Blazing Skies

Chapter 10

After I explained my situation, they led me to a room off the tunnels, and told me to get some sleep.

"Well, if you do wake up after a good nap, we know you're going to be fine."

So I slept, only to be awoken by my own vicious coughing and an awful burning sensation. I just wanted it to stop, and it did, after a good few minutes. At first I wasn't quite sure what happened, I was just kind of in an empty white room. I assumed I was dreaming, and decided to go along with it.

"Okay, lucid dreaming is all well and good, but let me out."

The walls vanished, and I was staring at two masked figures.

"And what are you?"

They looked up and spoke in unison.

"We are Zander Pax, uncle of Jason."

"Oh, okay. Great to know. If you could just wake me up now, that would be great."

"Become one of us."

"No."

"One of us."

"No."

"ONE OF US!"

"Cool dream, but no thanks."

"We could make you a ruler, a god, even."

"I'll pass."

"Then we shall give you a simple challenge. If you can pass our test, we shall let you go. Remove the mask of the inventor, of the genius, the loving brother and uncle, and you may leave. Remove the mask of the psychopath, the murderer, the liar, and you shall become one of us. You may ask no questions, simply judge."

I stood where I was and compared the two. The looked the same, sounded nearly the same, except one of them was shaking nervously. I approached him and he started whispering.

"Get me out please free me I'm scared so scared let me out I just want to be free."

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and an unmasked figure turned me around. It seemed desperate. It uttered a simple word.

"Run."

He grabbed my hand and pulled me off.

"What's happening?"

"You're dead, Mira, and so am I."

"Pardon?"

"Yep. Ever wondered what it was like? Now you know. They aren't me. Well, one is. He's my other half. The half that doesn't belong. The other is his other half, the overlord. Now, because I showed up, they were going to do some ungodly awful thing to you. They don't like me very much, because I stopped them. Terribly sorry about your legs, by the way. That was my fault. On the plus side, in causing that blast, I died and prevented them from killing us all."

"What's the plan?"

"How did you get out of the room?"

"I don't know, I just wanted to go."

"Do you want to leave here?"

"Yeah."

"Then go! Also, please take me with you. I won't be some horrific undead monster, just another form of energy. I don't know what, but it'll have to do."

I imagined a doorway in front of us. No, not a doorway, a hole, under us. We were falling, and falling, and falling, until I just woke up.

Simple as that.

Except everyone around me looked remarkably shocked as I gasped for air.

"You were dead for six minutes! How did you even... Did you fake that or something?"