A Game Of Pawns

Chapter 7

The strange visitor from my previous night's dream did not come for me this night. Instead, I dreamt I was in a boxing ring with the crazy man who had nearly killed me only hours earlier. I had nothing but boxing gloves to defend myself, but he had six of his thin, long swords and nearly twice as many arms. His teeth were fanged and long and he screamed with every swing he took. Saris was just outside the ring, giving me pointers and telling me to make my move. I could hear spectators in the dark, shaded seats demanding to see blood. My heart raced, beating louder than all of the voices that were waiting for me to die.

"Move into position!" Saris shouted over the noise, but I couldn't obey his instruction. My fanged opponent froze me in place with his strange power. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe! All I was able to do was watch as he leaped at me, raising all six of his swords high. The blades came down, waking me from my sleep.

I jolted awake into a sitting position, but without thinking, laid back and closed my eyes again. Just a dream. I was groggy and reached for my pillows. When I didn't find any, I decided that I simply knocked them off of the bed, which was unusually stiff this morning. Where was the fluff?

The thing that jogged my memory was the smell of food; the bacon made my mouth water but there was something else there too... eggs? I opened my eyes to see blue mats with drool on them. I wiped the drool from my cheek and dried my newly wet hand on my pants. Everything that had happened yesterday came back to me in a wave. Normalcy made way for the crazy and now, I was in the middle of something that I probably shouldn't have gotten involved in. I sighed as I stretched, feeling all the muscles that I had worked in our training yesterday. I hadn't had the time to get answers. My guide; maybe my captor, had kept me moving since the crazy had started. It only ended when I passed out, too exhausted to talk.

I stood up, finding that my legs were more jelly than solid and strolled into the other room as gracefully as I could. I only tripped on my own feet twice. When I opened the door, I saw what I had smelled. My stomach yipped in glee to the sight of eggs and bacon but also bagels with cream cheese, fresh fruits and a jug of orange juice as well as other breakfast drinks. Saris already had a plate loaded with food and a glass half empty of milk. I took the plate that sat empty on the other end of the table and filled it until I couldn't fit anything else. I was starving. I never did get that pizza.

We sat in silence for a while, enjoying our food, but when Saris finished eating, he downed his drink and said, "Hope you like the spread. I thought I'd make it a nice first meal. I assume you have questions." I did. But I wasn't sure I wanted to pause my feast, half afraid that I'd be attacked again, or he'd force me to continue sparring with forks and spoons. He continued without waiting for me. "Before you ask, let me try and piece things together as best I can for you." He thought for a moment while I bit into a crispy, green apple. "Okay. A lot of this won't make much sense, but here we go. Your world is changed. You won't be able to go back to the way things were. At least, not for a long time. Most of us are trying to go back, but I'm getting ahead of myself."

He paused, pouring another glass of milk, then took a drink. I swallowed down another piece of bacon and loaded my plate with more before he continued.

"Sorry. This isn't something I do very often. You've no doubt had the dream, right?"

"Dream?" I managed through a mouthful of meat.

"The dream that showed you pieces of this. You might have seen that man who I killed yesterday, or maybe me."

I was uncomfortable with how casual he said that he killed someone, but I nodded my head, "Mmhm"

"Right," he continued. "So you met the being who told you a bit about this, then, right?"

"Not really." I looked up in thought. "Well, I guess I met him. But I didn't get much info out of him. My alarm woke me up."