Strangely enough, that one sword training day filled me with enough motivation to push through another week without fail. It spurred me and Ethan to push ourselves to our absolute limits, and we enjoyed every second of it.

Sure, there were nights when I would speak to myself; reassure myself that I was doing the right thing. But I was happy. I was getting stronger.

A plethora of strange dreams plagued my nights the following week. On Tuesday, I became Alfonso again. This dream, however, was just a repeat of one that I had seen before. It was his conversation with the other man, George, where they had discussed the prophecy. The prophecy had now of course come to fruition, but one thing that Alfonso said struck a chord in me that it hadn’t done the first time I heard it.

‘Albert will cheat Fate more times than you can count.’

That’s what Alfonso had said. I had obviously cheated Fate multiple times already, it was no secret that I was supposed to be dead at this point, but something about those words left me shivering after I awoke.

In another dream, I saw my friends. They all egged me on; told me that I could do it. That dream had had the somewhat opposite effect. I had been left practically beaming in my bed after I woke up from that one.

It was Saturday night’s dream that shook me to my core. I had gone to bed more excited than ever, as I knew that the next day would be full of sword training, but the dream ruined that feeling single-handedly.

***

The sky was dark, to say the least. Black clouds covered the entirety of the sky, and thunder snarled in the distance. Harsh winds slammed into me, causing my hair to fly wildly around my head. This, in combination with the horrific rain that was also making the grey carpet even darker, made it almost difficult to stay standing.

After noticing that I had been staring at my feet, I raised my head to have a look at my surroundings. I appeared to be staring down an all-too-familiar street through a giant hole in an all-too-familiar wall. I glanced slightly to my right. Sure enough, the walls were that same light grey and the once king-sized bed was still there, charred and destroyed.

My stomach slowly began to churn as the realisation of where I was truly began to set. If it were possible, my breaths became shallow and my body became tense. I was certain that dreams were not supposed to have this much sensory detail.

Something descended onto my right shoulder, causing my whole body to go numb. It strangely felt as though it weighed nothing at all, yet simultaneously carried the weight of the world.

Glancing down at my shoulder, my eyes widened at the sight of a hand. It had long spindly fingers that seemed to gently encompass my shoulder.

Before I even had time to turn around to see who exactly it was behind me, a pair of arms wrapped themselves tightly around my neck and I felt a face press into my shoulder.

‘Albert…’ came a muffled voice. ‘We’re…we’re so proud of you.’

It was as though my brain shut off completely. Those words. I had wanted to hear those words for so long.

I turned my head to the right and saw the person that was holding my shoulder. The sight of him made my throat close and my heart swell.

He was a tall man, around six feet, with short black hair and the warmest pair of hazel brown eyes that I had ever seen. Light stubble decorated the bottom of his face, but nothing lit it up more than his smile. His lips curled upwards ever so slightly, but it was enough to make the storm surrounding us seem insignificant.

‘D-Dad?’ I breathed, almost silently.

The arms around my neck slowly peeled away and the head left my shoulder. Without even looking, I knew exactly who it was. And it took a few seconds for me to gather up the courage to actually look at her.

Mom. She was beautiful. I turned to face her, and I was astonished by how she looked. Her long brown hair was a darker shade than usual due to the rain, but her blue eyes were as sparkly as ever. She smiled sadly as the two of us looked at each other, and it took everything I had not to let the oncoming tears stream from my eyes.

‘Gods, Albert,’ she said, blinking away tears, ‘you’ve grown, haven’t you?’

I hadn’t even noticed that the two of us now stood at around equal height. We were eye-to-eye.

‘Y-Yeah,’ I choked. ‘I didn’t realise how fast I was growing. Crazy, right?’

She dove forward quickly, wrapping her arms tightly around me once more. It felt as though she squeezed the air out of me, but I couldn’t have cared less. Never before had a hug felt so real.

Mom was now crying. She was practically sobbing.

‘We know how hard it is,’ she cried. ‘And that’s why we’re so proud.’

Dad stepped forward into the hug. My face rested perfectly in between Mom’s head and Dad’s arm. He brought his right hand up and gently stroked my wet hair.

‘We couldn’t have asked for a better son,’ he said quietly, sounding as though he was holding back tears of his own.

‘All the effort you’re putting in,’ Mom said, burying her face in my shoulder once more, ‘just to save the world. Even though you know what it means. Y-You’re so wonderful.’

