The Dreamfarer

25

╣Folco╟

He landed in the midst of a battle.

His instincts kicked in before his thoughts did, and he dove aside as a spell whizzed past him, burning some of the hair off of his left arm. People were running in all directions and screams filled the air; it took Folco a minute to realize that the people were warlocks, every last one of them. Their beady black eyes were all wide and unblinking as they herded their selves and their families towards what they hoped would be safety.

Looking around, Folco saw that the expanse of land he was surrounded by seemed like the layout of the camp; there were just no tents. Kroma's subconscious probably did not deem them all that important; that, or there was just a bigger picture - the battle - to focus on, rather than the little details.

A huge blast demanded Folco's attention then, and he ducked without thinking. The ground beneath his feet shook, and so did he. He hated landing in dreams like this; dreams that led him to forgetting, at first, that he was the one in control of them. Dreams in which he felt weak or unsafe.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw the crater that had formed a ways behind him. It was at least ten feet deep and many more feet wide, the center of it smoking and the edges red, as if the hole was lined with burning coals.

And standing right above it was a giant Kroma, his hands glowing with pure power and his feet spread, each one the size of his own ostentatious tent. There was a huge grin on the giant's face, and its eyes were blacker than the darkest night - Folco thought that it might not have had eyeballs at all; just holes. Black pits large enough, at this scale, for somebody to fall right through.

Folco saw that the blasts were caused by the spells leaving Kroma's hands. The balls of light were raining down on the field and people like meteors, and the triumphant smile on the giant's face did nothing but fuel the fire of rage that was burning inside of Folco.

"Kroma!" he shouted, waving his arms in the air. The giant did not seem to hear him; he had just obliterated an entire warlock family, and he was laughing with glee as he thrust forward one of his hands, sending a spell the size of a rocket shooting towards another.

"Kroma!" he repeated, even louder this time. He wished for the dream to make his voice louder than anything else, and of course, it obeyed his will. His call was magnified throughout the entire area, bouncing off the invisible walls of nothingness that marked where Kroma's subconscious imaginings ended.

However, just as the giant glanced down towards its feet, squinting in his direction, Folco felt a blow to his stomach. He keeled over, gasping for breath. That was when he noticed that his feet were disappearing. He held his hands up in front of his face and cursed loudly; he forgot that his voice was still being amplified, and his curse was echoed for all of the dream-people to hear. He would have laughed at the gasps it elicited if he was not so aggravated.

Kroma began to squat, and Folco knew that the giant had recognized him, but it was too late to have a conversation with him now. His dream-self was fading away as his conscious mind began to take over. Someone was obviously waking him up back in reality.

Folco hated that his powers were limited to when he was asleep.

Due to the fact that everything was growing fuzzy, Folco was not sure if what he saw happen next was real. The dream was slowly falling out of his grasp, so it very well could have just been one of Kroma's own imaginings. Either way, it caused Folco's stomach to flip.

Mae was suddenly there, standing beside one of the giant's feet. With a simple flick of her wrist, she shrank Kroma back to normal size and, without hesitating even a moment, placed her hands on either side of his face. Immediately, Kroma screamed, screamed like he was being flayed alive.