Previously, Alec had only ever dreamt of himself in a dark void, simply floating in the seemingly infinite vacuum of nothingness. But tonight, he had an actual dream.

Alec opened his eyes in this dream. At first he was surprised because his vision was a lot wider, clearer, and was full of color. He knew that this was what his vision was like in his last life: normal. He then realized that he was in a dream, an actual dream. This surprised him even more.

This is the first real dream I’ve had. I wonder why all of the sudden.

Alec looked around him. He was clearly in the kitchen of someone’s home. There was a cooker, a few cabinets, drawers, and other things you might find in a kitchen. It wasn’t anything extravagant, but it was clear that whoever owned this house had at least a fair bit of money.

This feels familiar even though I’ve never been in a house like this.

Alec figured that, since this was his own dream in his own mind, it might be a house that he had at least been in in his last life, or at least something similar.

Alec looked to his right and saw that the kitchen led into a living room. He could see two people sitting on the lone couch. The couch was facing the opposite direction, so the two people were mostly obscured, but he could see the top of their heads. Alec could tell that they were both huddled close together, leaning on one another, like what couples might do.

I wonder if I’ll recognize them.

Alec walked into the living room, went in front of the two people, and faced them.

…Well…dreams aren’t exactly supposed to be normal.

When Alec looked at them, he saw that their faces were blurred. He could see the rest of their bodies, but their faces were covered up by a blurry black haze. Alec didn’t know why, but he knew that dreams didn’t exactly follow logic, so he didn’t think too heavily about it.

Looking at the two individuals, one of them was a man and one of them was a woman. It was hard to tell without being able to look at their faces, but Alec figured that they must’ve been around 20 years old or so. Just like the house, their clothes were neither extravagant nor of poor quality.

Alec saw that they both seemed to be holding something small. Alec took a step closer and saw that it was a sleeping baby. The baby was clearly just born no more than a month ago. The baby’s face was also obscured by the black haze.

I must be invisible. If I’m visible, they would have surely seen me by now.

He saw the male figure kiss the baby’s forehead before fully handing the baby to the female figure, who Alec assumed was the man’s wife. The man then wrapped an arm around the woman and pulled her even closer.

“I n’tdo knith L’il veer post vinlog yuo. iethre of yuo.” The man was speaking in another language, so Alec didn’t know what he was saying, but he could still hear the warmth in the man’s voice as he was talking to the baby and his supposed wife.

Alec blinked and the scene suddenly changed.

It was a bright sunny day and he was standing in a large grassy field. There were all sorts of different beautiful flowers and pink rose petals that were carried by the wind slowly dropped to the ground. Alec covered his eyes, a little overwhelmed by the amount of colors that were reflecting in his eyes. After all, he hadn’t seen colors for as long as he could remember.

Alec saw three figures again, all their faces still obscured. He saw an adult male and female as well as a young boy. He surmised that these were all the same people as the previous scene, just a few years into the future.

The couple was holding each other close, watching the boy play in the field. Currently, he was chasing a few butterflies. The boy seemed to be about six years old or so, so Alec assumed that that’s about how much time passed since the last scene.

Puri’s words rang in Alec’s ears. “...should be chasing butterflies with a smile on your face.” Her words described exactly what this child was doing right now.

Is that why I’m dreaming of this scene?

Alec wasn’t sure, but he continued watching.

Alec was curious as to what would happen next in this dream, but he was also filled with a sort of warmth in his chest while watching. It was similar to the feeling that he had when Puri had hugged him,

“N’tod og oto raf,” the woman called out to the boy.

“I n’otw,” came the boy’s squeaky voice in response.

The scene changed again. This time it depicted a wedding.

Alec had never been to a wedding before, at least not in his second life. However, the way everything was structured seemed to be a wedding. White ribbons decorated the walls within the room, there was a crowd of people sitting on benches watching two people—one of them a woman dressed in a white dress, the other a man in a white suit with a white flower in his breast pocket, both about 20 years old or so—who were facing each other. There was also a man in the middle who was dressed in a gray white robe with a bright gold Ω embedded on his chest. Alec wasn’t exactly sure what the symbol was or what it meant, but he assumed that it was a part of a religion, perhaps a different one than the one in the country he currently resided in.

