Dyllan’s eyes flickered open, he felt like a syrupy fog had been cleared out from his mind - like he’d just woken up from a nightmare to a mug of hot chocolate. He couldn’t remember any facts from the past few minutes, just a stream of muddled emotions. It took him a while to reorient himself and get a hold of his surroundings. He was floating five-ish feet off the ground, with a sky blue scarf orbiting him in a looping corkscrew pattern. The scarf was pulling dull, blood-red Will to Live out of Dyllan, charging it with a sunshine yellow energy to brighten it up, and then funneling it back into him.
Slowly but surely, all of Dyllan’s fear and panic started to relax. His worries weren’t going away, or even becoming smaller. He did, however, start to feel like he could handle things, like he could make things better if he just… tried again.
With a thud, Dyllan dropped back down to the ground and the scarf flew away to wrap around a friendly looking man. “There, good as new!” The man wore a hesitant smile, as he reached down to help Dyllan stand up. “Or at least, that is what I would like to say. The name's Finnegan, and I really hate to be a negative-Nancy, but not everything is peaches and cream… though I suppose you already gathered as much.” Finnegan took a few steps back and glanced over toward Andie and the shadow she was wrestling, turning back to Dyllan once he decided she had things handled for now. “Look, I don’t know how much of the past few minutes have really registered for you, and I’m sorry if my speech gets a little… eccentric. I tend to talk a bit like I walked right out of the Sunday Funnies when I’m nervous.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“More like you walked out of a time machine, really - but thanks for your…” Dyllan froze as soon as he spotted Andie, readying himself to help her fight off his dark twin. “Andie! Hold on, I’m -”
“Staying right here.” Finnegan grabbed Dyllan by the shoulder. “I know it doesn’t look it, but your friend’s problem is long term, not immediate. Right now, you are the priority. The quiet kid in the corner can help her out.” He turned toward Cedric. “Actually, why isn’t the quiet kid helping her?”
“I want to, I really want to.” Cedric rubbed his hands awkwardly, leaning against a wall a few feet from Andie. “…but I have no combat experience whatsoever. As such, I must wait here and accept that despite being armed to the teeth with power, my help here would still do more harm than good. It’s quite vexing.”
“Ah. Fair. Anyway.” Finn swiveled back toward Dyllan. “As I was saying before I interrupted myself, you are still in a bit of a rough patch. My… power - let’s call it - may have bandaged you up and stopped the bleeding - so to speak - but it didn’t fix the root of your problem. So you still need to -”
Finnegan was cut short by Dyllan’s shadow, who had broken free of Andie’s grip just long enough to send the man flying with a brutal swipe of its blade. A stunned silence filled the mindscape, broken after several seconds by Finn’s voice calling out from the upper floor of a nearby building. “I stand corrected! That absolutely was an immediate problem.”