~ Cole's dream. ~
When Cole had awoken.. he had found himself in this place again.
It was distorted, with myriads of colors appearing and disappearing within seconds.
It made his mind swirl, making him fall to the ground for a second.
But not even the ground was safe. Not here.
Eyes sprouted to look at him, a mouth formed from it.
"You've made a mockery of yourself again, child."
Spoke the voice. Cole, however, did not understand what it said.
Of course, he would be an idiot to forget this place.
He dreamed of this every night. Every night he woke up here as if he was in hell.
Surely, this must've been a part of the reason why he acted how he acted in real life.
"Child, you sometimes disappoint me too much. Don't you know that at some point, there won't be any second chances?"
Cole kept looking, an all too familiar emotion rising from the depths of his heart.
Wrath. Once again.
He had shown up here again. Who was subjecting him to this?
In reality, Cole knew what the voice was saying.
It didn't matter if he couldn't hear it.
He had spent so many nights here, and eventually.. he had learned what the voice was saying solely off the movement of its lips.
He couldn't help but grow mad. But was it his fault? Who wouldn't feel so at the sight of this madness..
Every damn day, he had to be here.
There was no escape for him, there was no escape from his madness.
And those snickering lips, always.. always reprimanding him. He wanted it all to just end.
"Useless as ever. You haven't become any different from before. Maybe if you embraced what you were, you would get somewhere."
A hand manifested somewhere in the world. The sound of its arrival was alien and disgusting.
It angered him even more.
Eventually, however, he stopped questioning everything.
What use was there in doing so? All he was doing was proving those detached lips correct.
The hand stretched and clenched its fist as if getting used to its new form.
"Damned rat, how about you just die already? Everyone despises you."
Like every other dream, it had begun its course.
Many other hands manifested, as the first one swung at him.
The hit connected, and a shockwave followed.
The hand fell on pure flesh, squashing Cole. His blood and flesh splattered all over the ground, mixing with the one on the ground.
He died, then and there. But deep down, he knew it did not end there. His flesh began to mend, and his blood retreated back into its confines. His body regenerated from the ground up.
The many other hands clenched their fists and fell down as if they were hammers of judgment.
It would've looked like a God was delivering divine punishment upon him if it weren't for the skulls, organs, and intestines that hung all over the place like vines.
Even if he knew this was a dream, he wasn't able to wake himself up. The pain felt very real.
Mountains of flesh sprouted, and the intestines that hung like vines now became livid.
They disconnected from the mountains of flesh and started slithering towards Cole, as if poisonous snakes.
The hands, however, could care less. They continued bashing Cole even when the snakes got close.
But eventually, they found an opening.
Once they did, they stung.. and they stung hard.
Cole remained unmoving.
The bashing hurt his bones and the bites of the intestine-turned-snakes stung as if a real snake bit him, it felt as if actual venom was entering his veins and corrupting his body.
No matter what happened, however, he did not die. His body merely materialized itself again from the ground up.
He couldn't die. It was his dream, after all.
And then.. the myriads of hands and intestines all stopped.
The hands, now made of flesh.. all rose at the same time. The intestines all moved to strike..
But then, it all came to an abrupt end.
The hands stopped, and the snakes did so as well.
For a moment, Cole saw the horrifying sight that was his "dream".
The mountains of flesh, the hands made of flesh.. the intestines.. it was monstrously terrifying.
It was as if he was inside of his own body, which had somehow been augmented and turned into a weapon.
In an instant, the scene flashed, and he soon found himself standing upon matte black waters. There was no sky, and without it, the unfiltered image of space was on full display.
The distant stars reflected against the black waters, augmenting the waters with a deceiving glint.
Cole's breathing slowly calmed down, and he found himself to be at peace with his predicament.
He was also able to speak here.
"I don't understand.."
He spoke shakily, having to momentarily pause each time he spoke.
"Why.. do I always see this?"
No matter how many times he viewed his dream. He didn't understand why it happened, or why the events played as they did.
What was even weirder, was every time he was brought into this specific place, where nothing bothered him. His dreams always went like this. Pummeled to death, stabbed to death.. crushed to death.. then nothingness.
It was as if his own mind was creating riddles for him.
However, Cole did not take it that way.
This made him even more mad. He was thrown into mental torture every time he closed his eyes and now he was supposed to solve whatever the fuck was shown to him in that torturous experience?
He flared up again. This time, he had become even more mad.
And as he did, the world around him began to fade away. It seems that this world was delicate, unlike the one before.
At the slightest feeling of madness, this world dissipated as if it had never existed.
***
Cole woke up in a cold sweat.
However, he did not remember what caused this.
He did not spend long thinking about it, however.
He got dressed, picked up the cube given to him by the academy, and left his apartment.
It was time to prepare, once again. After all.. time was running out quickly.
Around 2 more weeks and they'd be attempting the first trial. He had to give it his all.
With newfound resolve, Cole pushed himself to enter the training facility.
Momentarily, he observed the others. It was good to keep note of troublesome opponents.
His gaze swept over a tall boy with short black hair, its messy state proof of the intense workout session he had been doing.
While it may have not looked like it, the aura he exuded was not that of an ordinary person.
Despite his unassuming nature, the air around him demanded attention.
If anything, he was the most dangerous there right now.
There were more people in the room, however..
Cole turned to look at a man practicing two-handed swordsmanship, swinging a longsword with hasty movements.
He was attempting to hit a target moving at a fast pace. Gusts of wind blew off every once in a while.
His blonde and silky hair danced in the air as he swung his sword. His lean muscles were on full display as he swung the sword.
His eyes, the color of the sun.. well, almost. They would've been the color of the sun if they maintained the same color throughout the entire iris. While a part of the irises was orange, it became a mixed color from a certain point. It looked more.. brown.
Cole considered him an obstacle as well, because of his movements, although looking impatient, the target would always seem to be hit.
It was as if no matter the extra steps, no matter how.. the target would be eventually hit.
It was a weird and mystical style, according to Cole's current insight into the various styles of the academy.
While Cole was pondering about the man's sword style, the man practicing it turned to look at him.
He had a look of rogue, untamed excitement on his face.
God knows what that meant, or why he had that expression. Cole on the other hand, however, dismissed the thought.
He turned to look at another man, this one was nearly unnoticeable. Standing in a weird stance in the corner of the room, minding his business.
He had some of his brown hair tied in a low ponytail, being unable to tie the hair at the front due to it being a tad bit too short. His purple eyes seemed to be locked onto the ground, for whatever reason.
He seemed to be immersed in his training, not noticing the prying eyes and committing himself to his swings full-heartedly.
He carried with him a magnetic aura as he swung around his spear with seemingly basic attacks, which somehow looked as deadly as the previous man's movements.
However, his ones were dull. Even if his swings seemed as deadly as his, they weren't in reality. He wasn't on the same skill level as the blonde man.
Looks like this one won't last long. Better for me, I guess. I do pity him somewhat though..
Cole thought, then turned back to his own set of exercises, it was time he returned back to his own training, lest he does not wish to see the sun anymore in a few days.