Dream Is A Killer

Chapter Two

His head feels heavy, and everything around him is a huge blur. There's ringing in his ears, distant noises at the back of his head, and he slowly opens his eyes to a mix of blue and red in the sky. He blinks again, adjusting his eyesight and finally seeing the spaceships floating above him. They're so far away that he cannot possibly hear the battle going on between them. When his ears pick on a loud engine sound, he whips his head to the left to find a fighter flying his way, no, their way, because apparently there's a man standing there, and the crest on his back sends a shiver down his spine. A Choi. The books might not say much about them other than the few encounters survivors tell, but there's no mistaking it. Before he thinks of why Choi are on Earth, he witnesses with his own eyes as the man's sword extends with tremendous power, slashing the fighter in half before it reaches them, the remaining parts crashing down immediately. He didn't even know he was holding his breath until the man straightens again and turns his way.

"Oh, you're awake!" He sits up slowly, and he finds a coat covering his body making him frown. Why is he naked? Where is he? What on earth happened? His eyes are fixed on the same crest from before, and with one breeze of air, he notices that it's extremely cold. "Are you alright?" The man asks him, concern shown on his face, but he doesn't have an answer. The back of his head feels like it's going to explode the moment he tries to remember what happened. "Must be the shock," the man sighs and turns his head to the side, and when he follows his gaze, he finds a large burned path right next to them, deep enough that one might think a river had been here once, but so dark that it might have been covered by lava as well. And when he takes a look around, it seems that they're in the middle of nowhere. Not a single building or tree. Not a fly in the air. Fuck.

"Can you walk?" The man turns to him again, and in all honesty, he doesn't know. But other than feeling cold, his limbs seem to be okay. "Because we need to be on our way."

"Why?"

"Oh, you're not mute!" The man looks amused, which is the last expression he would ever think of at such situation. "Well, I'm not much of a doctor, but you do seem to experience traumatic effects." The man's eyes glance at his hair. "The good thing is that you're not suffering from any physical damage. Which is really absurd," he squints his eyes at him. "There's not even a single bruise on your body, and your legs are perfectly clean, making your presence here entirely impossible, logically speaking," he looks down at his wrist. "We're wasting time, and as much as I'm curious about you, I would rather we talk on the way," he points behind him, and Taemin still finds it hard to understand anything that's happening around him, but staying here is definitely not the best solution, so he stands up and wraps the coat around his body. "I don't have an extra set of footwear, so I'm sorry about that." The man apologizes and starts walking, so Taemin follows him.

"You've been attacked by space pirates," the man explains as Taemin looks above them. There's a huge ship that is so low, but it's not firing at them. "Destroying the ship was going to do even more damage to Earth than it had already, so we opted to disable it from within. It's a technology that Earth wouldn't be able to defend itself against."

"So they called for you?"

The man shakes his head. "Earth contact system has been disabled for months." Months. Taemin's head spins. "You're lucky we were passing by."

"I don't see much luck." The man stops and turns to him with furrowed brows. He knows Choi are gifted warriors that no one knows where they get their powers from, and he knows how noble they are, but judging from what he's seeing, if the battle lasted for that long and the man is already alone, then those pirates are not to be taken lightly. "Where's the rest of your team? Dead I assume?"

"Where's the rest of yours? Dead I assume?" The man counters, but his tone is teasing as he smiles at him and continues walking. "You don't know much about wars," he trails off as he looks at him.