The bride and groom didn’t seem to be the couple in the previous scenes. He figured that it might be the boy, now much older, getting married.

“Now, seal you eternal bond with a kiss. Пусть Бог улыбнется вам обоим” said the supposed religious worker. Alec again didn’t know what he said, but the last part seemed to be in a different language to the one that Alec had been hearing.

(A/N: In case you’re wondering, that last piece of dialogue would be pronounced similar to this: post bog ooliebnyetsya vam oboeem.)

The man then gently grabbed his bride's cheeks with his hands and gave her a kiss on the lips. The crowd watching gave a subsequent cheer and any of them that had a hat on tossed it up into the air.

The scene changed yet again. This time it wasn’t such a pleasant sight.

The scene depicted warfare. It was a little past dawn at the outskirts of a city. There were seemingly thousands of knights fighting for their lives in the chaos of battle, along with hundreds of corpses that each had blood pouring out of them from either a stab wound or an arrow. One army had midnight black armor, where the other had dark gray armor with white stripes.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Arrows rained down from above and below, there were clangs of metal striking metal, screams of agony, thumps of dead bodies falling to the ground. Alec couldn’t smell anything in this dream, but he figured that if he could have, a strong scent of blood and sweat would be running up his nose.

Alec found himself standing in front of a knight who was pulling his sword out of another knight’s armor. Though Alec still couldn’t see his face (or anyone else’s face for that matter), he still recognized him as the groom for the wedding and presumably the child and the baby. It seemed like a few years passed, but he was clearly the same person.

Immediately after he pulled the sword out, he was in a duel with another enemy knight. This repeated several times until a loud bell rang and someone shouted something from behind the front lines.

“Raretet!” The man’s voice was powerful and his tone was urgent like it was an emergency.

That’s clearly the officer.

Alec of course had no idea what he said, but what happened after the officer said that made it rather easy to guess what he said: retreat.

All the knights on the man’s side began retreating, including the man.

The enemy army began chasing them down. The calvary could obviously retreat a lot faster, but many of the foot soldiers were eventually encircled by the enemy calvary and knights, which also included the man.

“Ouy rae won riposners fo raw,” boomed the enemy commander. “Fi ouy anwt ot veli, OD TON SIREST.”

Many of the surrounding surrounding knights were still trying to fight off the enemy knights, however they were unsuccessful. Others even stabbed themselves. The man wasn’t included in either of these two groups.

I guess they would rather kill themselves, or at least die fighting, than become war criminals.

“WON. ROPD UOYR WPONEAS.”

Again, Alec didn’t know what he said, but he could make a pretty good guess based on the fact that all of the knights that were surrounded, including the man, dropped their swords and shields. Alec of course couldn’t see any of their faces, but he could tell that they had given up based on that action and their body language.

The enemy knights then started rounding them up and putting rope around their arms in a line. They also gathered their weapons and took off their armor.

The scene shifted again.

This time the man was on a horse riding slowly down a path. Alec could see a long beard that grew well past the black veil that was covering his face, making the man appear much older. He was also much skinnier before. It was to the point of being unhealthy. Alec assumed that several years passed, but it couldn’t have been too many since the man’s beard wasn’t gray.

The man was wearing rags for clothes that had been weathered down with time. They were very similar to Alec’s clothes while he was living in the slums. Alec figured that the man must’ve been living in the slums, or perhaps as a vagabond with no money.

He was coming up on the edge of a hill, grassy fields all around. Light snow littered the ground. Alec couldn’t feel the temperature, but he could tell that it was very chilly based on not only the snow, but the man’s shivering.

This definitely resembles a different kingdom.

The country that Alec was in, Paelo, would never have snow, nor be this cold even in the winter.

The man looked beaten, battered, bruised, and exhausted. Alec could see several scars peaking through the cracks of his shirt, if you could really even call it a shirt. He was also bandaged in several places. Alec also saw that in the spot where his middle fingers were supposed to be, there was nothing. In conclusion, it’s clear that the man has gone through some things.

Alec followed the man up the hilltop. The horse was moving so slow, that Alec only had to walk to keep up with it.

