Chương 22: WAKING NIGHTMARE

His eyes were painted on the door. His hand was inching on the trigger finger of his grandfather's gun. Every time he died, there was always comfort in holding it. The last remembrance of his grandparents. The house and the gun. It gave him solace in his isolation, his one protection from the inevitable destination. Monan. He kept his aim fixed at the knob, holding for a twitch or even a misplaced wind, determined to pull that trigger at any cost. He had to kill him. It was that thought that remained.

Monan had to die. He didn't care about games. He only wanted to fix the rage that had been carried over from the last life. He wanted to erase the red from his eyes and the blood from his thoughts. Monan had to die. But it had been hours since he'd reawakened. The house was still, and there wasn't a sign of Monan. If he was going to try to kill him, where was he? His arms were beginning to tremble, but he would force the intensity back into them, holding them stiff as his eyes began to wane.

But then the door moved, and without a thought crossing his mind, T'balt fired. The wood of the door frame exploded, and Chosa dove for cover. T'balt dropped his arms under the relief of not having taken Chosa's head off. In all of his blind fury, he'd forgotten that the reset meant she was alive again, and she wouldn't know anything of what happened before. T'balt was too exhausted to even feel silly about it.

"T'balt, what the hell!?" she yelled, still too cautious to uncover her head.

"I thought you were someone else," he said monotonously, too tired to express any emotion.

"Someone else?" She finally rose, taking note of the bullet hole in the door frame. She saw the bags under T'balt's eyes and the strain in his body. He dropped to his knees as if he were seconds from passing away.

"Did something happen?" she asked, already returning to her normal.

"No…" he answered.

"Just a terrible dream."

"A nightmare?"

"The worst you could imagine." She approached him slowly, hoping to calm him down with a soft motherly voice. She carefully took the gun from him.

"Come on. We should get you back to sleep." She felt the tenseness in his shoulder when she touched him.

"No! I can't go to sleep. He'll come back, and I need to be ready." His breathing was erratic, like he'd been on some sort of drug. One that Chosa had never had to deal with. She was starting to wonder if she should've just stayed over with her friends after all. She was exhausted from the day.

"Then how about a shower? It might help you clear your head a bit." T'balt refused at first, seeming fixated on staring at the door all night. But the intensity made the entire house an uncomfortable place to be, and after a bit of prodding by Chosa, he finally relented. She told them that, at the very least, a shower would help him stay awake. That's when he agreed, but only to take a short one. The steam hit the air, and Chosa thought it best to sit in the bathroom with him.

She didn't try to shower together like they sometimes did. Whatever he was going through, she didn't want to be naked and vulnerable for. But she still felt like she needed to keep an eye on him, lest he take another shot at her. And she didn't feel like dying today, not over a bad dream. So she fiddled on her phone as T'balt hid himself behind the shower. Since she'd gotten back, he'd been extra modest around her. Like he was hiding from her or keeping a terrible secret.

He never made eye contact and mumbled two-word answers to her questions. She just chalked it up to being tired and near 6 in the morning without any sleep. But something was clearly on his mind as he sat in the shower, letting the hot water drown his messy black hair. But she tried to ignore wanting it to be a problem left for tomorrow. But when T'balt had a problem, he could never hold it in for too long, saying the most silly things, no matter how pathetic it made him sound.

"Were you staying anywhere… before you were with me?" Chosa couldn't pin the significance of the question, but figured it'd be no harm in answering.

"Honestly. Not really… Was jumping from couch to couch. Wherever I could find. I'm not the type to make a living busting tables just to get by, and you know I'm a bit of a runaway, so… Why do you ask?"

"Well, in my dream, you had told me that you were only with me because you needed a place to stay." She chuckled at the absurdity of the statement.

"That's just a silly dream." She didn't even look up from her phone.

"It's just made up in your head." But after a while of listening to the shower rain, she peeked behind the curtain, wanting to see if he was crying or something. But when she did, T'balt snatched the curtain, covering himself fully. Then her defiance was on her again, and she snatched it back, throwing the view wide open.

"Hey! If that were true, I'd have come home and gone to sleep, and I wouldn't be here, waiting for you to stop losing your mind!" This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. But the look on his face wasn't the sorry-for-himself sadness that he would usually take. It was stubbornness. Like he wouldn't believe her, no matter what she said.

"It's just a dream! It's not real!" T'balt turned his head away from her. Then she was caught utterly off guard by what she saw.

"Is that a tattoo on your neck?" He continued ignoring her for most of the morning, causing her to lose sleep just to figure out why this had turned into such a thing. She felt like she was dealing with a child—a child throwing a tantrum while walking around the house with a knife and a gun. He started moving things around the house, constantly checking the time. Every time Chosa would say something, he would say, "Don't worry about it." Or "Just ignore me." Once, she even asked if they could pause and just chat.

