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He is back here. Back in that place. He doesn’t know how to explain it, he doesn’t know how he got there again. But then again he thinks he might have never left at all. Maybe he had been trapped in an illusion created by some kind of monster. He’d been dreaming all along.
He doesn’t know how he escaped that monster, doesn’t remember . But he’s here. Same clothes as before, same weapon. He can feel the earth underneath him. He has his worn shoes that don’t offer much protection against the roughness of the ground, but they’re better than simply being on barefoot. He can feel the dirt, the rocks on his feet. He can smell the stench of that place. The odor of the blood, the corpses, the fire and all mixes to create this horrible smell.
He can feel the wind, strong, cold and unrelenting. He can see the world so devoid of colors except for red. Gray, black and white sometimes. White like the teeth of those monsters that live here.
He’s in a tree (wasn’t he feeling the ground a minute ago?), he can hear the distinctive clicking and croaking sound of two monsters . It seems like they are fighting because they emit sharp, high-pitched screeches and roars. Are they fighting for him ?
He looks around him and spots a nest of some kind of insect. It’s all happening so fast but somehow he knows, he can tell they’re dangerous. He’s trapped in the tree and the monsters are fighting to eat him. They’re going to and he has to act fast or they will do it. He doesn’t have time to think about Lloyd, Nya, Wylfyre, Arin or Sora. They’re only a product of his imagination. He has to use the insects to hurt the monsters.
He doesn’t think he knows for sure that the insects are dangerous and deadly, or if he’s just betting they are like every species in this land. But he has to use them.
He tries to think, looks at the ground on the two croaking corpses and pulls his sword out. The nest is about fifteen feet up, is the size of a monkey and hangs from a branch , swaying. He could use the swords in his hand to attack the nest but if the creature are a bit intelligent, they might simply attack him. If he’s known anything in his time here is that he can’t be seen.
Despite the tiredness, exhaustion and confusion he is feeling, Kai breath some courage in and starts climbing the tree. He gets a branch over the nest, and starts sawing the whole branch. His swords cuts like butter, which it hasn’t done in while since he can’t take proper care of it in these circumstances. Still, he is grateful for her easygoing.
Before the last cut he sees something. The insect, on the nest. It looks like if a wasp had the size of a lizard. It’s colorless, just like everything in this place. He takes a final breath cut the whole branch. The nest falls on the monsters and about a million lizard size wasp get out .
He’s running. When has he started running ? He doesn’t know, but he running. There’s a sting on his cheek, his neck and his knee. There’s a stabbing pain and it makes him woozy. Was there venom in his body ? He doesn’t think anything is following him, so fortunately the wasp-lizard must have attacked the croaking monsters. He turns around, and sees the monsters. But their faces are ever changing and sometimes he sees Lloyd or Jay or Nya. They appear to go completely mad, shrieking, falling to the ground twitching hysterically around.
They become unrecognizable, features completely eradicated, their limbs five times their normal sizes. There’s a putrid green liquid around them. He keeps running. He’s not sure if it’s what the monsters looks like or if it’s his siblings dying . He can feel his cheek, neck and knee swell where he’s been stung. He tries to find someplace to hide but it’s going so fast he barely has time to look around for a hideout. Distantly, he thinks about finding some kind of lake , the water would help with the pain maybe. But he remembers the monster in the lake, with Rusty.
He almost trips on something, or maybe he does trip on it because he is down on his knees and the pain on his knee is breath-taking, he thinks he broke the swell. He can feel a liquid ooze from it and a foul smelling escape.
He looks behind him and there- There is Rusty. Rusty his ever talking companion who died because of him. Ignoring the pain in his leg, and the it’s worrying lack of cooperation when he tries to walk, he gets closer to the body. Eyes are open, staring into his soul, there’s something in his hand. Kai tries to retrieve it, see what it is and has to break several of his metallic fingers to do so. But it still won’t open.
