to go with the flow and see where this strange "dream" would take him.
Both of them walked back inside the room, Nadia leading the way, and Mathis following her behind with slow steps, still in some kind of stance that clouded his eyes. Nadia took the leather bracers and tried to put them on Mathis wrists but he backed away as if touched by fire.
"What are you doing?"
"I… I'm putting on the bracers…" This man really was strange today. It was Nadia's job to do such things. She would run small errands for Yue Zian, bring him the breakfast, make ready the bathtub and help him get dressed. She did such things every day, but Yue Zian was acting as if this was the first time and he was confused as to why a random woman would dress him.
"I can do it myself." He smiled at her and took the bracers from her hands.
Nadia was stunned. He smiled again. For the love of God, he did genuinely smile at me. Her hands tightened to two shaking fists as she thought. Is he planning to kill me?
Mathis tried his best to put on the bracers, but no such luck. It wasn't as simple as it looked. Irritated, he put one of the bracers between his legs and was about to grab one of the laces of the bracer he was putting on with his teeth, when Nadia took the laces in her hands and pulled at them. There was no reason to feel ashamed, but Mathis felt his cheeks reddening as he handed Nadia the second bracer, as if he was handing her the toilet paper to wipe his ass.
The woman couldn't believe her eyes. He has gone crazy, smiled at me and now he's blushing. Yue Zian, the man that always hid his thoughts and emotions, the man who was feared by everyone, who was seen smiling only when bathed in the blood of his victims, the Great General, the horrifying Menace of Keogon, was blushing. BLUSHING!!!