The gleaming blade of a sword sliced through the air, a fleeting image etched into my retinas as it became the final sight before me. My world was engulfed in a blinding white light, and my consciousness fragmented like windblown leaves.
Gradually, I regained awareness. The ambient sounds of chirping birds and the gentle rustle of leaves filled the air, carrying with them a faint, inviting scent and a comforting breeze. My eyelids fluttered open, the lingering haze in my vision dispersing as the world slowly came into focus.
I lay there, a hint of numbness or perhaps a lingering daze clinging to me. Gradually, I started to regain my awareness of the world around me.
The initial sight that greeted me was a dense forest, with towering trees reaching skyward from all directions. The leaves on their branches danced and sang in the wind, creating a serene symphony harmonizing with the lively chirping of birds.
It was safe to say I was still in the forest, and as the scenery slowly moved by, that I was also being moved carefully.
"So it was a dream after all..." I muttered to myself, a little detached and absent minded.
At the same time, the details of the surreal dream appeared all hazy, mixed up and incomplete in my memories. It began to seem like something that had happened over many years ago, rather than just a few minutes. The more I struggled and focused to remember, the more the details of the dream slipped out of my grasp.
At some point, all I could eventually remember was the fact I did have a dream...and a detached feeling of anguish and sorrow.
"Oh, you're awake." Cliff looking over his shoulder, said to me against his back.
"...Yeah."
Taking an extra look, I realized I must have slept through the rest of the night, looking through some gaps between the tree branches, the sky could be spotted greying out, the new light of the new day settling in slowly.
Cliff had taken care of me, and even carried me on his back all the way throughout the time I was out. And despite the night rest, if I had to say, I had only replenished enough energy to at least keep my eye open and maintain consciousness.
Physically, I was still mostly drained, but the grinding pain in my side and broken shoulder seemed to have lessened just a bit, either that or I had gained a partial resistance to pain of that level.
Against Cliff's back, I began to think, but even that was cut short by Cliff's next announcement.
"You really didn't sleep much, but at the same as you woke up just in time," at the same time, Cliff came to a stop, no longer advancing.
Wondering why and the meaning of his words, I managed to lean my head over his shoulder and shifted my gaze.
"Reo..." Cliff called out in a soft welcoming tone.
A strange emotion began to well up inside of me, slowly, a familiar scenery unfolded before my eyes. The wind met my face, with it carried was the welcoming view of a certain familiar tree atop a small hill.
But what really brought the tears to my eyes was the sight beyond the tree. The vast golden sea of wheat was like a scene straight out of a Fairytale. The wheat field rustled in the racing winds, forming wave like patterns.
"Welcome home."
I bit down on my trembling lips, scrunching up my face in the process while wholeheartedly struggling to keep back the tears. I also hadn't realized when I had wrapped my hands around Cliff's neck and tightening it into an unintentional grip.
"...I...I'm home!" I cried with a restrained sniffle.
We finally made it back home.
Now the weight of the last day, the full weight of all that had happened pressed down on me. It was at this point I realized just how much I was scared throughout the whole time.
But it was still so strange.
I was supposed to be happy now, I had returned back home, safe, alive, and in one piece.
But there was this stabbing pain deep in my heart.
Safe, alive, and in one piece... then...then what about her?!
I gnashed my teeth in rage, anguish and disappointment at no one else but myself. Gripping Cliff's shoulder tightly, his shirt wrinkled up in my tight fingers, I let my emotions flow with anguished tears into his broad back.
Internally I continued to swear, I continued to beat my self up. I ignored the thick metallic taste of blood from chewed open lips and continued to bite tighter.
The wrath, sorow...the disgust and sadness at myself emerged from the deepest, darkest depths ofy mind and body as an unrestrained wail like that of a cry.
"Reo! What's wrong? Is it you're injuries?! Holding on, I'll get you treated immediately now that we're back home."
I heard Cliff's concerned filled voice, but all that filled my head, other than the piercing throbbing that threatened to split my skull in even two, all I kept recalling over and over again, we're two words.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry..." At the same time I hadn't realized how much my body trembled as even my thoughts unknowingly became unsettling prattling mutter from my lips.
It was only until later I would realize, this was trauma.