With a jolt, Fallan startled awake, arms outstretched like he was grabbing for something. A tear threatened to leak out despite the anger coursing through him. Closing his eyes for a moment, he began the usual struggle to compose himself.
Nobody knew it, but Fallan wasn't as tough or sturdy as people seemed to think he was. He would never admit it, but he was terrified of what would happen if the Youtoas– with those awful claws, spikes, and teeth!-- ever crossed that border and over to this side.
He could still remember the story –that was told to every young innocent child the age of ten to twelve– being told to him when he was that young and just as innocent.
'I'm going to tell you a story,' the Story Median had begun, throwing some dust into the spirit pail before him. 'This story is about how we became fearless warriors'
At these words, the older warriors had shuffled their feet nervously. The little children wouldn't know it until they were much older, but no one was ever fearless, it was just a very skilled art of shutting out all emotion so no one knows what lay deep within you.
'It is said,' the Median had continued grandly, waving his arms methodically in the air. Some of the children had leaned forward to watch the fluentic moving arms. The others–that weren't as interested– looked up at the sky in boredom. 'Voutoas–That's the name of the beasts– used to live with humans in peace.' a pause, used not to clear a throat, but to lure children in. 'but the peace between human and beast was destroyed by a coward–a man– that couldn't stand to see the Voutoas living near him.'
The Median– not caring to look at the terror on the young ones faces– continued to go on about how the Voutoas took their rage out on the rest of the humans. How the humans had answered with the same rage. And how that one cowardly man had found a way to keep the beasts out of the human world with one common little plant. A little plant called The Rose.
'The coward planted roses around a certain expanse of field, and trapped the Voutoas inside. The thing is... the roses only repel the beasts. They don't kill them.' The Median was on a roll now, his words whipping out of his mouth like a flame of fire on someone's body. 'So the beasts–if they were able to ignore the pain– could cross into the human world-' the Median (for the first time since...ever) was interrupted by a little boy. "Now we have to be fearless.. We have to kill every single one of the beasts that cross over!" The Median didn't know what to say to that. 'Yes, Fallan.. We have to do everything we can to kill them'
Fallan didn't know then what he did now. The Median–and himself for that matter– were wrong, not in the sense of the historic lesson. But that the Voutoas had to die to save the human race. The beasts weren't the problem, it was the humans fault the whole fighting started. It had to stop. And Fallan thought he knew how.
Fallan sat back in bed with his hands behind his head. The thing was, how was he going to be able to accomplish anything when this stupid voice in his dreams kept haunting him?
