Welcome To My Dark Side

Chapter 11 A Harsh Reality

In the meantime Lyria was still trapped inside the Fractureverse. She had been able to avoid Fractureverse Hilda after the drunk incident, which luckily ended with nothing worse than a bunch of soldiers calling her lazy Lyria when she had woken up. Lyria had not yet managed to figure out everyone's complete change of character. 'It's not just me that everyone has been mean to. In fact everyone is being unkind and rude to each other.' Lyria kept wondering to herself. She felt as though everyone around her had gone mad overnight. It was like nothing was the same anymore and Lyria had only noticed this dramatic change when she had returned from the pillager town and she still did not know whether it was likely that they would attack the Frostbourne.

She had so many questions and too few answers and she dared not ask anyone for the fear of what outcome might occur. The feeling of gliding effortlessly through the air helped calm down her troublesome thoughts. She was in her element. She would not trade this remarkable talent of hers for anything. Adjusting her elytra, she slowly started to lose altitude so that she could land safely. 'If only I could talk to someone about what's going on.' She thought. Even though flying came almost naturally to Lyria, she had allowed herself to become distracted with her thoughts which caused her to misjudge the distance between the rooftop of one of the buildings and her elytra.

Worse was to come as she was not even aware of the tear that the collision had caused. Instead of landing gracefully on the ground, she fell face first into the snow. Luckily she was not hurt because she had not fallen from a great height and the snow had cushioned her fall. The only thing that hurt was the laughter she got from the soldiers who had watched her comical landing. "And you call yourself the wind walker. More like falling failure." sneered the soldiers and they continued to mock her. Lyria was angered by this so much so that she wanted to lash out at them, however she did not want to lower herself to their surprisgly low standards.

Biting her tongue and clenching her fists, she stood up and brushed the snow off her. Despite trying to ignore their harmful comments at her flying abilities, she could not help but feel a little disheartened and doubtful. "Ha ha ha. Looks like the baby bird can't even flee the nest properly." They jeered. Lyria now hated the fact that everyone kept referring to her as a baby and in an act of frustration, Lyria unfastened her elytra from the shoulder clasps on her jacket and chucked the elytra on the floor and stormed off.

Lyria was in such a dreadful mood from all the name calling that she was too upset to watch where she was going and she walked straight into Fractureverse Hilda. Lyria was not the only one who was in a bad mood. Fractureverse Hilda was absolutely furious about something and as soon as Lyria had bumped into her, she took her anger out on her. "Hey watch where you're going!" She snapped. When she turned her head slightly, she saw that Lyria was the person who had crashed into her. A small smile crept upon her face, which quickly disappeared when she reminded herself on why she was so cross to begin with. "The stores for the explosives weren't locked and there were matches left next to the explosives!" She yelled at Lyria like she was either the one who had done this or was ultimately in charge of the storage of the explosives.

Lyria was surprised that someone had been so careless but she had learnt the hard way not to argue back or come up with excuses and so she replied by saying "I am sorry for bumping into you Commander and I am so sorry that this has happened. I will see that this is fixed at once even though this is not my responsibility." Fractureverse Hilda was not all impressed by this and slapped Lyria across the face. She would use any excuse to punish Fractureverse Lyria even if it was not her fault, however Lyria was unaware of this just as Fractureverse Hilda was unaware that she was not Fractureverse Lyria.

Lyria was about to set off to correct this issue as she did not want to be slapped again for no reason. Fractureverse Hilda grabbed her left arm and threw her onto the ground. She was in shock that the commander was behaving so violently and as a result did not get up straight away. The commander pulled her elytra blade off her right wrist before she could react in time. The next thing she knew was that the commander had placed her foot on her back preventing her from moving. She then felt the cold blade of her sword gently touching the side of her neck. Unfortunately for Lyria there was no one around the quiet streets of Dreadfort at this time and even if they were, they were too terrified of Fractureverse Hilda to intervene.

Lately Lyria felt as though she had not been able to predict Commander Hilda's actions, which was why she was now petrified in fear because she did not know what the commander was going to do. "Take your jacket off!" Ordered Fractureverse Hilda as she relieved just enough pressure off Lyria's back so that she would be able to comply. Lyria was scared enough as it was and so she shakerley took her jacket off and tossed it on the ground next to her. The commander moved her foot completely away from Lyria. For a brief second, Lyria could feel her muscles start to relax before something was slammed down hard onto her back. The pain stunned her into remaining in place as something struck her back once again. It was only on the third time was she able to realise that the commander had decided to beat her with the flat edge of her sword.

After the third strike, Lyria was expecting her to stop, however Fractureverse Hilda found it too ironic that Lyria was being harmed by her own weapon to stop there. Each time Lyria braced herself for the painful impact, she would be caught off guard as soon as the blade inflicted its damage. The agony was enough to make her pass out but the intermittent beatings fuelled her with enough adrenaline to keep her on edge. Lyria lost count of how many times she had been hit. Even though Fractureverse Hilda had only used the flat side of the sword, the amount of times Lyria had been hit had caused blood to start seeping through her white shirt. "Let that be a lesson to you to make sure that matches are never left with the explosives again and the stores are properly locked." Fractureverse Hilda concluded and walked off leaving Lyria trembling in the snow.

Lyria double checked to make sure that the commander had actually gone before she attempted to stand up. It had taken her a while to get onto her feet. It was now dark and it was more than likely that everyone would be in the tavern having dinner. Lyria carefully put her jacket on to cover up the blood stains. She felt frightened of Commander Hilda and thought that it was best not to let anyone find out what had happened. Fearing this and the fact that she was in an incredible amount of pain she chose not to have dinner and decided to hobble to her room. She was hoping that it would improve a bit by morning. After a difficult and exhausting walk, she collapsed onto her bed and did not bother to change her clothes. 'I..I... don't understand. Am I just disremembering things or am I in some kind of nightmare trapped in a coma? No, my back hurts too much for it to be that, although I almost wish it was. Oh Doriane I wish you were alive or maybe I don't because you would be affected the same way everyone else is. I guess I am just going to have to accept that this is the new reality I live in.' Lyria cried into her pillow. It was still unknown to her that reality itself had not changed but rather that she was in a different one.