My Dreamstate: Tashi's Passed-On Soul-Screen (Master’s Level-1 Instructions) – Pt. 2 Ch.1.5

The air was thick with a sensation I could not name. The screen flickered before me like the hesitant stutter of a heartbeat, and in that moment, I felt it — a shift, a calling, as though the very fabric of the universe was bending toward me. The field of consciousness felt like it was vibrating, and I understood: Drako had done this. I could see it in his eyes, a smile creeping onto his face as he glanced at me, acknowledging the unspoken knowledge between us. His presence loomed like an ancient force, guiding the current of this unfolding journey.

The screen shifted once again, and the battlefield revealed itself in all its grim reality. A vision of utter devastation, the sky an ashen gray that suffocated everything beneath it. The earth was broken, jagged, as though it had been torn open by the very hands of fate. Bodies lay scattered across the expanse like marionettes abandoned by their master, limbs twisted unnaturally, some reaching out in a frozen attempt to grasp at something beyond the pitiless void. Blood-soaked mud clung to the earth, a testament to the violence of the moment. Eyes stared into nothingness, unblinking, forever caught in the gray eternity of war.

My breath hitched in my chest as I stood frozen before this tableau of suffering. The realization gnawed at me like a sharp pang—this was not some mere dreamstate, not a lesson or a simulation. No, this had once been real. These souls, these shattered lives, had once drawn breath, had once walked this earth with purpose, with hope, only to be torn apart in the name of violence. I wanted to look away, to escape the sight of it, but the screen held me captive. There was no escape.

A soldier groaned somewhere in the distance, his fingers twitching weakly in the dirt as if trying to grasp at the remnants of life. Another soldier, already lifeless, lay in a state of eternal stillness, his mouth half-open as if caught in a final, unspoken plea. But from his body, something else emerged. A shimmer, delicate and ethereal, rose from the corpse. A golden thread, like a fragile strand of light, lifted into the air, swirling and untethered in the chaotic ruin. It hovered, suspended in mid-air, a soul—uncaptured, unbound by the constraints of the material world.

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Drakos's voice, soft but resonant, cut through the silence. "Do you see it?"

Sri, her breath shallow and her body trembling, hugged her arms tightly to herself. Her voice came out small, barely audible in the vast emptiness of the moment. "I—I do," she whispered. "But... Tashi..."

Drakos's gaze shifted downward, his expression unreadable as he lowered his eyelids, his mind lost in thought. "Not everyone floats."

The golden essence wavered, drifting upward as if it were drawn to something greater, something beyond the suffering of the battlefield. For a fleeting moment, I felt it too—the pull, the gentle transition from suffering to freedom, the liberation of the soul from the prison of the flesh. It was as if the soul itself yearned to rise beyond the chaos, to transcend the cycle of pain and torment. In that moment, I felt a profound sense of connection, a shared understanding of what it meant to be free from the chains of mortality.

The voice from the documentary echoed, as if answering an unspoken question: "Death is the most crucial moment in our life."

The words reverberated in the depths of my being. I swallowed hard, the weight of the truth settling heavily in my chest. The battlefield before me was not just a scene of carnage—it was a reflection of life itself, a fleeting moment in the grand tapestry of existence. I could feel it now, the profound significance of the moment of death. It was not an end, but a passage, a moment of transition that held within it the potential for transformation.

The screen flickered once more, and the battlefield reappeared—ashen sky, shattered earth, and bodies still crumpled in their final repose. The pit yawned wide, devouring the fallen, their limbs tangled in a macabre dance, frozen in the eternity of war. Yet amid this devastation, there was a sense of purpose, a deeper truth that was being revealed. The golden thread, the shimmering soul, hovered in the air, undeterred by the chaos below. It was as if it were caught in a delicate dance with fate, caught between two worlds.

I stood there, captivated, unable to tear my eyes away. The golden thread trembled in the air, shifting ever so slightly as if uncertain of its path.

A moment of hesitation, a moment of choice. The battlefield whispered to the soul, reminding it of the impermanence of all things.

Nothing lasts forever—not life, not death, not the very earth beneath our feet.

Everything is temporary, and yet, in that fleeting moment, the soul had the power to transcend it all.