The Legacy of Guardians - Kivvora Heroes: Guardians & Destines

FOURTY-FOUR

YAMIYO KNEW HE WAS DREAMING, but he couldn't wake up. He couldn't escape the haunting images of the hellscape his mind became.

He drowned in a sea of blackness and shadow. His Shadows. Fear leached to him, shackling him in chains, and dragged him deeper in to the abyss. As Yamiyo hit the bottom, his world spun, and an invisible force weighed on his chest. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out, silenced by claws clutching his mouth.

Voices screeched everywhere around him. As he tried covering his ears, more claws creep from the darkness, pinning Yamiyo's arms behind him. The voices got louder in his head as he struggled against the grasps.

After a while, the inviable force lifted from his chest and the claws let him go, swirling into darker shadows, casting over him. Yamiyo looked up, scooting backwards. His parents stood over him again, with the same sinis­ter glare they've been giving him for the last five years.

Yamiyo shielded his face and shut his eyes. He couldn't stand to look at them anymore. Their presence, their anger – it was all too much.

"You can't escape this. You can't escape this pain." His parents hissed "You should have listened to us. We told you this would happen."

Yamiyo couldn't breathe... and more than anything, he didn't want to be alive. But deep down, there was something... something telling him to hold on. He lost everything, but he still wanted to hold on. He didn't know what to hold on to. But it felt right.

Yamiyo flinched when he sensed a familiar presence approaching him. It was his power, Turmoil. And it was taking more of a human like form.

As Yamiyo tried getting away, his power yanked him by his wrist, and slammed him against a cold wall, pinning him. Turmoil glared him, it's eyes nothing but glowing, empty, whites. "Where do you think you're going?" It said. "Don't you know... I'm the one in charge?"

Turmoil cackled then dropped him. Yamiyo's arms shook as he struggled to get up – to move. The hissing in his mind returned and he grunted, holding his head with one hand. He looked up and his mouth dropped open as his throat closed.

Turmoil grew, tripling in size and then some. It pounced on ground, shaking the world, and grabbed Yamiyo with a cold claw. It threw him across the void, and he hit the ground. Yamiyo sought es­cape, but his power appeared behind him and kicked him, sending him flying through the void again.

Yamiyo hit another wall, whimpering as he crumpled to the ground. He remained motionless as Turmoil jumped down and punched the ground, quaking the void and his mind.

Turmoil picked up Yamiyo by his shirt, grinned in his face, and flung him into the air... and jumped after him. Yamiyo tried shielding himself from it, but his power phased inside him and a coldness took hold.

When Yamiyo hit the ground, his power left his body and Yamiyo opened his eyes, stifling a gasp. Turmoil was a mirror image of himself... or maybe this is who he's always been...

Turmoil approached him, growing larger... the darkness around it deepened. Yamiyo felt something tightening around his heart and clutched his chest, clenching his jaw. What was happening to him?

His Shadows grabbed him and shrouded Yamiyo in a veil of darkness. He struggled to get away... futile.

"You won't be able to escape." It seethed. "I am in control..."

Yamiyo's surroundings got darker and darker, and—

* * *

Yamiyo jolted awake, his screams piercing the silence of the room, and his face soaked with sweat and tears. He found himself huddled in a damp cor­ner, shivering on the frigid floor... no recollection of how he got here. Yamiyo's head throbbed in unbearable agony, as though his mind were be­ing devoured.