Ch. 7 Recollections

The rest of dinner was eaten in silence, and one by one we cleaned up our plates and went our separate ways for the evening. I lay in the bed once again reflecting on the events of the day thinking to myself, damn I always knew that I was special, but I never thought I would be on the, you are the chosen one level. Oh well looks like I will be taking an extra-long spring break this year, so at least that is something.

Those were my final thoughts before I closed my eyes.

It was a long night as I was engulfed in a strange dream of me camping out with my peeps. The strange thing was, I was not with them. I mean I was, but I wasn’t. It was like some outer body experience, dream, thing, where I was seeing myself third person instead of first. This person who I was seeing myself through for some reason had a whole lot of silver hair and was crouching unusually close to the ground. The mystery person stayed there watching us for hours, until we all went to sleep. It was then, that it crept closer. Slowly it approached our tents until it was just on the verge of emerging into the open, but then it stopped. It gazed at the

tents intensely, as it crouched down even more abnormally low, and did something even stranger. It sniffed the air. At this moment I realized that this body that I was seeing through was not a person at all. This body is that of some sort of beast, and it does not seem to be pleased with the aroma it is smelling.

Suddenly, I start to feel partially what the creature is feeling in addition to what it is already seeing. Muscle’s tense and a growl from the bowels of the belly, and deeps of the soul begins to rise up as the creature watches the tents closely. The shadows from the light of the fire we left on at a dull ember dances across the tents. Then a gnarly, claw shaped hand, shadow puppet appears and eerily makes its way across the tents in a spooky spine –chilling fashion. Creeping ever so slowly across the tents the gnarled claw crosses over the other two tents not even peeking inside finally coming to a halt at mine. In fact from an outside perspective, one could surmise that judging from its lack of hesitation, or curiosity in regards to the other two occupants it was after something in particular, or someone.

As my mind races to figure out the purpose of this sci-fi scene that is unfolding the creature emerges right as the last flicker of light from the coals is dissipating. What I see makes my heart stop with fear, as I gaze upon a physical monster straight out of myths and legends. Its feet were hooved, but its legs were scaly like its hands, resembling a reptile. The mid-section looked leathery and tough, that is expert for its chest which was wooly and thick. The head was like that of a goat, no a ram, with the spiral horns to match. All of its head was surrounded by the wily mane of a king of wild beasts. However, protruding from its mouth was not the fangs of the big cats as we know them, but that of its close ancestor, the sabretooth. This, this must be a chimera I thought in the dreamscape. The creature whose body I was in did not seem to care though. At least not in the terrified, trembling type of way anyway.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

We watched as it silently drew closer to my dwelling and with every step this silvery haired body grew more uneasy and just flat outgrew. Literally, I mean looking at the paws go from dog sized to man sized, to grizzly size starts to remind me of a certain hound I‘ve recently seen. The strange thing is that no matter how worked up it gets it still hides in the brush like it is waiting for some sort of confirmation or an order to intervene like it knows this might happen. Well, whatever the sign is supposed to be it must have just been given because just as the chimaera begins to cut open the tent with its claw a grand howl erupts from the belly of this silver beast as it pounces. Soon everything becomes a flurry of fangs and teeth as the two great beasts’ paw, slam, and bite, into each other. This is when things start to get even weirder. In the chaos of the battle of the beasts my dream avatar is yanked from the silver furred body of its host and I am finally able to see just what it is that has been stalking us. A giant oversized wolf with a mark on its forehead like the one that I woke up with after blacking out drunk at a party earlier this year. Aris…tot..le, is the only word I can muster, confused, and bewildered having no memory of ever seeing any sign of him on this trip and starting to think I wasn’t supposed to.

I cram my head to see just where my avatar is heading because it seems to be the only thing, I’m able to move freely. All I see though is myself peeking out of the tent with red eyes and eye boogers through the claw marks on the tent entrance. Suddenly, my spirit comes to a halt face to face with myself mirror style, and it all comes rushing back to me. For a few moments I speak in unison, in perfect tone and sync with my past self. Our initial reaction to the discovery of claw marks on our tent is that of any smart person who just woke up to paw marks the size of a human head. “What is that…and are those…awe shit it’s time to go.”

I watch my dream- self turn and begin to pack up and leave just as Thomas, or dad as I knew him then came barreling in. “Aaron, hurry up and pack”, he started to say before realizing that I already had. One step ahead of you, I shot back before looking up from my bag to see him in full S.W.A.T gear. Umm dad, I thought you were off all weekend I say before going back to packing in a hurry. We will talk once you are finished, he says just be quick. About a minute later I was finished. “Done, I exclaim, all we need now is to take down the tent.” Do not mind the tent just stay close on my heels, he says with a worried, yet determined look on his face. Can you do that son, he asks? Yeah, I think so, I tell him. Good, he says before hauling ass out of the tent. I wasn’t expecting him to just take off like that so both my present and past selves quickly fall behind and have to put in extra effort to close the gap. We do so fairly soon after.

In silence, we run for what seems like several minutes. The past me wants to say something but can’t quite get it out. Before long we come across a nine pointed deer carcass cut open, bloodied and defiled with blood so fresh the buzzards hadn’t even found it yet.

Skipped Note

finish this section later

I opened my eyes to see Aristotle looming over me with a paw on my forehead. To the right Mom comes running to the open door, in a frenzy. “What! What’s going on! Everything, okay?” Ace materializes out of nowhere in a spiral of flame. “Aristotle. Report. What happened? Aristotle pauses for a moment, when I smack his paw away and sit up in bed glaring at the three of them. Looking away from me Aristotle says to them that he believes they miscalculated. He continues to say that they didn’t properly or more accurately flat out failed, to account for my rapidly increasing yama as well as my proximity to one of the Quantum Keys. This paired with the fact that a certain god of archery decided to release the mental blocks early that are supposed to weaken our connection have caused him to sprout dream wings and remember a certain day he was not supposed to. Oh no, says mom. Awe shit says Ace.