Dragons of Alaevia

Chapter 27: Kaeirin

"Dad! Dad, wait!" Seven-year-old Kaeirin cried out as his father dragged him away, pulling at his arm so much it hurt.

"We're leaving, Kaeirin." His father commanded with a voice forbidding and crushingly bitter.

"No! I want to be with Mama! Let me go!" Kaeirin screamed and cried as his father strained with all his might to haul him away. Yet the boy still managed to break away from the burly man's unyielding grasp.

"Kaeirin!" His father shouted, the name a furious sound in the man's thick throat—and the boy fell at his mother's sick bed, watching as she lay there, motionless and unmoving—those once-blue eyes now glassed over and gray like clouds frosting the sky before the rain.

"Mama!" He sobbed. "Don't leave me! Don't leave me..."

A rough hand grasped at Kaeirin's arm. "No!" Screamed the boy.

"No!"

     —————————

Kaeirin bolted awake completely drenched in a cold sweat. His heart was pounding, beating in his throat and in his ears—while tremors tore through his body with every movement. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't—

"Kaeirin?" A soft voice whispered within the darkness—stirring up a sudden hope within his pounding heart. That voice! It sounded like...

"Mom?" Kaeirin called out—the word seeming to tremble right alongside his shivering form.

"It's Gisaea."

Disappointment crashed over Kaeirin like a tidal wave, crushing his struggling lungs all the more. His mom wasn't here. Of course she wasn't. How could he be so foolish? To think for even a second that—

"What's wrong?" Gisaea questioned with a tone of caution, gently taking a seat by Kaeirin's side. He tried to acknowledge her, but his stupid lungs still couldn't seem to work quite right. He tried to catch his breath, to slow his heart. But he—

"Hey, hey...breathe. Just breathe." Gisaea softly consoled. She demonstrated breathing motions with her hands, and Kaeirin matched the movements, slowly breathing in and out as he did so. In, and out. In, and out. His heart rate steadied, slowly but surely. The trembling stilled. He let out a wobbly breath.

Kaeirin had been plagued by panic attacks ever since his mother's death. He especially got them at night—usually after nightmares or after a stressful day. Sometimes, when they happened, he could calm himself down. Other times...not so much.

"Thanks..." Kaeirin managed to say, though he still couldn't seem to let his eyes meet Gisaea's. It was sort of embarrassing...allowing another see a part of him no one else had ever known. Not even Cyprian—his own best friend—knew such things about Kaeirin.

"Do you...want to talk about it?" Gisaea inquired tentatively. Kaeirin let out a breath, pondering whether or not he should open up to a girl he'd just met. Though, something about her presence was warm, calming like a light in the darkness. Plus, he'd told her to trust him. Why shouldn't he do the same?

"A nightmare," Kaeirin admitted quietly, his voice still shaky. "I had a nightmare."

He glanced at Gisaea, and found her listening gaze already on his. "Go on," she seemed to be conveying through the look. Kaeirin took the hint—slowly drawing in a breath, then releasing it the same way.

"You know the torpid flu?" Kaeirin questioned, and Gisaea nodded. "Well, when I was about five or six, it raided our small town and took out most of the population." Kaeirin explained, locking his eyes on the cool logs of the fire pit as he spoke. "My father and I were somehow spared of the disease. My mother on the other hand..." He trailed off, unable to say the words aloud. They threatened to pull him underwater again, where he was drowning in the pain.

"I'm sorry..." Gisaea told him, her voice brimming with sympathy.

"It's okay. It's not your—"

"And...I understand." She added, softly placing her hand upon his.

.
.
.

Oh.

Right.

"I've been having this specific dream about my father who, when I was four, left my family on an assignment and...well, never returned..."

"My father may still be out there, but...I know how it feels to lose someone." Gisaea empathized with eyes shining with grief. "I wasn't as old as you when he left, but, I know that as a child...it's hard to understand why..."

Why.

Why did she leave?

Why wasn't she ever coming back?

Tears filled Kaeirin's eyes and blurred his vision as he buried his face in his knees with a throat burning with grief.

The tears flowed and he let them.

The sobs bubbled up and he let them.

No. She wasn't ever coming back. He'd watched her die. He wouldn't find her at Frore's Hollow like Gisaea would her father. He wouldn't ever see her again.

Usually, this realization always made Kaeirin feel alone. Like he was the only one in the world carrying this heavy, drowning pain.

But as Gisaea placed her hand on his shoulder, understanding him and just being there with him—it suddenly felt as though maybe...

Maybe he wasn't as alone as he'd thought.