He tries to talk, but no sound would come out, he puts his hans on Rusty shoulders but they disintegrate in his hands and Kai falls back on the ground.
Is this real ? Are those hallucinations ? He squeezes his eyes tight and tries to breathe through his mouth, ordering himself not to become sick. He doesn’t know when he last ate, he doesn’t know when he’ll next eat. Whatever he has in his system has to stay in.
He hears footsteps behind him, and the distinctive sound of the croaking monsters reach his ears. They’re back to eat him. It’s too late to run, his grips around his sword solidifies but he can barely sees it. The stench from the stings is so repulsive. He can’t do it, he can’t do it. He can’t do it.
He’s helpless as a creature crashes in front of him. A Dragon. One who’s never told him her name but is so familiar. For a second, her deadly eyes bore into him and he thinks she is going to turn on him, that he’s weak and doesn’t deserve to be protected. He waits for the blow.
Instead, she turns around and attack the croaking monsters.
“What are you still doing here ?!” She screams into his mind. “Get up ! Run ! Run !”
Holding tightly to his sword, he does as she says. He gets up, trips, fall, tries to keep his balance and runs, banging into trees that appear out of nowhere, The world bends in way he’s never seen before. He sees spiders the sizes of houses crashes into him and explode in thousands of shred of glass. Blood splashes on his feets and he feels it, thick and gooey. There are ants on his hands and he can’t shake them out, they’re climbing up his arms neck and face. There’s a long, raw guttural scream that never breaks for a breath but that might be just him.
He trips and falls, there’s nothing he can do except wait for death, and maybe for the dragon. She saved him. This is the single proof that she learned something. Protecting is not weak. He can hear someone screaming his name. Probably the dragon, prompting him to open his eyes, fight the venom.
He tries, he opens his eyes several times but can’t quite see her. He tries agains and again but all that comes out are trees and ants. Her screaming is more insistant and it is stressing him out. Why is she so intent about him waking up, there’s nothing left for him here. But then he thinks about Lloyd and Nya and their deformed body and just can’t quite believe he left them there, hurt and in pain. He has to go back, he has to stand and save them, he has to wake up.
He startles awake, straight into a sitting position, frantically looking around him for the dragon.
But she’s not here. He is not even in the land. He’s a room, that is dark, much like the land. No colors or anything. There’s Nya to his side, she’s talking, to him or about him, he doesn’t know really, he can’t focus or her face or her words. The room is dark and he needs light. He needs colors. He instinctively reaches for a switch on the wall and turns the light on.
“Kai, Kai please, breathe.” He hears Nya beg of him and realizes at the same time that he is hyperventilating. He puts his head between his hand, trying to black out the light he just switched on and calm himself.
He’s not there. He left. He managed to leave the place. He’s free, he’s not there anymore. He can breathe, he can sleep. There are no ants, no croaking monsters, no lizards-wasps. There is also no Daidan. and Rusty is still dead. But he’s not there. He won’t ever come back there. It’s over. It’s over.
He doesn’t realizes he’s been saying it out loud until he calms down. His breathing starts to even out and he stops mumbling.
Nya’s hand is on his back , rubbing circles. She’s saying it to. She’s telling him it’s over.
He doesn’t dare to take his head out. He’s too much of a coward for that. He doesn’t want to look at her, and the other person he can feel the presence of in the room.
Now that he isn’t scared out of his mind anymore, he feels embarrassed. Not in the sense that he freaked out in front of his family. That already happened several times in the past, he moved past showing his vulnerability. But it’s different now…It used to be about something they all went through or watched him go through. There was never a need to talk they just got it.
But now… No one knows what happened to him after the merge. Not really at least. And he had hoped that not talking about it meant it never happened.
It doesn’t matter if he can’t sleep through the whole night and has to wake up at least twice or thrice. Or that sometimes his paranoia is so great, he almost hurts the kids on instinct when they take him by surprise. He can live with all that. With the changes between himself, as long as he doesn’t have to say why he changed. He can live with his desensitization to violence and death. As long as he doesn’t explain why he doesn’t care about being a brute.
