Lucid nightmares save souls

Ch. 44

We split up again and now I was searching with Fynn a few meters besides me for Axel and Karine but they were nowhere to be found. Well that's what we thought until suddenly they just appeared a few meters in front of us. It was weird, almost if they wanted us to find them and it was making me scared.

'Hello Eva, how are you doing? Still alive I see.'

'What do you want Axel?'

All the other Aithers disappeared out of our way and now me and Axel were standing about ten meters away from each other with no one in between.

'I want you to learn, learn a wise lesson from me.'

'What is it?'

'You know that I've studied Quattuornexus for a long long time and I'm confident enough to say that I have so much more knowledge about you than you have about yourself. You know, everyone has limits and weaknesses, even you. You already know the timestone, but there's so much more.'

'So what's your lesson to me? Knowing myself better? Yea I'm already working on that.'

'Well kinda, I just wanted to educate you on a more specific level of my knowledge, it's called a nectus.'

'Finally some sort of coolish name even though it's sounds a little too much like Latin for my like.'

'Well anyways, a nectus is a jewellery and it's made thousands of years ago. They were scared of people like you, Quattuornexus, in the past as well did you know that. They wanted to have a way to take control when it all went wrong, so they made a nectus, let's say it's an effective way to kill Quattuornexus.'

'So that's it, you just want me dead, fun.'

'A nectus is a ring with the ability to absorb the energy of the moon and transfer all the energy to a person. On its own it isn't really powerful but when you have all the right rings, you will be able to kill a Quattuornexus. And surprise, let me have all those eight rings here with me.'

Axel took out the rings and immediately they started loading, there was no getting away.

'Ah fuck.'

I understood. From that moment on everything happened in slow motion again. I'm not that stupid, I know some accessoires could be used by Aithers to advance their powers, but these rings were on a different level. They were definitely powerful, I could feel the energy of the rings from 10 meters away just like I could feel the timestone in Axels pocket.

I knew running wasn't an option because where the fuck could I go, around me was no one, they were all backed away for meters. It was kinda weird because it was almost if I had peace with it, as if dying was suppose to happen or something. In milliseconds I saw my life flash before my eyes while the energy was loading inside the rings. So many things I had never understood in my life, and right now, while I was on the point of dying it all became clear out of nowhere.

And now I finally understand. It's funny how much it took for me to realize such a simple concept. It's about choices other people make which influence the outcome of your life. This all was never about us.

Everything was happening slower and it was not because we were stopping the time. In this weird moment I suddenly got a flashback.

'I was holding on to a branch which was perhaps a little too thin to hold me but I couldn't care less.

I've done this shit a thousand times, why would I fall this time? Because I'm fucking stupid that's why.'

We had been standing on a thin branch all this time without realizing, relying all on trust, trust in life, trust in the future, trust in our friends, trust in each other. When someone breaks the branch you'll fall, fall deep deep down, because it just hurts very damn bad when you find out you put your trust in the wrong person. However, in the end that's the only way you get through life, even if you don't want to, there's always someone who cares, who'll call the fire brigade when you fall. Even though you might not realize. Even if that's the person who broke the branch in the first place.

I closed my eyes and waited for the impact, I wasn't scared, I knew this would kill me but not everybody was suppose to survive. But the impact never came. I heard a loud noise right in front of me but I felt nothing, nothing hurt.

I opened my eyes.

I take it back, it did hurt.

In front of me was Lars standing, taking in all the energy.

He looked at me. I saw no pain, no fear, just regret. A tear rolled down his face while the energy was still going. The energy was eating him from the inside.

This time I knew I couldn't run again, after all this time of running Lars was the first to decide to finally stop and face the reality. In a very small voice he spoke and only I could hear him.

'Please. Ask her to forgive me. I'm sorry.'

In the background I heard Karine screaming.

'NOOOOO STOP THAT IS NOT THE RIGHT PERSON!'

'Honey, it's to late.'

Despite the cruel words Axel was right. Finally the energy stopped and Lars dropped down to the ground.

Nora came running towards Lars and dropped to her knees. Tears streamed down her face while she tried to wake the lifeless body up again, but he stayed still.

'Why? Lars please, why you?'

'Nora please, he's not going to wake up.'

'NO GO AWAY, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT.'

'Nora...'

'I SAID GO AWAY!'

'Please nora..'

Nora let go of the body to stand up and face me. She was completely red and the tears were still running down. Her face was painted in sadness, grief and anger and she looked at me like she was going to kill me.

'SHUT UP EVA, HE DIED FOR YOU, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SPEAK! THE LAST TIME I SPOKE TO HIM WE WERE SCREAMING TO EACH OTHER! WHAT IF HE HATED ME? WHAT IF HE HATED ME AFTER THE ARGUMENT, AND NOW HES GONE AND I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO FIX IT! WHAT IF HE DIED THINKING I HATE HIM? HOW WILL I EVER BE ABLE TO FORGIVE  MYSELF EVA, PLEASE TELL ME HOW!

It broke me looking at Nora like this. All these emotions at the same time were taking over Nora so I did the only logical thing, I pulled her into a hug. First she was surprised but soon she loosened up and melted into the hug. I tried my best at calming her down and started petting her back and sussing her.

'It's alright Nora, he didn't hate you, he never did and I don't think he would have been able to either.'

'How do you know that?'

'You know what his last words were? He wanted you to forgive him.'

It was quiet for a few seconds after that while Nora was processing these words. Her voice became really small suddenly.

'Really?'

'Me and Lars might have been good friends but he never cared about me as much as he did for you. He didn't save my life just because he thought I needed to live, no he saved me because of you. He would never be able to watch you cry about my death knowing he could have changed the outcome, he knew it would break you. He wanted you to live and living is more that just keep breathing so you better not let him down.'

These words took a little longer for Nora to process.

'They're going to fucking pay for this.'

Sooooooo yea I'm not great at writing these kinds of chapters cause I kinda don't have emotions or something. Also I don't know what kind of poetic lesson I gave you today but yea I made that up right on the spot so I'm sorry it didn't made any sense, cause to me it doesn't either.