Cedric tried, all too quickly, to stand up. Once his head finally stopped spinning, and he made it successfully to his feet, he was no longer sure which reality he'd ended up in.

"Is this real?" He began cautiously forward into the red-soaked Calamon. "Is this real or a dream? No—it doesn't actually matter, does it? Because with the power of dreams..."

Figures began to melt to life in the distance. White-suited warriors. Some distance off to his side... He could see his own body, laying dead on the street.

"Yeah. I get it now. At least, I think I do."

He paused before approaching any closer. Kogar was ahead, eating a savage flurry of blows from a bloody Tirolith. A true rage incarnate.

Then he felt some deeply familiar presence behind himself. The same one he had felt in Freiya.

"It's repeating," he spun with urgency, saw the dark place in midair wherein Vekzul had trapped the two Etherians alongside himself. Just a blotch of dark, like a black stain of blood in the red sky. The same way Llestren’vatis had once trapped Algirak. "I have my chance."

The ground slipped away and Cedric was falling through the memories again, all sorts of images floating past him.

There went Cassandra,

Then Liara.

Okella, next.

Serkukan.

The solidified memories began to form into golden bulbs, long series of scales which formed the walls approaching beneath, the walls of the golden throne room which was the pineal gland. There was the stained glass window—just before the leering Kogar. He was without his armor, without his Etherians. He stood up with his glower—

And Cedric rushed past him, lunged his fist through the panes in an explosion of refractive prisms.

Kogar's face went into shock. His skin went pale.

"Done. You're done," said Cedric.

And it was over.

Kogar gasped. He slid across the ground in a wash of blood. The growing rainstorm made it look even more slick.

Tirolith stood before him. She began forward again, let the spikes sprout from her fists.

It's not us, Tir.

She stopped at Faunia's suggestion.

The blood drafted backward from Kogar impossibly, stuck to the air in place, at attention.

And the blood took upon a shape all-too familiar.

"Cedric!" shouted Tir. Her red flickered, her teal relented.

Kogar grimaced at the boy more powerfully than he ever had. "You've fucking done it. You fucking..."

"Dreams are easy to dismantle, Kogar. It's only the reality I'm worried about."

Kogar's grimace fell away into some kind of unease, surprise. But he surely couldn't have been surprised; his form was already shrinking into the boyish Talek. And that was no mystery to either of them.

Faunia screamed, "Tir, don't let him--"

And then blackness.

Flickering lights.

Fluttering butterflies.

"And just how long do you think you have before Zanthiel reemerges?"

A red moon.

"You've blocked all of my Etherian powers for now; but we're both greater than that. Aren't we?"

A flash, sparks across his face. Heat. A fight—obscured by his own mind.

"There is only one man with autonomy in this world—and he is me."

Cedric wanted to speak. He was no longer sure if he had a mouth. He was no longer aware of his own existence—all that was left was a bad dream, a sinister nightmare, imagery too rapid to remember, emotions too sharp to discern. If he was real anymore, perhaps it was in the flashes of himself in Calamon, vomiting his brain out upon the stones. Or it was him washing ashore on some distant island, his body broken by waves. Or it was him holding Faunia’s hand, dancing with her in Aeon. If there was one reality he wanted to be in, he was sure it would be that one.

Then swelled the music from the band upon the stage.

"Cedric?" asked Faunia, their hands interlocked. "You're sweating."

He glanced around with visible paranoia. His skin had gone sickly pale. He pulled the tie loose around his neck, but his breathing came no easier.

"Are you okay?"

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Blackness obscured the windows of the ballroom, like a tarp covering the entire kingdom. Calamity? Or...?

"Everyone get DOWN!" Cedric barked at the top of his lungs. His throat burned. He threw himself atop Faunia, brought them to relative safety just as all of the windows exploded into a complete mess of glass.

But Faunia landed softly beneath him, bounced gently as he landed atop her on the double bed of her housetent. She had a soft smile, expectant. Her cheeks were rosy red.

"Not here—I can't be here right now!" Cedric thrust his head upward as though surfacing from drowning. Just like that, it was true: he emerged breathlessly and soaked from within the Calamoni hotspring, surrounded by his Etherian kinsmen.

Serkukan stared at him without much emotion at all. Ithlo'vatis greeted him much the same.

Tirolith stared at him in surprise. "Cedric—you're bleeding."

He felt his nose. Sure enough, a steady stream of blood was leaking out, drooling off into the spring. It filled the water until it was dyed in a path straight toward Serkukan. The Etherian man's expression still did not change.

"Not bleeding," Cedric corrected her. "I am blood."

Ithlo'vatis raised an eyebrow at him.

"We gave Talek too much time—this is worse than Eternity, this is..."