But now there’s no way Nya will let him live this down. She’s still talking and he knows she won’t be going away anytime soon. He doesn’t even bother trying to tell her to just leave him alone.
Slowly, he lets his arms fall on his lap, head still down, letting his eyes adjust to the light slowly.
“Kai ?” She tries again, “Can you hear me ?”. In the corner of his eyes he can see the worry and absolute terror in her eyes. Her lips are pressed thin and Kai feels guilt that he is the reason behind that. He can also see that the other person in the room is Lloyd. He looks just as frightened as his sister, petrified even, like he wonders if this is real.
Kai doesn’t want to talk about it now. He really wants silence, a cigarette and a beer. He wants to hug his siblings to be sure they are here with him but he doesn’t think he can move. But he does not want to talk. Not one bit. Still, it’d be unfair ti just go ‘non-verbal’ right now.
“I’m sorry…” He croaks out, his voice wavering. It really hurts too. He was about to ask how has he woken them up but he realizes that when he was screaming in his sleep he probably screamed for real. “Did I wake anyone else up ?”
He doesn’t really want to think about explaining to Arin, Sora or Wylfyres his state. He doesn’t know if he can bear their stare tomorrow when they’ll see him and know about his breakdown.
“No… No” Nya reassures quickly. “They were not here anyway, they sneaked out earlier to go in town.”
It’s so incredibly convenient that Kai wonders if it is the truth or if Nya is just saying it to make him feel better. He nods. His throat hurts too much for him to just keep uselessly speaking.
Lloyd seems to notice and takes it upon himself to go fetch him a glass of water. Either that or he fled the scene because he couldn’t bear to see Kai like that. It’s funny and cute in a way, that Lloyd is now a sensei with his own student but he stills looks up to Kai and is a loss of what to do when his big brother is hurt. It makes him feel guilty too.
“Sorry…” Kai tries again because he did wake them up in the middle of the night. And he decided that the silence was too heavy, if they had to talk it has to be now. He’s just decided that tomorrow this night doesn’t exist. “Woke you and Lloyd up. Just a bad dream…”
“Yeah… seemed really bad…” She keeps rubbing circles into his back and Kai does not want her to stop one bit. “Do you want to talk about it ? Might do you some good, just saying.”
“Just… the place I landed after the merge, the land of monsters.”
She just nods, as if she understands. Kai gets it, the name kind of gives the gist of what you’d expect of that place. But it’s not just a land full of monsters. It’s the whole land that’s monstruous, trees full of teeth that trie to eat you, monsters in lake, monsters in caves, monsters everywhere. Even the environment is against you. The bees are the proof. The Forest Of Teeth too. It's a place where kindness and love don't exist, only alliances. It's permanent nightmares that doesn’t let catch and break and never lets you escape. And if it does it's not unscathed.
“Well,” she tries and Kai can’t fault her for it. “It’s just a nightmare. Whatever you saw wasn’t real, it’s over now.”
“It was kind of real…”
“What ?”
“What I saw… It was as much a memory as it was a nightmare.”
He’s not lying. This happened after Rusty’s death, the day his road crossed Daidan’s again for a third time. He was attacked by the croaking monsters and there was a nest of lizards wasp that venom’s gave hallucinations. Daidan even told him later that a large dose could be fatal. She said only one of the croaking monsters (Vroks… she said Vroks) survived, there were too many stings. She said he could’ve died that day too, had he had one or two more stings.
“Could you tell me about the memory ?”
His brows furrows and his head hang lower, Lloyd just came back with water like he thought. Kai takes slow small sips. “Nya, no…” He sighs.
“Please !” She asks, pleading, almost begging. “We don’t have to talk about it again unless you want to. I just- I need to know what happened.”
