The guard of the prison cart stumbled out in obvious disarray, fumbling to keep his hat secured to his head, “WHAT THE HELL?!”
His eyes opened with terror at the sight of me standing next to one of his freed prisoners. He squeezed the latte he was holding to death, the brown liquid dripping down from his knuckles.
“The hell do you think you’re doing with Jean-Paul’s property!?”
Shua eyed the man, his gaze piercing him like daggers. It didn’t take a genius to know the way he felt. Even though I didn’t understand the things that man had done to him. I knew that look, and I knew it well.
“Shua,” I said.
“Yes?”
I pointed towards the poncho-wearing bitch.
“The next target.”
“Understood.”
The guard’s brazenness waned, quickly being replaced by sheer panic as Shua began reciting the words to his spell. Light gathered around him.
The prisoners closest to the barred window all crammed their faces together to witness the dispute—although, it was over quickly.
The guard dropped his broken coffee cup and turned in a pitiful attempt to escape. In the end it was fruitless—the light fired forward, a loud, ear-piercing bang followed, blasting his body to ashes which floated gracefully to the ground—becoming indistinguishable from the sand. Every inch of his innards and skin had been reduced to dust. All that remained was his clothing which fluttered downwards into a sloppy pile.
Audible gasps arose from the cart behind us as Shua lowered his arm.
I knelt down to retrieve the colorful poncho and shorts, “I figured you may hesitate to kill someone. But man, you really didn’t hold back.”
“It is not in my nature to kill, however in this case it doesn’t really matter.” As I rose to my feet, Shua examined me for a moment, as if he were attempting to decipher something.
“What?”
“Excuse my rudeness, but you are quite peculiar.”
“You think I’m the weird one?!” I blurted.
“I’m referring to your attire. I’ve never seen someone from any of the nearby lands wear clothes like yours. The blade you carry has me very intrigued as well.”
“Yeah? Well I haven’t been in this place for long, but judging from the prisoner cart, there doesn’t seem to be many 12-year-old lizard boys around here either.”
“I will disregard that last statement considering that I have already informed you that my people are descendants of dragons. But you would be correct in your assumption. This land is foreign to me.”
“So if you’re not from here, then why do you wanna kill the ruler?”
Shua’s head lowered, “This place is nothing more than an illusion.”
I froze, letting the poncho in my hand slip back down to the floor. Out of all the answers I thought he would give for an excuse, I really, really wasn’t expecting that one. “...An illusion?”
“Correct,” Shua replied. “A year ago, I went to sleep in my home village of Elendorvia. When I awoke, I had been stripped away from my homeland, and placed here in this illusion. Everyone in this world was unfamiliar to me, and I was able to speak their language and understand them despite never speaking it before. After a while of trying to survive in the capital, I decided that this illusion must be some sort of trial. And the only way to break this illusion was to eliminate the one who had created it. The only one who I can assume trapped me in here, is the pharaoh, since he is the undeniable ruler of this world.”
At this point, I was too stunned to even muster a response. I had come to accept the idea that there were things about the Dreamscape that I didn’t understand, but this was something else entirely. This boy was claiming to be a sentient being from another world, that somehow got trapped here—inside the mind of a human. The idea was nothing less than absurd… but if he really was telling the truth…
“You’re telling me that you aren’t a manifestation? Are you saying that you’re a real being that lives outside of this place?”
Shua’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, “C–Correct.”
Before I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, perhaps even confused, but now my mind felt like it was full of static. I felt like I was trying desperately to reach out towards a conclusion that was infinitely far away. For now, as far as I was concerned, there was no denying it anymore. I understood nothing about this place, and I understood nothing about the Dreamscape. I could only imagine what in the world I had gotten myself into.
The only thing I understood now, was this kid was real, from a race I didn’t know, from a world I didn’t know existed. And for some ungodly reason, he could use magic.
Lastly, if his age was any marker to go off of, he must have been terrified. Being trapped here for such a long time without any explanation, without any help. That would weigh heavy for any adult, but for a kid…
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Behind his ironclad eyes and defensive tone, I now saw him for who he was. A frightened child. A frightened child who was even more lost and confused than I was. If he had really been in this world for a year as he claimed, he would’ve been not much older than Kiana when he was first stripped away from his parents and placed in this unfamiliar land. Away from his friends, family, everything he knew—anything he knew—gone in an instant, all with no warning.
He looked at me with a stark expression, one that signified he was building up the courage to say something. Then, he finally did, “Sir… Does this mean… that you’re also—”
“Shua…”
He stiffened, “Y–Yes?”
I slowly stepped forward and clapped my hand on his shoulder. As he lifted his arms slightly, I caught a glimpse of his bleeding, swollen wrists where his shackles once were. “I won’t pretend to act like I understand what you’ve been through. I don’t know everything that’s happened to you since you first got here. I just need you to know that I have a reason to leave this place too. So as long as you stick with me, we’ll both be able to get out of here.”
An unfamiliar spark flickered within Shua's eyes, and almost unconsciously, the corners of his lips tugged into a half smile, “...Thank you.”
