Chisia: Book of Flight

Chapter 2- I Think I Died

I woke eyes open, head up, in a soft bed with the covers over me.

I looked to the face of the person but was surprised to find a strikingly familiar tapir. He was mouthing something, but no words came out. I looked deep into his eyes, which were sparkling with concern. Everything seemed to be in slow motion.

I felt a tight cloth on my chest, and I felt a warm liquid slowly seeping through it.

I looked up again to see the tapir walking towards an unknown person-No, animal-I corrected myself as the world became clearer and more vivid.

I surveyed my surroundings, my mind now clearer and my ears more alert.

I heard the tapir- think of a big and well rounded black deer with a semi-long stubby nose that hangs over to where it's just below his mouth-softly speaking with the unknown animal, who looked suspiciously like a cheetah. She was dressed like a doctor, with a white coat on and a stethoscope hanging around her neck. She didn't worry me though; neither did the tapir. It was as if I had awoken at my house, it felt safe.

The room around me was like a hospital room, except it was made to be more like a room. Towards my left was the tapir and cheetah on two legs (how crazy is this place?), to my bedside a dresser, and  a hallway leading to a closed door. I looked to my left and saw a wall with a window.

The view was spectacular.

There were mountains, rivers, lakes, forests....it was indescribably beautiful. It was as if there was no trace of humanity.

Wait-where were all the people?

I grabbed my sheets, ready to get up, when I felt an excruciating pain in my

I tried to keep myself calm as my brain started to go haywire with thoughts.

I must have fallen asleep again somehow. That tapir seemed to spark my memory. Suddenly I remembered the dream from this morning. The only thing was, this couldn't be the same dream. It was extremely improbable for a person to enter the same dream world at a different time, let alone almost a day later. And I know about phantom pains in dreams, but this chest wound was in a whole new level. Then I remembered my heart attack. Wait-were you supposed to remember things in dreams? Still, this was a new level of weird. Everything seemed crystal clear, as it would if I was awake. And shouldn't I be able to make an ice cream pop up right now? Because believe me, I'm trying. Added onto that, my hands had fur on them.

I looked down again and my mouth gaped.

I had golden brown fur on my hands.

I looked at the tapir and he paused his conversation, turned towards me, and both of them looked at me.

He leaned over me, and put his...... toes? Hooves? Forefeet? Whatever they were called on the side of the bed and smiled at me warmly.

"You gave us quite a scare back there."

"What am I?!" I screeched. My voice had a resonance in my chest that I was deeper than when I last spoke.

He stared, blinking,"Well, you um, you're..." he looked at the cheetah a minute, asking her something quietly.

"You are a lion. A peculiar looking one in fact."

My mouth dropped open.

I tried to get up to start screaming questions and then felt pain shoot through my chest again. I decided that wasn't the best idea.

He continued on to say that one of my eyes were blue, the other amber. I was apparently a darker brown than other lions too...his words all seemed to merge together after a while. Still....it was like a dream where you still feel the same, but look different.

This was pretty realistic for a dream though. I pinched myself to be sure, then realized I couldn't because I had lion paws for hands. I opened up my hand- excuse me, paw-and then flexed it. Claws seamlessly emerged from my hand. I was trying hard not to freak out, so I poked myself with one of my claws instead in an effort to wake up.

It hurt, but I looked around to find myself in the same room, much to my disappointment.

I managed to force words out of my mouth. "Wait. You expect me to believe this isn't some kind of pyshco prank. That I'm not  insane? This has to be a dream. There's no way. Am I dead?"

The tapir smiled, and my mind immediately betrayed him by reminding me of the image of him pulling out the dagger. Bad mind, no, stop worrying your master. My mind seemed to only mock me more, reminding me of his knife throwing skills. He looked back at the cheetah, and she nodded, dropped down onto all fours, and walked out of the room.

The tapir watched the cheetah leave the room, then looked back at me.

"No, you are not dead by any means. This may be all confusing, but this, I hope, will help a little."

He continued, "There are animals or humans," he said the word with a certain fumbling matter that made me laugh,"that we call fallises. These fallises are animals, or humans, as in your case, that can travel between dimensions. It only happens so often when someone's dimensional animal or human is born without a soul, making it easy for the falise to enter the body."

"This is an amazing power, but comes at a great cost. The falise's soul can only be in one place at one time, so while your soul is in this body-"

"So, I'm going to play along with this. Wouldn't I be dead in the other world if I had no soul?"

The tapir laughed, "No, no, we wouldn't have called you here if we knew you would die. You are just in a coma state. Normally, you would be eating, drinking and sleeping for two people, but your friends-"

"And family."

"And family," he adde as I glared at him. I almost felt bad for the poor guy. I was just patronizing him because I was scared and confused, he had only been happy and welcoming this whole time. Then I remembered he was just a figment of my imagination and I felt better, "in the other world think you're sick, so your other body won't need the nourishment. 'Cause, you know, they probably have their ways like we do, correct?"

Relief filled my body as I replied,"Yeah, yeah.... What's this about calling me here?"

His eyes filled with excitement.

"You'll have to meet Queen Nadia for that."

His eyes changed to annoyance and hatred, and even a bit of pity as he said,"We had this all planned out but then, as you may recall, we were intercepted by an unexpected guest..." He quickly returned to their humorous and excited state, as he looked back at me, "But Queen Nadia will just have to come and visit you since you're in this state." He glanced over my chest solemnly, where the pain had erupted from earlier.

He softly smiled again and patted my paw, "I guess I should go get Queen Nadia, shouldn't I?" He got up and walked towards the door all all fours.

"Wait!" I yelled after him, "I haven't even got your name!"

He smiled humorously, and with his bellowing voice I remembered, yelled from down the hall, "The name's Allister!"