Alec was walking a bit behind the man, so he reached the hilltop slightly before Alec did. What was revealed when Alec did reach the hilltop was a small town, not unlike the one he grew up in in his current life.

The man stopped his horse. “M’i mohe.” The man began crying. Alec could tell that it was tears of happiness, though. “I’li nalfily teg ot ese ouy iagna, ym voel.”

Alec wasn’t sure if he heard sadness or happiness in the man’s voice.

The man then ordered his horse to walk on into the town. The exhausted horse was walking even slower as it descended. This was probably so it wouldn’t slip and send them both tumbling down the hill, which, considering the state they were both in, would kill them.

The man reached the town and began walking through it, seemingly to his home. The city was dead quiet, which was quite eerie to Alec; it gave him a sense of deja vu. The man didn’t seem to really notice the seemingly abandoned town, so Alec wondered if it was normal.

The streets and homes were more extravagant than your typical town, or at least the ones that Alec had seen. It was a lot less rural and more compact like a city. However, it wasn’t even close to the size and scale of an actual city.

The architecture was also unlike anything Alec had ever seen before. The roofs were more circular and the houses were made of stone and a different material that Alec had never seen before. This was another sign that this was nothing like Alec’s home country.

The man eventually stopped his horse in front of one of the houses. He slowly got off of his horse, which Alec could tell was a great struggle for him, and went to the front door of the house. The door was a much darker wood, another thing that Alec had never seen before.

The man stood there for a few minutes, just staring at the door shivering. He seemed to be at a loss of what to do. After several minutes, the man knocked on the door. Seconds passed. No noise came from the house. The man knocked again, this time louder. Again, nothing. He knocked a few more times before trying the doorknob.

The doorknob worked. The man opened the door and took a single step inside.

“M’i cabk—” the man said as he opened up the door.

The man suddenly froze. It was obviously because of something within the house, but because Alec was standing behind the man, he couldn’t see what it was.

Alec began walking to the entrance, and as he did the man fell to his knees, his arms limp at his sides.

Alec reached the entrance and looked at the man’s face. He still couldn’t see it, but could see his mouth hanging open and tears running down his chin and neck.

Alec turned his head to look at what he was looking at and saw the corpse of a woman lying on the ground. Alec could see dried blood that had leaked from a stab wound that she had in her chest. The floor was more dark red than it was the brown color of the wooden floor. Alec could tell that it was the same woman from the wedding.

Alec could also see a stroller right next to where the woman lay. Alec couldn’t see the baby, but he could see dried blood splattered all over it, which told him all he needed to know.

Similar to the man, Alec just stood there frozen, just staring at the horrific scene in front of him. The scene was very familiar to Alec. After all, he just witnessed something very similar happen to his family in this life. However, this scene also held its only familiarity in a place in Alec’s mind that he didn’t know of. The only difference between the two scenes was that this one left a much more negative feeling in Alec’s heart than the one from a few months ago.

Alec’s ears began to ring. His thoughts were vacant. Alec felt the most terrible feelings of emptiness and despair as he had since becoming Alec; they were suffocating.

Alec’s ears heard the man next to him let out a terrible scream of despair. However, the noise was very distant, as if he was hearing those things from over a mountain. The noise didn’t register in Alec’s brain, so it wasn’t like it mattered anyway.

Alec’s view of the scene began to recede into the distance. The corners of his vision became pitch black, and the darkness became larger at an accelerating pace.

The scene became smaller and smaller. Alec thought he saw the man crawl over to his wife, but it was hard to tell because of how small the scene had become. The scene disappeared before the man reached his wife.

The moment Alec was in the void of utter emptiness again, was the moment that Alec woke up from this nightmare.

Alec shot up from his lying position. The light from the window was little, but Alec could still tell that his vision went back to normal. He was sweating and hyperventilating with no sign of his breathing slowing down. He could also feel tears running down his face.

Alec’s dream was over, but the emotions that had seemingly been deeply buried, that Alec didn’t even know existed within him, had not disappeared. They still gripped him, suffocating him.

Alec finally regained his thoughts. And the first thing that he thought was…

I need to get out of here.