Of Love and Death.

The Present Chapter 13: Appropriate Chapter Number Pt. 3

No. No. No, no, no, no, no. NO!

This was not happening. This was not happening. Valt wasn't here. He was somewhere else. In bed, dreaming. Having a nightmare. He wasn't here. Shu didn't have a knife pressed against his neck. Neither of them were here. This was NOT happening. Valt wasn't panicking, because this wasn't happening. So what reason did he have to panic?

Valt couldn't breathe. He wasn't able to. Sometimes it felt like he had a belt tied around his chest. But never like this. An entire freight train was pressing on his chest. He just straight up couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. Had he even stumbled backwards? He doubted it. How paralyzing fear could be, that it made him doubt he'd ever been able to move with the weight of it. It was like the weight had always been there, it was so all-consuming.

This wasn't real. That was the only explanation. Valt just couldn't handle it if it was real. Everything felt like it was breaking around him. Shu. Shu who had a fine line of blood running down his neck. So fine he might not be able to feel it. And her. The fairy-like woman who was doing all of this. She wasn't real. If she was real, then

Valt just couldn't do it.

He just couldn't deal with it if she was real. Terror and fear were his whole existence. He'd didn't even have the brainspace to feel terror for Shu, he was too scared in general. It overwhelmed him, crushing him.

A small whimper escaped Valt. His eyes were watching the scene in front of him. Where Shu frantically was looking around trying to gain any information about the person holding a knife to his neck. But his head was somewhere else. The feeling of stabbing someone's heels with sharp hooves. Ice pressed all around him. Burnt bread that hadn't even been burnt.

Out of the corner of his eye, Valt saw Valtryek. The two bey was frantically pacing, trying to see if she could do anything. Yet she couldn't. She was stuck in the strange ghostly world between reality and thoughts. Vaguely, Valt realized that his partner was also probably shouting at him to do something. Or trying to help him do something. But he couldn't hear her. All he heard was the sound of fighting and battle. Crackling fire and freezing ice.

Please, please, please, Valt thought, tears in his eyes. Please let me do something. Please let this not be real. Please let this turn out alright. He wasn't sure if it was a prayer or just a desperate plea to no-one. Still, his view hadn't changed. Shu, held captive in front of him. And that murderous creature keeping him there.

The image of the woman's lips moving was there. But Valt was either too far away or too much in his own head to hear what she said. Maybe it was both. Either way, the shock and confusion on Shu's face was evident and obvious.

The fiery blader went almost slack, his eyes wide. They almost looked fully white to Valt. Which was how they were supposed to be, right? Just like earlier. At the airport, when Nightfell had, had, something. Something had happened with Nightfell that had caused Valt to pass out.

Wait. Wait. Was Valt about to pass out again? No. No, that wasn't an option. If that happened-well. Well it wouldn't be good. Valt wouldn't put it past this fairy girl to do great harm to him. I can't pass out, He told himself.

Valt could read minds. He could speak telepathically and understand all beys. These were all powers over the brain. The realm of thought. He could keep himself from passing out. All he had to do was do it. Reach into the part of him with his power, and draw it out like he hadn't in this life. Keep himself awake. Keep himself from remembering - because he was fairly sure he'd remembered something before - just for now.

All of the sudden, it was like Valt was floating in an ocean. He was surrounded and enveloped by something so utterly familiar. He knew it more than he knew his own hands. It wasn't physical. Nothing that Valt saw changed. There was still that awful scene spread out in front of him. If he had looked down, perhaps he would have seen his shadow getting darker. If he had looked in the mirror, he'd have seen his eyes getting blacker. But, for the most part, there were no outward signs.