Chapter 15

Luca lay in his bed, but his lacerated body betrayed every conception of peaceful sleep. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as his head twisted to the left, then right, in torment. His breathing was ragged, and every now and then, a muffled scream escaped his lips. He couldn't suppress this nightmare that tightly clutched him with firm clutches, vivid yet disorienting.

The face of his father swam before him in his dream, vague and indistinct, with the urgent cry, "Outlive me, son." The vision was blurred, the urgency real in his father's voice. The scene cut violently now to Luca finding himself witnessing some nightmarish slaughter-surface Naxons rampaging through his home, his mother being torn limb from limb before his eyes. Everything churning now in fog, congealing into some incomprehensible chaos.

"Mother!" Luca screamed, jolting awake, his body dripping in sweat, while his heart pounded hard against the inside of his chest. His eyes looked for something familiar in the dark room.

"What was that?" he heaved, fighting his composure back.

Psyros' voice came from the shades of the room. His voice was calm, but it had a ring of concern in it. "Another nightmare, boy. It seems it has weighed hard on you."

"Why do I dream these things?" Luca asked, panting.

Psyros was contemplative in his tone, "You might want to try dreamwalking. It means to enter a dream with your spirit-be it yours or someone else's."

Still dazed, Luca asked, "What is dreamwalking?"

Psyros explained, "Well, it's basically sending your spirit into your dreamscape. Focus on a place you have been in your life. I will take you through the motions of releasing your spirit from your body.

"Why am I just now finding this out?" Luca asked.

There was solemnity lacing Psyros' voice. "I wasn't sure if you could handle it yet. It takes a bit of control."

Luca nodded, working at sobering up. "How do I do it?

"Lay down, close your eyes, and think of a place you remember well," Psyros instructed. "Imagine the things and the people in that place. I will then take you through the process of separating your spirit from your body."

He lay back and closed his eyes while Psyros led him. He focused on a place from childhood-a place where his family used to stay in that small mountain village. He pictured his parents' bedroom: a huge, comfortable bed, lamps hanging from the ceiling, and a shelf with some family pictures. His mind fixed on the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and a window with the view of a waterfall. His mind superimposed a surface Naxon in its line of sight out that window, the jarring addition to his sanctuary from childhood.

The Psyros' presence had amped up, even to the extent of Luca's spirit being pulled from his body. It was all so unreal. Again, he was back in the dreamscape, standing in the familiar yet drastically altered version of his childhood home.

He foresaw, in this dream, the surface Naxon, which was very menacing there in the dreamland. In a panic, he ran downstairs to warn his parents and villagers that there was an imminent danger. Until a surface Naxon appeared right before him, high-proportion pleas to evacuate were met with skepticism.

It hunched down onto its feet, ready to attack, and Luca cowered at the ground in terror. At that moment, his father intervened, guarding with an impossibly strong shield of strength. Eyes wide, Luca was taken aback; he'd never considered the possibility of his father not being human.

The scene changed yet again. His mother's body flowed into his father's, their outlines coalescing into an indomitable force. Fiercely they fought, but in the scuffle, his father got a cry out: "Get out of here! Outlive me, son!"

Appalled, Luca turned to run, and in that very moment he saw his father get killed by the Naxon's claws right into his heart. Then his mother also got in the way, trying to save his father but became another easy victim for the Naxon.

He awoke, panting and in agony. "Now it makes sense," he said, mopping sweat from his brow. "I saw my parents being killed by the surface Naxon. But what was different was the merging. They fought together, like how we merge."

Psyros's voice was in shock. "Your mother. she's a Symbiote? But that's impossible. Humans and Symbiotes can't mate. Unless—"

Luca screamed. "Unless WHAT!.

Pyros was caught off guard. "Unless the Symbiote has the ability to shapeshift. Rare, I must admit, but it would explain-"

Luca processed this revelation. "So you're telling me that I'm half Symbiote? And that's why I can tap into your power so easily?"

"Yes," Psyros confirmed. "You have Symbiote blood in your veins, which means you carry a power of your own yet to be uncovered."

"But I am not," Luca said with high appeal. "I am human; I am more human than Symbiote."

Psyros now intervened, and with a marked tone, he said, "Time will reveal what more-than-sufficient potential you have within you. You shall see who you really are when the time comes."

The words just hung in the air as Luca struggled with his new identity and what his powers were all about. For sure, the future was not in sight, but the one thing certain was that the journey of self-discovery had begun.