Grandeur Defector

LVIV

The first dream in what felt like ages dawned in his psyche, a kaleidoscope of color erupting as he entered a world not real, but parallel.
The royal shook himself and blinked in the new surroundings his mind set him in; it was an old church building that he'd once seen while pillaging a small village in the countryside. Religion was rare and scarce, the buildings always a mystery in their own right.
Much like he had done in reality, he stepped into the decrepit white building, its edges crumbling and wooden beams rotted. It harbored no warmth as it had before the arrival of soldiers to invade its neighboring streets, cold and still. He remembered finding nobody cowering in the building as he expected.
But this wasn't reality.

Truffles' first steps into the church were met by a hiss of hatred and fear, just as cold as the haze the original memory harbored. In the rows of broken and tattered wooden seating, past the strange paned glass shot by bullets, was a face he thought he'd never see again: his uncle.
He didn't say a word, bleeding from the lost eye his own nephew had caused when they fought, clutching the invisible as if he could manifest vision in the socket. There were dark wounds all over him, some far too deep for him to still stand with, his own face almost hazy. Hunched he was, leaning awkwardly aghast the peculiar alter that the benches faced in earnest. But there were no guests attentive and devoted; there was no one to listen to his toxic logic anymore.
What... is this?

Truffles stepped closer to his wounded kin, unsure of what to say. Instead, his uncle hissed again and gripped his ripped socket harder as if his nephew's claws stung the most, the alter at his side barely standing itself. The General looked around the room at figures that simply weren't there, eye almost deliriously searching for something to lock onto beside his own nephew, looking for a way out of the room.
But nothing happened.

"What are you doing here?"

Even with the language barrier, The General's one blue eye reacted and landed on his nephew with anger melting into sheer terror not ever seen in reality, expression almost saying: 'What are YOU doing here?'
Truffles stared down at the blood that seemed to endlessly flood downward onto the floor boards, too dark to be natural. It looked like tar, far too thick to be semi-transparent and nearly black. Was this what his personal afterlife consisted of, or was this Hell itself? There was no Eternal Fields of peace or silence— there were gunshots in the air, soldiers he demanded to do so running around and lighting the village on fire under his command. There were no eager listeners in their seats. There were no family members to praise his actions.
They were all dead.
All that stood was him and the nephew he hated so dearly that he was willing to do the unspeakable to; and not even his final kin gave him a gaze of empathy. The empathy was dead.
The General had no funeral service or final goodbyes to the country he commanded. He was someone else's prey, torn to shreds and swallowed by harbingers of death.
He was dead.

"You don't belong here."

...
Truffles awoke with a jolt.
It was daybreak already.
Silence except for the buzzing of random insects curious to the mass exodus of men in their valley, darting to and fro as they danced on the wind. The sun had begun to rise an hour ago, and yet no effort to get was made. Every single soldier was dead asleep, united under exhaustion, and damned to wake up in the worst way possible.

"GET UP AND AT 'EM, FELLAS!"

Truffles flinched at the command, startled as he lay upright. To his right, Flippy groggily moaned in protest, trying to stay asleep. He rolled over, huffed, and said what he could only muster being half asleep in the moment. His little nub tail drooped with despair.
"Fffffuck..."

Agreed.
How long had it been? It felt only like a few hours in the comparison of 13 miles of walking. Truffles stretched himself, back arched as he popped the ligaments in his spine with ease, the satisfaction traveling upwards and warming his bones with fresh serotonin. He popped his stiff tail back into animation, and seconds after he popped his neck to add to his stretch, another command was yelled.