After giving him a little nod, I switched my attention back to the front entrance of the shop. “You said Kingsley is somewhere downstairs in that shop, right? Is there any way you know that for sure? I’d kinda like to know before I bust in there and scare the hell out of that barista girl.”
“If by ‘Kingsley’ you’re referring to the pharaoh, then yes. I can assure you he is sealed away downstairs. However, probably not in the way which you are envisioning.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Downstairs in that shop, there is a sealed passageway which leads down to the capital—a place called New Egypt. New Egypt is a land separate from the lands of the surface world, which is where we are now. It harbors the subjects of the pharaoh. It is also home to the Marble Pyramid, the place where the pharaoh resides.”
“A whole new city, huh? How do you know all of this stuff anyway?”
Shua’s posture softened as his gaze fell to the floor, “My previous master’s estate resides down in New Egypt as well. Me and the other slaves used to make regular trips between there, and a land up here on the surface world called Eslovia, and other places too. Anywhere the lords requested more bodies for labor.”
“Damn…” I whispered.
“There are only three entrances to New Egypt that I am aware of—this coffee shop is one of them.”
An interesting place to hide a passageway, but then again, it definitely had me fooled. “Alright then, let’s get going.” I announced, and briskly began heading toward the front door.
“But wait! What about the other slaves?”
“What about them?”
“Can’t we free them as well? Isn’t that the right thing to do?”
Any other previous version of me would say there was no reason to bother, doing such a thing would only be a waste of time. But knowing what I knew now, or lack thereof, I had no idea what the people in that cart were. Manifestations? Real? A mix of both? I had no confidence in distinguishing what was real from what was fake anymore, and I assumed Shua must’ve been just as unsure himself.
“Alright, use this,” I shouted. I flashed the Windchaser and threw it out into the sand before Shua’s feet. “I’m gonna go in and take a look downstairs.”
Shua jolted, “Sir—!”
“Don’t call me that, just call me Daymond.”
“Daymond! Please! I advise you, do not take one of the pharaoh’s top common guards lightly.”
I couldn’t believe that Shua’s words were actually causing me to second guess pushing past that barista. “Got it, just focus on freeing the captives!”
I rushed over and all but kicked in the door to the front entrance. Feeling the surge of refreshing air touch my skin almost made me want to relax for just a little longer. The barista straightened, mocha frappuccino in hand.
“S–Sir, we can’t have you in here!” The barista stuttered. The man who had been sitting in the shop for the past several hours seemed to be much more attentive now—his eyes observant. The barista… umm… she didn’t look very happy to see me. Maybe it was all the explosions outside that startled her, or maybe it was the fact that one of her top customers had disintegrated to dust right before her eyes. To be honest, I almost felt bad for her.
I pushed past the “Employees Only” door, where I was met with an explosion of frozen icy beverage.
“Really?!” The frappuccino she threw had gotten all over my shirt, and dripped down to my sneakers.
“That’s just wonderful…”
I shook away the annoyance and started toward the downstairs hallway. The barista shuffled to block the front of the staircase, her arms stretched out at her sides.
“Move,” I demanded.
“Sir, please! Just leave me alone! I—”
“Move it!”
“Sir, I don’t know what you think I have, but all there is downstairs is my bedroom! There's nothing in my room that has any significant value at all!”
“I’m not here to steal from you, I just want to have a look downstairs, that’s it.”
“But why? I told you there’s nothing there!”
“You’re a bad liar, you know that?”
I reached out to grab her arm, then in a single moment that felt like a blur, her hand was clasped around my neck, yanking me down to her eye level. The unassuming strength of her grip stifled my surprised shout into a small squeal.
Her eye sockets were replaced with glowing blue lights and her face protruded outwards—gradually resembling a razor sharp beak. Her jaws opened, revealing a concentrated ball of blue light pulsating within the back of her throat.
“Oh shit.”
I pushed off from her grip, “Shield!”
The barista shrieked, unleashing the beam from her jaws with such force, that it felt like I was being hit with a comically large sledgehammer. The beam flung me back through the shop, sending my body crashing through the glass front door and tumbling back onto the sand.
I feebly perched myself up on my hands and knees, trying to steady my spinning head, “Damn!” I muttered painfully.
There was a massive hole where the front entrance of the shop used to be, and half of the front counter was now missing, the ragged sides were tinged with black as if there had been some kind of electrical fire.
At this point, the barista had transformed into a monstrous brown and tan bird, barely fitting within the confines of the roof. Its massive body struggled to get loose, its long black talons pulling against the floor and ceiling, trying to free itself from the shop and expand its large wings.
“Daymond!” Shua cried. Before I could look to tell him to stay by the prisoners, he was already knelt on the ground beside me, his arm around the middle of my back.
Ceasing the struggle for a moment, the bird’s head flicked to stare at us, its eyes dilated and mouth agape.
“Are you—”
“Shua, get back!”
I grabbed Shua and threw his small body behind me, my arm outstretched.