1 Dreams and Reality

The fire rose so high it looked like it was towering above the sky, all that could be seen from the former glorious city were the debris and ashes on the ground.

The screams of the unlucky few who remained alive could be heard from afar as they tried to escape the flaming hell.

At the edge of the city stood a small boy, perhaps 8 years old, he stared blankly at the tragic sight with no will to move, a faint desire to go back transpired from the hollowed eyes.

"Boy…"

"Boy…"

"ZEPH!"

Only then, he sluggishly turned to face the old man who was by his side, his eyes still dead.

"We have to go now, they will follow us soon and we'll be doomed if they catch up. I'm completely spent. I won't be able to stop them".

"Go? Where can I go, old man? Look at this." Said they boy as he pointed at the city, his voice slowly rising when his anger started overcoming his sadness "I lost everything. They took everything away from me… Timor, our legacy, my home, my parents…"

The man felt a pang is his heart when he saw the tears finally rolling down the boy's cheeks. But they had to go and now wasn't time to suffer, if they lost more time both of them would die and he was too exhausted to carry the kid along their escape, fighting his way out took everything he had, so he brushed away his wish to console the kid and steeled his heart.

"Then live on. Live on and make them pay one day. You are the only one left from your family and the only one who can get back what is rightfully yours one day, but we have to leave alive first. Besides, you still have me and my family, you still have my granddaughter…"

"Lina?" The boy murmured the name as a little light returned to his eyes, then gave a mocking laugh "Your family will never allow me to marry her now that I don't have any real power…"

"That's not for them to decide, boy. I want to see who dares go against my words in my own house. Come on, lets go."

The old man grabbed the boy's hand and they both turned towards the dark forest. The gloomy forest was their best bet for escaping, in the cover of the night it would be impossible for them to be followed, considering their head start.

During normal times, crossing this forest at night without preparing well for the journey would be nothing short of suicide, especially in their current state, it would be preferable to fight possible pursuers as they fled through the main road. However, the huge fire gave them the perfect opportunity, as it had scared away most of the creatures from this region. Nertheless, they would have to be extremely careful, the slight mistake would have them becoming food to the night dwellers.

The old man sighed and decided it was worth to spent a little more of his energy, he made silent gestures in the air, a faint light tracing behind his lands, he chanted the name "Night vision" in a whisper and touched his the boy's forehead with his now glowing hand, their vision immediately became clearer, just slightly worse than during the day.

The boy wasn't surprised by his actions and just resumed his walking, they had lost enough already.

They kept going until they arrived at the edge of the forest, the boy turned one last time to engrave the sight of his former home in his mind and pledged to himself to make every single person involved pay a bitter price

As they disappeared amidst the woods the moon could be seen peeking through a curtain of smoke.

…

A few hooded figures discussed on the other side of the city.

"Are you sure the boy is dead?"

"Yes, sir! I personally saw his body laying besides his parents, but there's nothing left but ashes now."

"Good, good, now there's nothing left to worry about to worry on this side of the continent, we will proceed with our plan. Make sure no one leaves the city, better make sure there's no absolutely no chance to connect us to this, at least for the time being, we still have much to prepare".

"Yes, sir!" the hooded figures answered in unison as they dashed towards different directions in the city.

A twisted smile escaped the lips of the remaining man as he spoke to no one.

"You can't blame me for that, I've waited for too long already, you should have cooperated when I asked, but don't worry… soon I'll send you some company, old friend."

…

Leon woke up from his bed in a fright, his breath was ragged and his body covered in sweat, he could almost feel the lingering heat on his skin.

The scene of fire and despair was still vivid in his mind, the screams of his people haunting his thoughts.

This was not the first time he had one of these dreams, they started occurring about a year ago, but nowadays they were much more frequent and lifelike. It was becoming harder and harder to tell them apart from reality.

They seemed more close to memories than dreams, but he told himself it was impossible, that it was only his mind filling his blank past with amazing stories from books he often read.

Leon was an orphan. He woke up two years ago with no memories of his past and was adopted a few months later by a loving couple.

His new family lived in the suburbs of a big city, they had a decent income since both worked full-time, so they could easily provide him with everything he needed, which was not much, mostly books and games to fulfill his craving from interesting and different worlds.

Everything was fine in the beginning, he got along really well with his new parents, they were caring and tried their best to make him feel at home, which he tried to return the best way he could.

Things started to change when the dreams began. At first they were only fascinating, a new world where magic, dragons and other creatures were real, a world where he belonged to a powerful and influential family and had everything lined up for success.

The dreams continued and only became more frequent, at first only once a week, then 2 or 3 times a week, now he had them almost every day, sometimes even when he was awake he could feel these images flashing on his mind.

They always happened in the same places, always with the same people. Slowly, despite how crazy it would sound to anyone else, Leon started to believe that his dreams were more than dreams; finally, he started to wish they were more than dreams.

Now they felt more real than when he was awake, everything else became somewhat bland, even the things he used to enjoy, Leon slowly started to distantiate himself from others, including his parents. He felt this wasn't his place anymore.