A single tear made its way from my eye onto my chin. And that was all it took.

Tears streamed from my eyes to seemingly no end as Dad angled his body ever so slightly to get a better hold of me. My throat hurt. My body hurt. I hurt.

‘We’re sorry, Albert,’ Dad said softly. ‘Just know that we’ll be here with you. Every step of the way.’

‘S-Sorry?’ I murmured. ‘For what? Dying wasn’t your fault.’

More tears fell from Mom’s eyes.

‘I love you, Albert,’ she whispered into my ear.

My eyes widened briefly. But then my entire body relaxed into both of theirs.

‘As do I,’ Dad breathed. ‘I love you, son.’

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

‘I love you too,’ I cried out desperately.

I wanted nothing more than to have them back. Nothing could bring me more joy than to feel their arms wrap around me. There was not a price that I wouldn’t pay to hear them say those words in the real world.

I do not know how long the three of us stayed there, wrapped in our tight embrace, but it felt like an eternity. And I wanted to stay for an eternity more.

However, at some point, I made the mistake of opening my eyes. On the other side of the room, watching this whole ordeal silently, stood Maltor.

Our eyes met and his expression didn’t change in the slightest. He just stared at me with those cold blue eyes.

‘Remember, Albert,’ Mom breathed softly, ‘we’re here.’

‘And we always will be,’ chimed in Dad.

Then the two of them disappeared.

For a moment, Maltor and I just stared at each other in complete silence. I was trying to wrap my head around the idea that he was here. Was it just part of my dream? Or had he done this purposefully?

The wave of grief that I had been experiencing was suddenly replaced by one of complete and utter disbelief. If this was just a dream, then I had some serious questions about how my mind worked.

Maltor appeared to be mouthing something. I was usually very good at lip-reading, but I couldn’t figure out what he was trying to say for the life of me.

‘W-What are you saying?’

‘It…it worked…’ he breathed.

I took a deep breath and wiped the tears off my face.

‘What?’

He appeared to be too stunned to keep himself from hiding what exactly he was so shocked about.

‘I’ve been trying something, Albert,’ he murmured. ‘I discovered something between the two of us. And it worked. I’m in your dream.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ I shrieked, aghast, taking a few steps towards him. ‘Did you show me my parents?’

‘Oh, no, that wasn’t me,’ he replied, grinning. ‘That was your own mind.’

My hands slowly curled into fists. He was grinning. He had just interrupted a perfect moment, and he was grinning.

‘And what are you doing here?’ I snarled, still slowly making my way towards him.

Maltor’s grin broadened.

‘Well, you’ve gotta understand your enemy, right?’

Ignoring the sting that resulted from him directly calling me his enemy, I let him continue.

‘I just had to see what was going on in that head of yours. And, of course, I wanted to check that it was actually possible for me to do this.’

Then he stepped forward, bringing his mouth next to my ear.

‘Oh,’ he whispered, ‘and I had to remind you that no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to kill me.’

‘Really?’ I said cockily. ‘Cuz I’m getting pretty damn close.’

‘You know better than anybody that killing someone is a physical action just as it is a mentality. You don’t want to kill me.’

‘And I’ve been raised to kill anything that poses a threat. You, Maltor, pose a threat.’

‘Two chances,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve had two chances to kill me and you didn’t. Two-nil to me, remember?’

I scoffed. ‘Yeah, but all of that goes out the window on sight. The next time we meet won’t be so pretty.’

‘What’s with this attitude?’ he taunted. ‘You seemed like a completely different person just five minutes ago.’

I gritted my teeth. ‘Did I really? Maybe that’s because I-’

‘Now, now, be quiet,’ he said, a malicious grin still coating his face. ‘You don’t want to wake up in a foul mood, do you?’

***

I spent ten minutes after I woke up staring at the cave roof above me. I lay completely still, my mind overwhelmed by my dream.

First of all, seeing my parents, whether or not it was real, made my insides feel a strange mix of fuzzy and numb. Seeing them seemed to reinforce the fact that they were dead and always would be. Our three-way embrace had been the best hug of my life, and my heart ached to hug them physically. But I couldn’t. Ever.

Then I thought of Maltor. What exactly had he discovered? Was there some sort of link between the two of us, just like with me and Alfonso?

He had claimed that he had not made me dream about my parents, but I wasn’t too sure how much I trusted that. Of course, I didn’t want to believe that he could influence what I dreamt about, but it wouldn’t exactly be surprising. With how bizarre my life had been for the past year and a half, I doubted that I would ever be truly surprised by anything again.