It’d be hypocritical of him to say no. He begged her to tell him about her time as the sea. He also begged Lloyd to talk about what it felt like to be possessed by Morro. He needed to know what happened to provide proper care and help. They only want to return the favor.
Kai’s been giving Wyldfyre a lot of advices, about how showing his vulnerabilities isn’t weakness. He also kind of gave Daidan’s this kind of lesson (although she never had a problem with showing vulnerability in the terms of feelings. Or well, she never had a problem, as much as someone in the land of monsters can’t have a problem).
“It’s… after a friend had died.” He starts, and immediately, he can that Nya and Lloyd are drinking his words in. Focused and not leaving a crumb. He used to hate that, that every time he shared something everyone would stop to listen. He wanted it to be casual, if it was special it just felt too weird to share. But now, he doesn’t know his time in that places changed him there but it did. What happened to him was special. And he won’t talk about it a second time. “I wasn’t… very kind to him, not towards the end.”
He tries to remember the actual memory, not just the dream, that had a few details weird..
“I parted ways with my dragon friend, Daidan. And I was alone. There were these monsters, Vroks, that were … maybe just trying to kill, maybe to eat me, I don’t know. Sometimes they liked to hung for the fun of it.”
Lloyd sits on the bed, right next to him and takes his hand in his. Just like Nya, he sways his thumb in circle motions as a way to comfort him.
“There was a nest of wasp, gigantic wasp above me and I used them to attack the Vroks. They were venomous and three of then stung me.” He knows he didn’t get a scar in his face, but he can’t remember if he fell on his knee in the dreams or in real life. His knee hasn’t been acting up and he hasn’t noticed a scar so it might just be the dream being extra horrific. “So it hurt, and it gave hallucinations, and those were just … ugh.”
He doesn’t tell them he waited for death to take him. He’s not ready for that kind of revelation and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be.
“Yeah. Daidan saved me and I stuck with her the rest of my time there.” He hopes they won’t ask for more. But he knows they will.
“Kai, tell me something bad.”
He hums, in acknowledgment. He tries thinking of what to add.
“Tell me something I’ll truly hate.” She’s serious, and he realizes that if he ever intended to tell her about anything. It’s now. Screw not being ready. Lloyds squeezes his hand.
“The hallucinations, it was… ugh… I made the mistake of looking at the body of one of the Vroks the venom killed and… It was disgusting, completely disfigured. And it kept… changing… I’d see you guys… or myself…” He doesn’t look at them in the eye but can feel then looking at each other. He aches to see what look they bear on their face but he’s not brave enough to do so. “I saw my dead friend… but, when I tried to touch him he… disintegrated in my hands ? There were spiders, glass, blood… Ants were crawling up my body all the way into my eyes… I’m pretty sure I blacked out but the venom stayed in my body for several days. And it had a way to know exactly what scared you to have the worst nightmares ever.”
Something she’ll truly hate… Something she’ll truly hate. Well.
“I remember before I first blacked out, that the ants were in my eyes and I just thought ‘I’ll wait until I die then it’ll be over’. I can’t remember the days I spent fighting the venom but Daidan said I begged her to kill me. I don’t remember but … yeah you know…”
He remembers waiting for death to take him, he remembers wishing she would come sooner but he never thought before he'd ever beg for it. He knows Daidan isn't a liar. She's honest about everything. He wonders what he looked like, feverish, hallucinating horrors for days on end, hurting, begging for someone to end his pain. He's relieved Daidan didn’t do it now. But he's sure past Kai myst have felt so hopeless hurting without any break. She didn’t mention that he tried to do anything to hurt himself, but then again he could barely move at this moment so what could he have done ?
So much for thinking he’ll never be ready for the revelation. Well to be fair, he isn’t. But Nya asked and he delivers.
“You were giving up ?” Lloyd doesn’t sound 20 years old at all. He doesn’t sound like a sensei. If Kai focuses, he can still picture him as the little kid who wanted to read his comics instead of his lessons. He remembers him like that most of the time.
