I froze
I looked upwards, downwards, sideways and everyways, but the scenery didn't change and my eyes were not deceiving me.
I was back to Earth.
My home. I was back....I'm back?
What?
This...this bed...It's my old one...?
And this...human....my wife?
But how, I was in battle just seconds age!?
Wait. I shook my head. Spells that trapped the target in their own mind and forced them to remember old memories for a second to let their guards down existed, so surely this must be one, yeah, I should snap out of it any second now—
I froze. The shadows were perfectly and neatly portraited. I could make out the minute creases of the blanket. The human mind shouldn't remember this amount of detail in a remembrance spell, unless a grandmaster was the caster, but then again, we made sure there weren't any in the vicinity, so how the fu—
I trembled where I stood in place and wrapped my arms around myself in a pitiful hug. Four seconds of deep breath, hold it in for three, and exhale in six.
Panicking wouldn't help. I needed to keep calm and act based on my situation and surroundings, but first...
I looked around to my wife, and true as to how I always remembered, she was sleeping soundly without a care in the world.
A remembrance spell shouldn't replicate this amount of detail, but I wasn't to look a horse gift in the mouth.
I knelt down to the rim of the bed and extended my trembling hand. How much time has passed since I had seen this face? Four years? Six, maybe? My fingertips lightly brushed her nose, warm to the touch, and then I placed my hand on her head and felt the individual strands of brown hair.
Tears were streaming down my face, and I drank in the serene and peaceful atmosphere, so unlike the grim and dead air of war, engraved it and etched it into my brain, closed my eyes and immortalized the image.
A minute passed just like that and I was content, sitting there and listening to the sound of her breathing.
In that small passage of time, I pretended for the first time that all was well. I allowed myself some denial. But life was not kind, and so why should it be now?
Magic started oozing out of my body, and my hand, of which I unconsiously tensed, started melting away to ethereal smoke.
The pieces of the puzzle suddenly clicked inside of my head—a projection spell mixed with a dimensional rift one could theoretically have this effect, but the cost of mana would be humongous, so what would be the point? You'd be wasting energy on a last ditch physiological attack, but why me specifically? Why not someone more important, like the strategist or the leader?
I shook my head, questions for later, no matter, the war was still ongoing and I was going to be dimensionally transported any seco—
I felt the shift in the air and instinctively ducked, and good thing that I did, because I would've been headless if I hadn't.
My body adjusted, and my hand trembled. I was weak, there was no sugar coating it. My strength was leaving me, and if I didn't retreat away with the army in time, I might get killed, or worse, get captured as a prisoner of war.
Shit, is this it? Is this the end?