But then Ethan’s war cry of an alarm rang throughout our room. I didn’t even flinch, but Ethan flew out of his bed at Mach 10.

We got through the rest of the morning with no trouble. Ethan did comment on how unusually quiet I was being, but I brushed it off by saying I was still tired, which he seemed to believe.

Nevertheless, the two of us wolfed down our breakfast, then darted up to the top of Piz Vadret to train. It would’ve been an understatement to say that Ethan and I were excited. Given how good last Sunday had been, the two of us had high expectations, and we were not disappointed.

‘Before we begin,’ William said, a sort of excited smirk coating his face, ‘I would like to brief you on a new training day. Starting next week, every Friday we are going to train your reflexes. We’re going to see and train how quickly you react to things. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, sir!’ Ethan and I bellowed instantly.

‘Right, then we shall begin.’

But there was another thing that he wanted to talk to us about before we actually began. He said that we were ‘rather close’ to finishing Parasite, which usually took a bit longer to learn. As such, he briefed us on the other four Poison Forms.

After Parasite, there was the Second Form: Acid. Then Snake Bite, Intoxication, and, finally, Ooze. He specifically didn’t tell us what the Destructive Art was, but I didn’t really mind. Just those five Forms sounded really cool.

It was strange, really. How fast we learnt Parasite. William, who himself seemed almost appalled at our speed, informed us just before lunch that he thought that we were performing Parasite at an acceptable level.

This made it practically impossible to eat lunch comfortably, as my stomach was turning inside out at the thought of learning the other Poison Forms. If we had learned Parasite so quickly, surely the other four Forms and the Destructive Art couldn’t take too long, right?

As it turns out, I was somewhat right. The Second Form, Acid, was much simpler than Parasite. The problem arose from the power that was needed.

Acid was a vertical swipe downwards. A very powerful one. It was slower than Parasite, but it wouldn’t take a genius to realise that it would cause a world of pain for whoever found themselves on the receiving end.

We practised for hours and hours, but William insisted that the two of us were not using enough power. A few hours in, it felt as though I could barely lift anything in my hands, but I thought back to my dream, and that did its job of filling me with motivation.

The mere thought of the dream was enough to push me through the rest of the day with little trouble. I had to make them proud.

***

‘Gods, I’m tired,’ Ethan sighed as he fell onto his bed at the end of the day.

I merely pulled the blanket over my shivering body whilst not saying a word. I felt empty. Again. For no apparent reason.

‘You okay?’ Ethan asked immediately. I hated how well he could detect when I was, in fact, not exactly okay.

‘Fine.’

Truthfully, part of me did not want to sleep. I didn’t want to fall back into another dream. Not that they were really ‘dreams’. They weren’t ‘nightmares’ either. The dream with Maltor seemed to fit neither description.

The former half of the dream was easily one of the greatest scenarios I had ever found myself in. It was, of course, the latter half that troubled me.

What exactly had Maltor discovered? He had claimed that he could not control what I dreamt about, and I prayed to the Gods that that was true. That only left one other option, which was arguably just as scary.

Maltor could enter my mind, or at least my dreams. He could see what I was dreaming about. He could now find out what my weaknesses were. What made me happiest. What I wanted most. I don’t think I truly realised just how terrible that was.

‘This will save the world,’ Ethan said reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry about it, man.’

As nice as it was that he was comforting me, it felt as though I couldn’t bring myself to believe his words. Yes, it was fun to train. Yes, I was excited at the thought of getting stronger. But it was why we needed to that got me.

It was almost boring, how much I went back to the thought of Maltor. How much I repeated to myself that he used to be my best friend. Used to be.

Then I thought for a moment about what Abbie would do if she were in my situation. She’d probably already be done with training. She was good like that. Better than Maltor or I could ever even hope to be.

I rolled over to face the cave wall. This was for the world. Killing Amy was for revenge. It was to make sure my family didn’t give their lives for no reason. This? This was different. This wasn’t about revenge. This was so that nobody else would have to go through what I did.

Suddenly feeling sick at the thought of another kid having to fight their way through hell as I did, I desperately tried to push myself into sleep. It was cruel. There was not a single ounce of justice in this damn world.

‘For the love of the Gods,’ I murmured to myself. ‘Just get through it.’