Bound by a Blade (PauPat)

Chapter Fourteen - Tactics Meeting

Four months have passed since Pau Van der Velde was tasked with leading a direct invasion of the castle.

Pau struggled to sit up straight as he tried his best to listen to the meeting, but it felt like all the soldiers's words were meshing together to create the most boring sound possible. It didn't help that he had barely gotten any sleep last night because of the strange dream he had.

The dream had started in the middle of a deep forest. After a while of walking around aimlessly, Pau recognized it as the forest he had been camping out in the day he was attacked by those bandits. It had been almost a year ago at this point. Just the thought of how much time had passed so quickly made Pau's head spin.

He continued walking around for a while before he came across a small clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a small fire and a splintering log next to it. Aside from the many woodland animals gathered around the clearing, the most shocking thing about the scenery before him was the figure sitting atop the log. The figure was a young man, no more than 18, with a dirty tunic and unkempt brown hair that were both all too familiar.

It was him. He was seeing himself on the night when he got attacked by those bandits.

However, something was off about his past self. To put it simply, he didn't have a face, or if he did, it wasn't visible. The area where his face should have been was covered by heavy white mist, almost like a cloud had defied nature and brought itself to the surface just to hide it. It was quite frightening, and the eeriness of the situation was only elevated when this person, his past self, tried to speak.

Pau could barely hear it at first, but he could tell it was his own voice at least. The voice was slow paced, and the echo of the sound made it impossible to understand what he was saying. Pau tried to tell him to speak louder, but he found that he couldn't move a muscle, not even to blink or open his mouth. Strangely, he was still breathing, but his chest did not rise and fall as he did. He didn't have time to dwell on whether or not that was actually possible, as footsteps were heard in the distance.

The slowed movement of his dream self and the woodland animals suddenly became normally paced again, which disoriented Pau greatly. The same bandits who attacked him all those months ago appeared from the trees and began their ruthless attack.

Suddenly, just as time was slowed before, it sped up before Pau could even realize it. He felt like he had been thrown across an open field as time fluctuated, causing the scene of the bandits's attack to slow down and speed up like the flow of time was just a toy to be tossed around like nothing. Pau felt sick to his stomach, which was only amplified by his inability to sit down and breathe deeply.

The next part was the most shocking. At this point, his dream self had already been knocked unconscious, but one of the bandits picked up Pau's old iron blade and brutally stabbed him in the lower back. He ripped out the blade and repeated the merciless action several times, before throwing down the blade and signaling for the others to run away. But before they could, they froze in place. A strange feeling burst through Pau's body, and he felt his chest begin to rise and fall along with his breath. A shudder ran through him as he looked down at his hands, which he could now move freely. With his returned mobility, he ran over to his dream self and turned him over onto his back. His face was still hidden by a thick mist, and the snow beneath him was colored red with the blood that was oozing from the wound through his abdomen. Pau looked over at the bandits, who were still frozen in place.