Then he said something strange along the lines, "It's fine. It wasn't you. It was him. All of it was him." Who was this him? He didn't say. Like the name itself would bring a curse through the house and melt his tongue off his mouth. She couldn't sleep like this. She couldn't do anything. In fact, she was sure she had accidentally skipped a class just trying to figure out what was happening. If T'balt was going to go through an insanity phase, then she didn't have to be around to listen to it.

"What are you doing?" he asked from the upstairs balcony as she stepped outside. It was nearly noon.

"I'm going to get a ride and sleep on another couch."

"Maybe that would be best," he mumbled.

"Are you serious?" His words sounded like the start of a breakup. And she still couldn't understand what had happened to make him react this passive-aggressively to her. It made her want to punch a hole in a wall, pull out the insulation, and light it on fire.

"No. Sorry… Don't go," he pleaded.

"I… Just come back inside… like now, please." She rolled her eyes, unable to stand this emotional whiplash he was going through. But at the very least, she had made some progress on his mood. Though when she started back for the front door, the ground started rumbling. Violently, like a crack had sundered the whole planet. Then she was blinded by the great explosion in the distance. Then the streets were set ablaze, and she didn't know what to do.

Then appeared the great beast—a flaming walking man beast with a sword flaunting flames.

"A dream… Am I in the dream?" But T'balt had leaped over the balcony. Landing between her and the beast. He fired at it several times, only skinning its hardened body. Then he charged at it like a man possessed. But he managed to win the exchange, stabbing the beast in the stomach. But the thing's wild swings caught T'balt in the arm, ripping his flesh, but searing the wound at the same time. He scoffed at the pain and yanked at the knife, causing the beast to scream.

Then, with two well-placed shots to the head of the beast, it was downed and dead. It toppled over like a great oak tree, silent in a burning forest. T'balt took a flash at Chosa, who was caught in complete shock. He showed an inch of worry for her before remembering that he was angry and turning back away. He pocketed something he pulled from the beast's neck.

"I'll need something stronger," he said before heading to the car. With no words or choice for that matter, Chosa got in the passenger seat of the car. He didn't look like he cared whether or not she came, so she wasn't going to take the chance of being left behind. She couldn't come close to understanding what was happening here. T'balt swerved around passing cars, dodging beasts and men alike as the world was overtaken by flames, smoke, and shadow behind them.

But he was focused like none of it bothered him in the slightest. Chosa was retreating to the corner of the seat, trying not to freak out and control her breathing.

"T'balt.. can… we… please."

"What?" It was blunt and callous.

"What's happening?"

"Don't you see? It's the damn rapture. Didn't think I'd have to explain that to you."

"Ok…" She felt no choice but to accept the words like she'd be smited if she didn't.

"So, where are we going, and why did we pick up this random kid?"

"You wouldn't understand," T'balt said. Chosa looked to the back seat to see a blonde-headed eleven-year-old playing with lightning in his hands. Lightning. Like the real-life lightning from the sky. Not on a video game. His hands were glowing with the blue and yellow light as tiny bolts jumped back and forth like a tennis match.

"You're probably right." And she sank partway into the fetal position, trying to hold her sanity. They arrived at the church, and the great cathedral remained untouched by the destruction. It was a new life. No bandit attack. No fires. No Monan… hopefully. Leaving the other two in the car, T'balt bolted for the insane, shifting through the masses. Everything was still the same.

And he was prepared to see Monan taking control, at the height of the altar, commanding them with his flaming sword and having them bow before him. But he let his fear get the better of him. The flame sword was contained in the loot in his pocket. Monan was not here. Not that he could see. But it was Arthur Kilgrove on the altar, commanding the panicking flock.

"Please. Settle down. Settle down, everyone. We have provisions. We have shelter." It was uncanny, seeing him alive again. No one here had an inkling of what had happened to them. The world that came before. They were all dead. That was what T'balt last remembered. So to see everyone again. It was surreal. He could almost breathe a sigh of relief. But that's when he knew he had to head downstairs. He flew so quickly that he almost stumbled to the bottom. And when he saw her, he could've broken down in tears.

Instead, he ran to embrace her with all of his might.

"Ellie," he said, pulling her shoulders into him. Remembering the warmth of her.

"Sir?... Do I know you?"

"Oh…" That's when the dream ended, and all of his relief came halting to a stop. When he hugged her, there was nothing in her face. She didn't remember him. And that tore his heart out. T'balt remembered everything, but he would be the only one. It wasn't until that moment that he realized what it truly meant for him to die. The love and the relationships he built would be completely reset. He and Ellie were now no more than strangers. Their battles together. The time spent in this very basement.

The wonderful night in the little gray house. It all meant nothing to her. Time stolen.

"Sorry." He walked away, too embarrassed to say anything more and anxious for the tears erupting from him. Ellie stood watching him leave, curious about the strange man.

"He must've thought I was someone else." And she went back to caring for the wounded.