I awoke from a nightmare. I couldn't recall what it was about, but I did know it was a nightmare. Sweat resided on my chest, face, and any other crevice it could find.
I stepped out of my tent and found the bathrooms. I turned the knob for the sink and splashed my face and chest with cold water.
I continued with a cold shower in the shower building.
***
While eating, I felt my watch begin vibrating.
"Pathogen Detected." It read on the bright display. I looked around, but there was nobody near me at the moment.
"Damn glitchy watch," I said, slightly hitting it on its metal side, making a nice clanging sound.
I got up and left the cafeteria. I was simply walking around when someone's hand landed on my shoulder.
"Cal. Nato wants to speak to you." Imode said.
Without turning around, I gave my response.
"I don't care. Tell him I'm not coming."
I began walking away, but she spoke again.
"He said it's about your parents."
***
"What do you want?" I asked Nato, disappointed I even came to talk to him.
"Oh, nothing too important." He said, holding his hand to the glass. For some reason, I was considering putting my hand up to his, which I ended up doing.
A flash took over my vision.
***
I was now a little kid. Mom and dad were watching TV, and Nato opened the door to the house. He greeted them like they were... friends.
He sat near me. I was too young to understand, and in this memory, I didn't even look at him.
Why was he in my house? Why was he near my parents?
"Hey kiddo." He said, waving his hand in front of my eyes, causing young me to turn and look at him.
"How are you?" He asked, but I didn't say anything, I just looked back at the TV. I felt myself pinching him, something I did for comfort to my parents when I was preoccupied.
He sat still, squinting in pain, but letting me do it anyway.
***
My hand fell back down onto the table and he held his head as he sat back into his chair.
"You see. I've known you for a long time, Calibrum Corvus." He said.
"Shut up." I said, the burning sting of anger rising in my heart. It was as if this anger caused a fire in my eyes. Burning brightly, to prove a point of some kind.
Nato fell silent.
I stood up, that vision flashed in my mind many times. I saw my mother. Her long hair and beautiful smile. I couldn't move. I wanted to see her again. To see my mother... to smell the perfume that lingered behind her...
"Anyway, it's time ya go." Nato said, leaning on the chair before standing and walking over to his bed.
He snapped me out of that memory, a memory so deadly, so tainted by hate and fear. I almost got lost in my own mind.
***
I threw myself onto my bed, only to see I left the tent door open. I sighed in anguish and painfully climbed out of bed. I closed it and returned to my place of peaceful rest.
As I was drifting off to sleep, the voice inside began to speak.
"What does it take?"
Four words. Yet the simple phrase made no sense to my tired brain.
"What does it take to forgive someone? Forgetting? Forgiveness doesn't come easy Calibrum." It said in its distorted voice, its words echoed and repeating as if bouncing off the inside of my skull.
I ignored it.
"Calibrum." It said in a hushed whisper, followed by a deep laugh of mischievousness. A laugh that filled my body with dread.
My eyes flew open and sitting by the door was a dark figure that represented... me.
It wasn't sleep paralysis, because I was able to move, and the thing was speaking to me through my mind, yet was right in front of me.
It took a while of staring at it to realize... but it had to have been my Pathogenic Side projecting itself through my eyes. A scary power it seemed to now have.
Kai opened the tent door and walked right through it, proving my theory to be correct.
"Calibrum. Do. You. Remember. Me?" It said, a smile plastered on the dark transparent smoke-filled figure.
For some reason...
It was like talking to an old friend.