Chereads / Aeternam: Volume One / Chapter 4 - Fractured: IV

Chapter 4 - Fractured: IV

LADY Veleda poured a cup of tea into Ahura's mug.

Ahura sat on his seat, silent and wet as the woman, sat beside him.

"What is this choice?" Ahura asked.

"You will have to decide what is real." The Woman said cryptically.

"I don't understand."

"All your life you have been trapped, existing on the threshold of Aeternam." Lady Veleda looked up at the ceiling. "Trapped within a dream, aware that it is a dream, but never truly able to wake from it. A sort of cognitive desonnance you could say."

"The Episodes."

"Yes, they are the effects of exposure to the God frequency, and your minds inability to comprehend cosmic truths."

It did not make sense to Ahura, but he needed to find Dem and Meryl. Ahura was desperate.

"What if I told you, that you where to from here." Lady Veleda continued. "What if I told you that you came from another place, from another dream."

"Like another world?"

"Yes."

"I wouldn't believe you."

"But the evidence is right here." Veleda touched the four scars on the edge of Ahura's face. "Four Slits, like the swiping claws of a beast. "

Ahura was silent, confused.

"It doesn't matter now does it." Lady Veleda stepped away. "I cant mend your mind, it is too late for that now, but I can wake you up. Return you to where you came from."

"And where is that?" Ahura asked sceptically.

"Where ever dreamers go when they wake up." Lady Veleda stepped in front of Ahura. "Now my price."

Ahura stood up and handed her the vial, now full and red, with Ahura's blood.

"Ahh the sweet blood of a Nephylim." Lady Veleda placed the vial beneath the sink. Then turned to Ahura. "Now follow me."

Ahura followed Veleda to the bathroom of her trailer, in it he found a bathtub full of water. The child stood beside the tab, expressionless and motionless, staring blankly at the wall.

"Please step into the tub. And lay down" Veleda instructed.

Ahura stepped inside and lay his back down, the water rose up to his nostrils consuming him within.

"Beware of the mirrors." Lady Veleda had warned as she reached low, close enough to Ahura's face. "They are doors to different dreams, and many strange visitors often step through."

Suddenly Lady Veleda and the child, reached for him and pushed him down into the water.

Panic overwhelmed Ahura, air rapidly left his lungs, he tried to resist them but their arms where like Iron columns pressed against his chest forcing him down. The sensation of drowning begun to overwhelm Ahura.

Then he heard lady Veleda, she began to speak. Her words were foreign, terrible an inhuman. With every word Ahura could feel himself falling deeper and deeper into the water. It was bottomless. Ahura continued to fall until he was alone, floating in the blackness of the universe.

Ahura awoke in the middle of a lake, at the centre of a forest on a dark night. The full moon shone brightly above him. For a moment he thought he was back at slave lake, but this was different. Ahura was dressed in black leather clothes, with a sword strapped to his back, and an axe fastened on his waist.

"Ahri?" A feminine voice called to him.

Ahura turned to see, a woman Naked and pale standing in the waters beside him.

For a moment Ahura was confused, then he was trapped between terrified and entranced as he noticed that her skin wasn't simply pale, it had hues of green. Crystalline scales, glittered silver in the moonlight across the surface of her skin. Her ears were large and webbed. Small strips like gills, on her neck, and a small fin, at the base of her spine.

Softly she stepped close to Ahura, he was frozen in place. Then suddenly she wrapped her hands around his neck in a loving embrace.

"It really is you Ahri!" She cried on his shoulder. "I thought we had lost you forever."

Ahura was silent for a moment, then he returned the embrace.

"Sorry, Viya." Ahura sighed. "Seems like I had another episode."

End.