A Heart Of Fire (Final Fantasy XV)

Chapter 14

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'Nnngh....where...where am I?'

'What's that smell?'

'Something's...tickling my cheek..."

My eyelids gently fluttered open, and my blurry vision soon cleared up to reveal a hazy sky filled with light grey clouds. A soft breeze blew by, and I could feel the tickling feeling brushing up against my exposed skin. I pushed myself up in a sitting position, and I was able to see what exactly it was that was tickling me. Blades of fresh grass, along with an endless abundance of yellow daffodils that stretched out for miles around me. I smiled softly, but furrowed my brows together in puzzlement. The flowers were still little buds, about to start blooming it seems.

I lifted a hand up to touch a yellow bud. I gently rubbed the it in between my fingers, then ran my fingers through the soft grass.

'It definitely feels real,' I thought to myself. 'A little too real to be a dream.'

As I looked at my surroundings, I carefully pulled myself up to my feet, and noticed that the flowers that I was laying on slowly straightened themselves out, now looking as if I hadn't laid on them to begin with. I stared at the spot where I was laying down, then down at the ground in front of me. I carefully lifted my foot up and set it down, bending a few of the daffodil blooms. But it didn't matter, because as soon as I took a few steps forward, the bent flowers straightened themselves out, just like the other flowers did.

'At least I won't have to worry about crushing them,' I said with relief. Coincidentally, daffodils are my favorite flowers. Their bright yellow color and their beautiful shape has always drawn me to them ever since I saw them for the first time back at the city. They always made me smile, but in this case, they made me feel, not uncomfortable, but just...weird.

"Where am I?" I ask out loud to myself, looking around. All I could see were more flowers and grass. There were no houses or even trees to be seen. It was just me, the sky, and the flowers.

"Maybe if I walk around, I'll come across something."

And that's exactly what I did, and it felt like I was just walking in circles. Minutes felt like hours as I walked through the field of flowers, but I still have not come across anything new in this strange dream; Just more flowers. I kept on walking. I thought that if I did, I would come across something eventually. After more endless walking, I stopped and let out a sigh.

"This is getting me nowhere," I grumbled. I looked around me once more, but the scenery around me remained the same. Nothing has changed since I woke up here. Just as I was about to give up and lie back down in the flowers, I heard a soft noise somewhere in the distance. It was a gentle, yet playful chatter, like the sound of a bird.

I looked up at the sky, but all I could see were grey clouds. I heard the noise again, a little louder than the last. I turned around, but still saw nothing. I kept looking up at the sky, trying to find the source of the noise, until my eyes landed on something soaring in the sky. Something of a glowing bright yellow and orange bird flew through the grey sky, leaving a trail of what looked to be like fire as it started circling above me. I watched as it flew lower and closer to the ground, then it let out another chatterchatterll as it flew off in another direction.

I don't know why exactly, maybe it was because of the boredom from doing nothing but walking in this quiet place, but something in my gut told me to follow it. Who knows, maybe it might lead me somewhere. Before I would lose sight of whatever that thing is, I ran after it as fast as I could. Luckily, its bright color in contrast with the grey sky made it easy to see, but it seemed hard to keep up with it. It flew faster every time I would catch up to it, and at this point I was at full sprint, running up a pretty tall hill. Again, I don't know why I needed to follow it, I just knew that I needed to.