Shadow Bands

XXVII. Totality

 Darkness swirled around Lyra. A faint noise of an echo came with a dim light coming from a sconce along a dark hallway. She approached the torch with caution, feeling numb to its orangish glow. As she approached, she saw herself and Draven on the defense with their backs against each other.

She reached out, but Draven swung her sword at her, driving her away. She tried to speak, but it only came out as a shriek. A familiar barrage of whispers began to flood into her mind. She rushed to try and clarify what had happened, but instead, she pushed herself into a different room.

Lyra observed herself.

She was smaller, weaker, and unfamiliar. An anger boiled from within her, a resentment of a life she was thrown into.

"You're pitiful," the other Lyra said. "Look at you. You thought you were invincible, untouchable because of how smart you are."

She tried speaking again, but it sounded more like delayed whispers.

"You can't protect those you love," another voice said. She turned to see Draven behind her. "With a closed heart and selfish ambition, you think you can change the world."

The walls began to fade away like dust in the wind. Draven and she followed after, their eyes never stopped staring deeply into hers before they floated away.

She saw a familiar bright purple glow on her skin. She turned to find the floating entity.

"What is this?" she asked, surprised to speak. But the entity just swirled in its mysterious essence.

She tried to approach, but her movements were slow and heavy. Nine bright yellow orbs appeared in a close formation behind the entity. Large clawed hands with three fingers crept around the large purple orb, fitting in the palm of its hands, revealing a shell-like skin comparable to wet stone. It brought the entity to the yellow orbs to reveal its face—the glowing orbs were its eyes, and it had a mandible-like mouth with writhing tentacles. Its colossal head was pointed like a leaf with five points, but its body was veiled by the abyss of space.

"I found you," it said after sounding through millions of languages in a second, its voice like a deep purr.

Lyra couldn't help but feel an impending doom. Her heart raced until it threatened to explode, and her thoughts collapsed in her mind, feeling as if she was melting from the inside. Her body felt as if it were being compressed, her head ready to pop.

She screamed as she shot up from her bed. Her chest heaved as if she ran out of air to breathe. She frantically checked her surroundings, finding hospital beds surrounding her. The walls were a canvas material, waving softly as winds tried to invade the inside. Warmth coiled in from an electric heater just above her bed. Her eyes eventually fell on Kaelen, who stood wide-eyed and ready for whatever may come.

"Hey!" She finally heard. "You're safe! You're at the medical tent by the arena." Kaelen's words grounded her, but something still tugged at her instincts—fear.

"I—" she stopped herself. She may come off as discombobulated, possibly insane, if she were to describe what her dream was, if she could. . .

"Are you alright?" Kaelen finally asked.

She felt beads of sweat roll down her arms and forehead and into the bandages that covered a large sum of her body.

"I'm. . . doing fine." Lyra finally said, the weight of her loss finally crashing down on her. The expectations of Joanne and the faith Helen had in her, she let them down. "I can't believe I thought I was suited for this." Her hands clenched the thin blanket.

Kaelen rested his hand gently on her shoulder and said, "No one's blaming you for anything. You fought hard. There are other ways to show the world what you're capable of."