Chapter Text
Her body feels unbearably heavy, which is ironic considering she’s losing a lot of blood. Or at least, her equivalent of blood.
Sand is pouring from her wounds, the ground starting to resemble a makeshift desert more than the battlefield that it is. Her left arm hangs uselessly at her side, a deep gash starting from her wrist and making its way up to her shoulder. The long rapier that she was holding has fallen on the ground, her right hand gripping the short rapier tighter as if to make up for the difference.
Her breaths come out ragged, a combination of exhaustion and overexertion weighing her down. The field is quiet: where minutes before the air was filled with metal colliding against metal, of higher beings yelling, and frantic shouts for help, sound seemingly ceases to exist. Her haggard breaths sound much louder than they actually are. She chooses to ignore what the implications of the silence mean.
The field is destroyed. Vibrant colors used to fill the space in an awe inspiring show of life. Where there were once wildflowers that seemed to dance in the wind were now craters that dug deep into the soil. The grass that would grow lushly in deep shades of green are now stained with gold and red. She’s certain that every step is a risk, the ground becoming increasingly unstable as a distant explosion sounds in the background.
For the first time in her eternal existence, she feels despair.
“I don’t think we’re getting out of this one,” an airy voice comments, clearly exhausted. Turning her head, she sees a familiar face smiling at her. Blood trickles down the other woman’s face as she sits upright on the floor, brown hair that was once tied up now laying all around her. There’s an empty space where her right leg should be, and she can’t help but wince at the sight. Noticing her discomfort, the other woman gives a mirthless laugh.
“I lost it.”
“Save your strength,” she speaks, voice croaking out every word. “We’re going to finish this.”
“Maybe you will, but I’m not too sure about us, dear,” a softer voice comments. Its speaker makes their way to her field of vision, and she has to stifle the gasp that wants to escape her lips. Green hair is coated in golden ichor, what was once pristine and neat now matted and messy. Only one golden eye stares back at her, the other shut closed with a deep cut running through it. Each step taken forward is done in a stagger, the woman clearly using the last of her strength to reach her before she finally drops on the floor next to the brunette.
“You’ll finish this for us, our dear Warden,” the gentle voice states, as if there was no other option, as if she spoke a truth rather than a speculation. “After all, you’re perfect. There’s nothing you can’t do.”
She doesn’t trust herself to respond, fearing that if she opens her mouth, all of the doubts and anxieties she has will come rushing out. Instead, she nods her head, willing the unshed tears in her eyes to go away. Reinforcing her will and mental fortitude, she takes a step forward, unwilling to look at the women around her.
Instead, she nods, hoping that it’ll convey everything that’s in her heart. She doubts it does, but she doesn’t let herself dwell on it. She has to win. Absolutely has to, for them.
She can spill her heart out to them after she comes back.
“Go get ‘im tiger,” the airy voiced woman cheers her on.
“We know you can do it,” the gentle voiced woman adds.
“I’ll come back for you guys,” she finally speaks, voice breaking at the end. “Wait for me.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be right here,” the brunette jokes. “But don’t forget.”
The two voices join in harmony, sending her off one last time.
“We love you.”
--
Kronii shoots up in bed, gasping for air.
Sweat rolls down her face as she clutches at her chest, breaths coming out in short gasps as she struggles to calm down. The clock on her nightstand illuminates brightly against the dark backdrop, showing 3:42am in red. Taking shaky breaths, she takes a deep inhale and holds it, releasing it in measured exhales.
Another nightmare.
She wasn’t a stranger to them, having been plagued with them for most of her life. While not always the same, they followed the same outline. Kronii assumes the role of someone (something?) else, a being who she’s never seen but knows all too well.
The first few were lonely. Quiet, darkness, an endless void. Too young to understand what was happening, all Kronii knew was that whenever they appeared, she felt so unbearably empty. She remembers having these dreams when she was younger, waking up crying in the middle of the night. Her parents had tried comforting her, whispering assurances in her ears that the nightmares would eventually stop.
They never did.
Afterwards, the dreams transformed. Suddenly, there was no longer the vast expanse of nothing that haunted her most nights. Suddenly, there were stars, and with them, a rather energetic woman. She kept Kronii company for a while, talking about the ongoings of the universe. Kronii wanted to respond, to ask her more and satiate that childlike curiosity that welled inside of her, but the dream version of her would never speak. At the very least, whoever she was inside her dreams would listen, even if it seemed like she didn’t want to.
Then a curious one appeared. Loud, energetic, bursting with seemingly endless stamina. With vibrantly red hair to match, she had appeared out of nowhere one night. Kronii remembers that dream vividly: relaxing in a garden of meteors and distant planets, a bright voice had spoken out of nowhere from behind her.
“Lonely?” she had asked. The dream version of Kronii scoffed, rolling her eyes. Distantly, she watched as a stray asteroid collided with another, debris flying through the vacuum of space with no sound.
“Bored, more like.”
“Don’t worry,” the bright voice continued. “You won’t be soon.”
Chaos, Kronii had figured out when she had woken up. The new character was Chaos incarnate.
At this point, Kronii was a bit older, awkwardly navigating through the struggles of puberty and the onslaught of hormones that it brought. She wasn’t a “loner” per se, but the constant eyebags and brooding aura she held usually made her peers a bit hesitant to reach out to her. That coupled with the fact that she was constantly thrown in someone else’s life at night, someone who she wasn’t even sure was real, made interacting with others a tad bit more difficult. It felt like the lines between her dreams and reality were blurring.
Still though, she tried. She knew that she could be awkward, rough around the edges, but she tried.