“Yeah… Yeah.” It’s a shameful truth. “But … No.. Yeah. I gave up I think, two times. If I’m not missing any memories. This one time, and another one. But Either Rusty, my friend who died, or Daidan saved me.”
he wished she were here. She always understood him, he never had to talk. But they parted ways. She had to explore the world freely, she couldn’t keep him company while he looked for his friends without looking at the world.
Nya’s head is on his shoulder and he can see she’s at loss for words. To be truthful, if his sister ever told him that she once begged for death to take her, he wouldn’t know what to say. Maybe scream that wasn’t allowed to go before him. That he couldn’t do it without her. But the one time she actually chose to kind of ‘die’ he barely said anything. So they’re not so different. Still, he feels like they’re scared.
“But I’m here. I fought hard to escape and find you guys. I’m not going anywhere.” He promised and feel their body getting closer to his. He frees both of his arms and bring them closer to embrace them. “I promise. I don’t want to— I don’t want it anymore.”
Both of the times he was under illusion. He never wanted it while completely lucid. But it’s not exactly reassuring. Especially with the saying drunk words are sober thoughts. Those weren’t drunk words. They were moments of desperation, exhaustion and extreme pain. They were real and false at the same time. Kai would never want to actually die, but he didn’t want to keep going in this place and that’s where the nuance was.
“You really promise ?” Asks Nya, and again, he can picture her with her traditional dress, bangs and her bowl cut. Small, innocent and eager to prove she was more than simply the girl in the group. Little did she know she was more valuable than any one of them. She wasn’t eleven anymore. She was in her twenties. But he still reassured her like she was a pre-teen.
“I promise.”
“Would you tell us if-“ Lloyds starts but can’t seem to finish. He hides his face in Kai’s neck. Kai cradles his hair without answering.
“Kai.” He insists.
“I promise.” He says. He thinks he won’t break it. He’s doing great telling them that already. He thinks that know that they know, it might be easier to talk about it.
“Okay… Okay…” Nya says and her voice is wavering, shaking and hesitant. “Do you want anything right now? Before we go back to sleep?”
He knows her like the back of his hand, and he knows she needs to walk. Get her head straight before coming back to him. She needs to think about it , she can’t process the information while being in the moment.
“I’d like a cigarette. Mines are in my jacket at the entrance.” He tells her and she nods. Her and Lloyd exchange a look and kai is too tired to try and understand what it means. She goes out of the room to retrieve it. Kai is surprised she didn’t tell him that smoking would kill him. Didn’t even send a disapproving look. She must be so scared.
“I didn’t mean to scare you Lloyd.” Is all Kai says, taking another sip of the water.
“I should be sorry. It feels like you’re reassuring us when it should be the contrary.”
Kai doesn’t know how to be reassured. The only person who kind of managed to was Skylor, and she wasn’t there right now. How he missed her too.
“It’s okay. Talking about all that in the past tense is reassurance enough.”
Lloyds throws his arms around his brother’s neck. “We won’t let you go through something like that ever again. You’ll always be with us.”
Kai hugs him back with all his might. “Okay.” Is all he says and he is just as surprised as Lloyd when he finds his voice is breaking. He wasn’t crying before, but he can feel the tears flooding out of his eyes now. They’re not going to stop anytime soon.
Nya gets back in the room, she sets the cigarettes in the little night table before joining their group hug. Soon enough, they are a mess of tears, snot and limbs melted on the bed. Kai forgets his need to smoke entirely.
Kai doesn’t wake up a second time this night. He doesn’t think about the next days, weeks or anything. He feels full and content, knowing his family (despite not being complete) is here. And it’s only a matter of time before they find the others. Once they do, it’ll be like nothing ever happened. And even if it did, he wouldn’t be alone. And after spending a year being lonely, it’s the richest feeling to know he won’t be again.