Chapter Text
Techno rubbed his fatigued eyes as he closes his book and lays it on his mahogany escritoire. It has been eons since the war, but the longing feeling for the unknown remains latched to his heart. The brunette stood up from his chair and ambled to the bookshelves to look for any books that might pique his interests; although all the books that were perched on the antique bookshelves had been read by the man. He kept on strolling by the bookshelves until he stumbled upon a senile amber book. An ephemeral nostalgia rushes through him. He stood idle for a minute in silence. Slowly, he subsequently grabbed the book and opened the page where a sheet has been marked.
To his surprise, the plain sheet divulges a monochrome portrait of a young soldier adorned with freckles and a bright smile. The edge of his lips curls as another emotion surged through him, but only this time, it was a lament.
“Who are you?” he asked himself as if the man in the picture could reply, scrutinizing the photo as he caresses the mysterious soldier with his index fingertip.
He lets his eyes roam around the soldier until his eyes laid upon a crudely drawn smile at the bottom of the page. In an attempt to obtain an epiphany, he slides his fingertip on the smile, outlining the strokes. He knows that he wouldn’t tarnish his books, so why hadn’t he erased it, let alone permitted anyone to do so?
Curiosity got the best of him, and he knew the only way to indulge is to recollect his memories from the battlefield.
The idea sent shivers to his spine. He wasn’t very fond of his past and had utterly disregarded it somehow. It took him decades to maintain that way, but lo and behold, he hunched down to the floor and lifted a plank of wood which reveals a dusty and derelict chest. After a few minutes of a perpetual debate with himself and self-encouragement, he braced himself and opened the chest where he had kept all his belongings during his service. He skimmed through his possessions and found two dog tags and an emerald bottle shard. He was bemused as to why would he keep the three peculiar items, let alone, the two military necklaces. Dog tags aren’t supposed to be given to anyone, it was an identification device. He glanced over his necklace and nonchalantly put it back. He took a coup d’œil on the other tag and reads the engraved name on the metal.
“Dream Weston... Dream?”
The word oddly yet easily rolled on his tongue. Techno kept on reciting the name like prayer until it rings a bell. Consecutively, he held the shard up as the refulgent afternoon’s scintilla pierces through it, creating a mystical chartreuse kaleidoscopic light that sparks gold onto his pale face.
Thenceforth, he recalls the golden-laced, Sacramento green irises that shines the brightest under the unmerciful daylight. The sun-kissed skin, hidden beneath lustrous golden locks smoother than silk. His hair, lit like honey in the sun whilst creating a seraphic halo. Under the crescent moon, his face is littered with freckles emulating constellations, illuminating the veil of nebulae. He remembers their first encounter; nights where they took shelter amid the frigid woods, enveloped by the warmth of the crackling, placid fire as Nyx greeted them with her cold yet gorgeous scintillating shawl; their afternoon vis-a-vis spars; moments where he’d admire his ethereal face or count stars on his Rudolph-like nose; dawns where they hold their heads above water as Thanatos attempts to sever the thread of life; the morning when he drew the smile.
His smile turns flat. Despite the idylls that flow through his head, a jagged rock is pushing against the water, un wavered. He shook his head, in an attempt to hamper the evocation of his trauma; the ordeal; the wars — of him. Later, he would notice the crimson liquid trickling where the glass has pierced into his skin.
It was all his fault.
Everything.
He remembers the reason why he kept all these valuables in the chest even why he kept it concealed from plain sight...
it was to forget the day where he had killed him.
He looked above and saw the grenade was accosting the influx of men, soaring like pigeons in migration. He had always been a calculative and logical man, so it'd be anticipated for him to dodge. But the heart of every man will always find a way to indulge. Empathy was the antagonist of this story, he thought. That is until the sight of amber flashed past him. Little did he knew that was the last light he'll see in this bleak dystopia. Lord, if only he had seized and hurled it instead of standing idly, the poor boy wouldn’t have died; he wouldn't have to shield his comrades. Techno knew a grenade was accosting them, yet he did nothing.
He wasn't a murderer, he was a poltroon.
Subsequently, his mind elicits the blood lust that deluges his senses. Cracks of skulls under his boots and the poignant scent of blood of his nemeses were all he was aware of. Puddles of blood on vanta soot and soil put previous wars to shame. The ringing in his ears muted the sound of anguish and explosion around. Everything and nothing was the shade of scarlet red. If Typhon was real, he'd be Cerberus for his eyes were coated deep in cruor. It was his current self gradually seethes in menacing wrath. He feels his blood boiling and his hair rising.
Suddenly, his guts dropped. Melancholy drowns him. He reminisced when the clouds cry for him so he doesn’t have to and how he wished for the damp soil to swallow him whole. What he thought were raindrops, dribbling down Dream’s dog tag to his palm. It wasn’t anything peculiar about the cravings of having the garden on his chest, but the engraved name on the headstone made it seem like a desideratum. Dream had no family, nor did he, to begin with. God gave him a chance by blessing him with Dream and yet he lost him.
He acted tough, pretended like his death didn’t affect him but in truths, he was just like the glass in his rough, calloused, scarred hand; fragile. Alas, despite everything that has happened in auld lang syne, there was nothing he could do.
Numbed by the oxymoronic reverie, he heedlessly lifted the shard to his eye and watched it sparkle as that’s the closest he gets to see Dream once again.