Were Those Real?

...

Berry saw himself in a whole new scene now.

He saw a familiar face in front of him. It is the person he once saw being stabbed in his illusions. He saw himself in a familiar place as well. It is the prison room he saw in another illusion.

That person was slowly walking towards him. He had a sweet smile on his face. He was saying something; he was talking to Berry. Berry tried to understand but suddenly a lot of scenes started playing in his head. Deaths, cries, and wars. Sufferings and hunger, he suddenly felt an adrenaline rush.

The person was still saying something with the same smile. Barry understood nothing, he just noticed that there was a dagger in his hand. He looked at the person standing in front of him. He wanted to kill him. The scenes in his head were getting fiercer. He tried to control himself, but the more that person smiled, the more angry and hollow he felt deep inside.

In the end, he wasn't able to control himself. He just stabbed him. The dagger went straight into the person's lower abdomen, piercing deep.

He felt at peace after doing it. At the same time, he saw a guard rushing at him with a sword. Even before he could react, scenes around him changed once more.

...

It was all dark around him; he felt suffocation and fear. It was as if he was hiding in a small container. Berry heard all sorts of voices around him. He heard shouts and screams, the slashing of the swords, and cries of the injured ones. Everything was very traumatic. Suddenly he saw the light, he felt better. But this feeling all flew away as soon as he saw that the person who opened it had a sinister look as if he will kill Berry. He was wearing a soldier's uniform, his uniform had a very old kind of design. The soldier raised his hand to kill Berry. As soon as he was about to be sliced in two halves, a pair of hands grabbed the soldier's hand from moving any further. Those hands were full of blood, slowly growing weaker and weaker. The soldier smirked at the owner of the hands. He could have easily shaken the person away. But he was instead enjoying the scene of someone's life slowly fading away in front of his eyes.

Berry heard someone shouting at him to run. He wanted to run, but his legs were numb. He tried punching them. It was the moment when he realized that he was not even in his own body.

It was a small body, most probably a body of a 10-year-old boy. He looked around. It was a palace-like place, all the walls colored red with blood. Lifeless bodies were lying everywhere. Some corpses had their body parts separated from them.

Everything shook him mentally. Suddenly someone grabbed him from his waist and started running. He was terrified, but when he looked at the owner of these hands, he felt at ease. Berry has no idea who this girl is. She looked about 16 years old at most. She kept running, irrespective of what she saw on her way. They were out of the palace. Some soldiers with the same dress as the previous one were running behind them. They were both almost caught when someone saved them by blocking those soldiers' way.

"Listen to your dad, daughter. You need to run away with your brother. Don't wait for us. You need to be strong..." There was a pain in his voice from being injured.

"Don't look there. Close your eyes." She said to Berry. The voice saying this was cracking itself but this girl ran even faster now. She ran straight for about 30 minutes before finally collapsing. They were in a barren area now. With nowhere to hide. She still managed to get up. She hugged him. It was a very warm hug. He felt at home. He hugged back and suddenly started crying out of nowhere. It was more like this body was unwilling to listen to him. Or maybe it was that Berry was just supposed to see this. He had no control over anything at all here.

"Your sister is still with you, don't worry, ok? Everything will be alright." She was about to say something else when she looked back as if she heard something. Berry heard it too. It was the noise of some horses galloping toward them.

"Quickly run away. I'll cover for you. You need to be safe to avenge us, right? Go they'll be here soon."

"You come with me too. We'll avenge our parents together." The current body of Berry spoke in a cracking voice. He was crying. Even Berry was crying at the scene.

She pushed him to run, but it was too late. The soldiers saw them. There was no other way. The girl picked him up again, but it was a lot of effort this time and started running, but she was not really running, instead, she was just limping slowly, getting slower and slower.

The soldiers surrounded them. All of them laughed at the scene. She continued to run... she tried to run. In the end, she just fell down again. That was the movement when Berry realized that this girl had a wound on her right leg, which was bleeding badly. It looked bandaged, perhaps the running made her wound reopen.

The soldiers were making fun of them when one of them hit them with a whip. She quickly covered her brother. He saw her face turning all pale, probably from the blood loss.

"Sister is all right. She just needs a little rest. Don't worry."

"Look at this siblings love, oh it's so sweet. It makes me want to throw up." And he landed another whip.

The girl now is unable to take it. She is just completely on the ground now. She tried to say something, but in the end, all she was able to do was shed a tear. Then she closed her eyes 'forever'.

Berry felt a mental breakdown. He looked at the soldiers laughing at the scene. He was about to crash at them when the scene changed again.

...

This time, he was too afraid to open his eyes. He realized that he was lying down. He quickly curled himself tightly. Berry felt a hand shaking him. He knew someone was talking to him, but neither did he have any intention nor the energy to respond to it, he just tightened up his curl.

After quite a while, he finally decided to reopen his senses back.

He saw himself in the tent where he had originally slept last night.

"You are finally awake?" It was Archer, who was already irritated by the fact that he need to keep an eye on him.

These four simple words took the whole 2 minutes for Berry's brain to process. After all those scenes, his brain was badly strained. He had no energy to respond. He just laid down back.

He woke up again, no idea how later. He looked around. It was evening already.

"Are you ok? You should have told us of you were not feeling well. You had such a terrible fever the whole night." It is Zale. This voice is so soothing that no one can resist replying to it. But something else attracted Berry's attention more than this. Archer and Liam had scratches on their faces. Exactly like the ones he saw in his illusion. It was just that these scratches looked newer now. He glanced at his surroundings. They were still in the forest.

He then quickly looked at Zale and Orion. Both of them had no injuries.

Is it just a coincidence?

"I guess he's still confused. Let's let him sleep a little more." Archer was getting irritated.

"Hey Berry, are you ok?" Orion looked concerned, after all, it was his idea to bring him along.

Berry looked at Zale. "How did they get these scars?" He asked impatiently.

"They went collecting firewood when they got trapped in a hunter's trap. They kept struggling for a while when finally Liam remembered that he had a knife on him. He cut down the rope and both of them landed on the ground with a thump." Orion answered as Zale was patting Berry's shoulder to calm him down.

"How did you know? We never told you."

"I saw it all from the beginning till the end," Orion said and laughed a little, leaving both Archer and Liam embarrassed.

"Where are we now? Did you guys enter the palace?"

"No, we haven't. We are still finding a way in. The architecture of this building's protection mechanism is very different. We can see the door, but there is no way we can open it."

"We can't even break it open," Liam added to Zale's point.

"Is it important to enter it!?"

"Yes, it is important. That is why we are here. We didn't just come trekking!" Archer lost the left of his temper with this question.

"What's wrong, Berry? Is something bothering you?" Zale never let himself lose his cool.

"No, never mind. I am sorry. My brain is not yet working normally."

'Maybe I am just overthinking. I don't even remember it properly, yet I am trying to make a scene out of it.' Berry thought to himself, as he saw others nodding at him and telling him to rest.

...