Whether it was through luck or fate granting her some slack for her efforts, Mori Calliope had dropped into her life. Stuck in detention for falling asleep in class one too many times, the pink haired girl was the only other attendant in the room. Having nothing better to do, Kronii found herself doodling scenes from her dreams, waiting patiently for the time to pass by.
“That’s cool,” the pink haired teen commented on Kronii’s left, startling her slightly. Kronii shrugged, unsure of how to respond. “Where is that from?”
“Saw it in a dream.”
“What kind of dreams are you having for you to cook that up?”
It was nice having someone she could call a friend. It took a long while, but eventually, Kronii opened up about her dreams. Calliope had soaked up every word, listening intently as Kronii rambled about being in the stars, joining a short redhead and tall blonde on adventures throughout the universe, about the endless emptiness she felt when she assumed the role of whoever she was in her night time escapades.
Calliope had never once called her crazy for it.
“You don’t think it’s weird?” Kronii asked one day, lazily reading manga next to the other teen as she tuned her guitar.
“No?” Calliope quirked an eyebrow, tongue poking out as she glared at the tuner. “If anything, I think you could make some crazy money by publishing this online.”
“I’ll make sure to include you in my author’s note at the beginning of it.”
“Can I also take 30% of the profit?”
Just as she thought the dreams were finally tapering off, that she was getting better and no longer having to deal with the nightmares, it all collapsed.
It started small. Bits and pieces of her day that she couldn’t remember, periods of blanks in her memories that she couldn’t figure out. Nothing too major. There were times when Kronii blinked and was suddenly in her next class with no recollection of how she got there. Times where Calliope would ask her a question and get a response, but Kronii would have no idea what she said or that a question was even posed.
At the same time, two new figures were introduced in her dreams. First was the embodiment of Nature. An absolutely ethereal looking woman with long pastel green hair and golden eyes. She was gentle of voice and disposition, often acting motherly to the three and scolding them when their antics were a bit too much to bear. Ever graceful and soft, there was an undeniable power behind her, befitting her status as a powerful entity.
The dream version of Kronii could never figure out why the green haired woman was so kind to her. Where her alter ego was rough, blunt, and at times callous without meaning to, Nature was her foil: endlessly patient, loving, and nurturing. She would frequently appear in the dreams, offering Kronii company even when the alternate version of her would shrug her off. Regardless of the distance that her alter ego would maintain between the two of them, the gentle woman persisted.
“You don’t have anything better to do?” “Kronii” asked. Internally, the her outside of the dream cringed, hearing the harsh edge to the words said. Kronii couldn’t do anything but watch as she laid asleep, forced to assume the role of this harsher character and observe her with no say in the matter. If it was her, Kronii would have asked nicely. Mother Nature deserved that much at the very least.
Despite the brashness of the words, the green haired woman only smiled.
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than to be with you.”
The emptiness was slowly being filled.
And just as suddenly, a curious brunette popped up. Maybe it wasn’t sudden considering that Kronii was now well within her teenage years, but it felt like it, especially in the dreamscape. Swamped with countless tasks (doing what, Kronii still didn’t know), dream Kronii almost fell backwards when inquisitive brown eyes materialized in front of her, curiosity evident.
“What are you doing?” the brunette asked her, voice airy and light as if she didn’t notice “Kronii” almost having a heart attack in front of her. Clearing her throat and smoothing out her clothes, “Kronii” felt irritation begin to bubble and boil underneath her skin.
“My duties. Something that you should be doing as well.”
Ending the conversation there, “Kronii” tried to taper her annoyance when the brunette didn’t move from her spot, still staring at her with wide eyes. Minutes passed by as “Kronii” dedicated herself to finishing her tasks, the brunette watching all the while. Finally reaching her limit, “Kronii” sighed and redirected her attention to the curious woman in front of her.
“What?” she asked bluntly, uncaring if there was an edge in her voice.
“What exactly am I supposed to do?”
The episodes got worse. As the dream version of her was slowly becoming acclimated to the two new characters, Kronii began to suffer in real life. What had once been brief flashes of blank had escalated into whole hours of nothing. Whole hours where Kronii would startle back into reality, as if she had been asleep, and have absolutely no recollection of what she was doing before.
It terrified her.
The trip to the doctor was no less anxiety inducing. Her parents had finally agreed to take her when she had broken down one day, violent sobs coming out of her body as she confessed that the whole day had gone by and she had absolutely no memory of it.
“Dissociative episodes?” Calliope repeated. The two were in Kronii’s room, the blue haired teen sitting upright on her bed, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to protect herself. Calliope stared at her from the floor, concern in her eyes.
“Yea. They ran a bunch of tests but nothing came up, so they’re not really sure what’s causing it. Basically, there’s just times where my body goes on autopilot, and I’ll have no memory of it.” Kronii curled further into herself. “They said it’s not an identity disorder or anything like it. They're actually not sure if it's dissociation, but that's the best they could come up with.”
“Do you think it’ll go away?” Calliope asked, scooting a bit closer to her friend.
“I don’t know. The doctors don’t either.” Taking a shaky breath, Kronii continued. “I’m a little scared.”
Feeling herself on the verge of tears, Kronii said nothing as she felt the bed shift from underneath her. Calliope slowly climbed on top, sitting next to the blue haired teen. With a shaky smile, Calliope put a comforting hand on Kronii’s knee.
“That’s okay. I’d be scared too. But I’m going to be here for you Kro, and I’ll fill you in all the gaps that you might miss.”
And now, eight years later, Kronii was still recovering from the nightmares that plagued her. She knew that Calliope was only a room over, but she didn’t bother trying to move from her bed.
Kronii was an adult now, damn it, and she was going to solve her problems by herself.
Even if it felt like she needed a friend at the moment.
Closing her eyes, Kronii let the waves of sleep wash over her, hoping for a happier ending this time.