"You're wrong," interjected Serkukan. "This is Eternity. This is Eternal Calamity."

Cedric’s mouth hung limp.

"He's put you at the center of it all. You're the embryo for his next dream. The being more powerful than Kogar—this is an attack."

Ithlo'vatis added, "An autonomous attack. Talek himself likely isn't even aware that it's happening. He'll become you, kill Faunia and her Ordinators, then turn safely back into Talek once all perceived threats are ceased."

"So how can I beat that?" asked Cedric, suddenly stoic at the mention of Faunia’s mortality.

Serkukan grinned like a savage barbarian. "I almost expected you'd be ready to give up again by now. You're always the first to grow weary when the going gets tough."

"It's been that way in the past. But that's what got Marisol killed, isn't it?"

Ithlo did not remark at that, but looked at the ground and soon closed his eyes.

Serkukan said, "Well, great dreamer: perhaps it's finally time you got accustomed to the breadth of my power. You're no longer bound by your humanity, your blood, or your esera."

"You can commit acts which once would have killed you," added Ithlo.

Tir said, "Be careful, Cedric. No matter what you are, me and Faunia both care deeply about you."

"I know," said the boy. "Show me how to wake up."

Serkukan’s grin grew. Then he lunged—

WHAP.

Cedric flew back, skidded into a mound of snow. The bathhouse was gone. He was shivering, lost in Freiya beneath a mystical purple sky.

Red-armored Serkukan marched at him. "I thought that would have been enough. 'Punch me, I'm dreaming—' is that not how the saying goes?"

Cedric rubbed his cheek as he sat up. "Pinch. Not punch."

Serkukan shrugged. "Pinching isn't my style."

He lunged forward again, faster than Cedric could see, shot a kick across his jaw that spiked pain like splinters all throughout his head. "AUGH!"

"Broken bones make men all the better. What's a warrior who hasn't a few scars?" Serkukan dragged Cedric up by the collar, punched down into his face once, twice, three times. The orbital bone around Cedric’s eye had gone black and blue, blood leaked from where the skin had ripped.

"What are...?"

"Have you ever died in a dream?" Serkukan lifted him up by the throat. Cedric’s feet left the ground. "I say we try it—that ought to be enough to wake you up."

Serkukan took his other hand and slid it along the top of his helmet, as though brushing his fingers through his hair. But he'd never seen Serkukan do that—he'd only seen...

Cedric's shot open. He suddenly clamped his hands both down onto Serkukan’s forearm. He focused all of his mental energy on that crimson-bound figure.

And the dream began to melt around them like wet paint, sliding down a canvas. Serkukan’s armor streaked downward in giant brushstrokes, ran free like a river, eventually revealed... Cedric.

"What the f...?" Cedric began. Then he saw the violet amulet glowing around Cedric's—the fake Cedric’s—neck. He looked sidelong to where his body had once been. It was no longer there.

The other Cedric’s face took on a nasty, sickeningly mad grin. "You've made this too easy. I barely had to dream up anything special at all."

"You fucking—"

Kogar—the Cedric lookalike—threw him to the ground. The cobbles were suddenly jagged beneath him, sliced his arms and legs up and down like a thousand daggers. The rain struck Cedric all over, the red sky colored them all in disconcerting hues.

He looked quickly to where Faunia had once been—she was still there, thankfully. Her soldiers still stood all around her.

Cedric’s doppelganger glanced backward at them. "Oh—worried about your whore? Don't worry: I gave myself some extra powers this time."

"Don't—"

There was a flash in his mind of her dead, her body pinned where the cobbles had become sharp swords pointed toward the sky. Cedric grit his teeth—he felt the tears surface in his eyes as he resisted the dream with every fiber of his being.

His doppelganger smirked. "Ever the fighter. It'll be easy to swap into your place, considering you pick up on new powers so quickly."

Does that mean I beat it...?

The fake Cedric drew back his fist, struck it once and again into Cedric’s already broken skull. The boy slumped down, held up only by the stranglehold the imposter had on his arm.

Then Kogar turned his open palm toward Faunia and her soldiers. A glow began to resonate.

Cedric quickly swept up in negligence of the crippling pain, grabbed the violet amulet, and yanked it free in one harsh motion. His veil was dropped immediately—Talek was back, the glow in his palm subsided.

"Now, kill him now!" shouted Cedric.

Faunia launched her rapier like a bolt from her hand.

Her Ordinators rushed like crazed undead, twisting and erratic in their movements.

Talek raised his aching head to the influx just as they arrived. The bolt ripped through his skull—

The Ordinators fell dead around him. All went quiet.

And black-robed Kasian stepped out of thin air like an apparition.

This is it...! Cedric’s brow hardened.

Faunia swept her rapier to a ready position.

"This is it!"