Two Childhoods Intertwined

I wait slightly longer in this dim forest with a surprising lack of wind, sound, or even movement. The young me and Ma stay still, almost as if they are frozen in time in this memory. Something doesn't feel right. I finally understand what Abraham meant by saying he felt like we were being watched.

Only this time, I feel more than just one set of eyes as he did. I feel multiple. At least two. I just have no clue as to where they are. But I'm not waking up, either. I've tried pinching myself and slapping myself, but neither do a damned thing. I think something, or someone is keeping me here in this memory.

So, I stand up and move through this slice of my past, frozen in time like a portrait. The trees nearby remind me of the forest just by my house. Tall and sturdy oak trees surround me in their comforting smell, look, and feel that is rapidly changed to discomfort because of the circumstances.

Every tree I pass by, I search cautiously for something hiding behind it, but it seems that no matter how far I walk through this frozen forest, nothing is there. The two pairs of eyes that I can feel watching me never disappear no matter what I do, so I just keep moving.

Ether swirls through my dreamlike body as I realize it must work in at least some manner as Chain Eyes worked previously, but I struggle to actually perform any skills. This dreamlike state might prevent me from using any skills consciously in my true body. Only those that are so deeply connected to me that I can use them in my sleep, like Daydream, Chain Eyes, and probably Strugglers Gasp, are available to me.

The darkness slowly grows as I walk through the forest, encroaching on every aspect of these woods, almost like I am nearing the end of the memory in my mind that was likely stolen from me. I didn't see it happen, but I figure Anwiye doesn't need to touch a child to wipe their memory, even if her clone or copy does. I'm not sure what that was. She said persona, so maybe it's another part of her personality overwritten onto a person.

Things begin to grow static and fuzzy in my line of sight as the absence of light covers all. My feet still bring the sound of crunching leaves to me, but no longer can I see any trees. All that exists in front of me is void. And after just a few more steps, even the crunching of leaves fades, leaving me in complete silence.

My steps rapidly slow as I become supremely cautious. The feeling of being watched suddenly grows, and all the hairs on my body rear up in preparation for danger. Some instinctual, animal part of me is preparing for a battle to the death, but I see nothing. I hear nothing, and I feel nothing.

Yet, without any other options, I take some more steps into the dark. The only thing guiding me is my perception of my own body, for even with eyes closed, ears deafened, and nose plugged, I can still walk.

Silently, I walk, and I walk, and I walk. The endless void seems to stretch on forever, and the stalkers whose presence I sense only become more apparent. It's nothing like a sound or even a true feeling; it's just something in the back of my mind that I have become more and more aware of.

Eventually, this feeling grows so powerful that I can only scratch the back of my head to relieve it, and when I do, something incredible happens. The dark instantly transforms into a deep gulch, and I begin falling through the air. It's almost like touching my mind broke something in the memory.

Wind rushes through my hair and clothes meeting me with a frigid cold. I flail my arms, looking for anything to grab below, but there is nothing. Only a hundred feet down is there something, and it seems to be a sharp rock. As I panic and search for a way to survive the fall, constantly attempting to use skills and Ether to save me, I hear a leathery flap above me alongside a deep chuckle.

Twisting in the air to look above me, I see two figures in the sky, floating like Gods above ants. A giant Ogre with a cleaver in one hand and a gelatinous eyeball encased in a vast crystalline jar with massive leathery wings connected to the jar that flap to keep it afloat. A booming voice leaves the figure of an Ogre as I plummet toward the dreamy land below.

"I thought I told you to leave him alone, Ewaki! This is a fight between us! How petty are you to involve a child?!"

A single leathery flap resounds in my ears as the surroundings grow even darker, the light of the moon on the gulch disappearing, leaving only the natural luminance of the crevice in the earth and the radiant Ether emitted from the two Angels within my dream.

Alongside that flap of wings comes a deep, scratchy, and soul-stirring voice. The voice doesn't go through the air like most sounds; it enters the mind directly with nails on a chalkboard. I see the gooey eyeball spin within the jar and stare directly at me as I fall.

"Yousss ssseemed to cared for thisss child! I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it! His soul glows so radiantly! Would you join me, child? In eternal slumber?"

The eyeball bounces off the insides of the jar, eliciting gross noises that pale in comparison to the power of its words. My vision shakes with every syllable as the dream itself does too. The Angels are breaking me just by being nearby. I'm unable to even reply as Aniwye yells back at him and reaches out toward me with a hand. Only as she does do I realize that I am just about to hit the bottom of the ravine. The two partially divine creatures above me have distracted me far too much in their dispute that is only going to leave me dead or braindead.

I don't know what will happen if I fall in this dream realm, but thankfully I will never find out as Aniwye's reached out fist closes in my direction.

"This fight is pointless, Ewaki! We both have such little power this far away from our bodies! Just stop!"

My eyes go wide as pinkish-purple Ether sparks from Aniwye's giant Ogre hand and strikes me. I feel nothing, but as I look around, I notice that the length of the fall seems to grow and stretch. The entire ravine around me is stretching alongside me as Aniwye manipulates the very reality of this dream. The ground and walls of the gulch stream by me endlessly as the ground refuses to even meet me from her touch.

How the two of them can reach me with their Ether is incredible. The distance from the swamp in Sincreak to the Old Fields in the Underworld has to be astronomical. It must be because they were both in my mind before I even left. Maybe that removes most of the cost of the distance.

It doesn't matter how much it weakens them, though, as sleep is their realm, or more specifically, Ewaki's, and the creature from some unknown realm makes that dreadfully clear. The uncomfortable raspy voice without substance comes once more with a sense of desire.

"You are the one with little power. Thisss isss my realm, and thisss child allowed me in! He will join me in sleep, and so will you!"

Another blinding flap of wings echoes throughout the ever-expanding ravine and entirely puts me back in the dark as a sense of tiredness washes over me. And so, I'm left spiraling in the night, hoping that the Ogre that wiped my memory as a child saves me.

A simple choice to sleep transformed into one of the most dangerous and hectic events of my life. My hand is still shaking from learning that Ma might not actually be my mother. And if she is, then Aniwye took her over. Or maybe, that Ogre, that demon, is my mother and merely left behind a simple persona of hers to raise me. I'm not sure which idea raises more hate and disgust in me as I revile my skin, but at least she is protecting me, right?

Maybe deep down, she cares? But even if she does, am I really the son of a demon? An Ogre? No. No way. I refuse to believe that. I am human, one hundred percent human. I can feel it in my veins.

If I wasn't, and I was instead born a Hiawatha, a half-demon half-human hybrid, I would have been born with a Sigil and matured much faster. But I was not. I was born as weak and as feeble as any other human. And I share no characteristics of any demons either.

So that means I am not her son. Ma might not even be my mother either… I was not prepared for any of these when I took Heath's drug to sleep, and I'm sure that choice only made things worse. The drug will likely keep me in this hell until it runs out in my body. That means I'm stuck in here with the Angels fighting, one for my life and one for my death. I doubt my friends can help, either. None of them have any skills or knowledge in the realm of dreams, memories, or sleep. Abraham would if he were here, and something tells me so would Sacate, but neither is.

And I can't even watch the two Angels fight or try something to help; all that exists is the wind flying past my body as I eternally fall into this ravine. I flip again and again seemingly endlessly as I'm left here in the dark, alone and helpless. Every once in a while, a spike of psychic pain sparks through my mind like a lightning bolt before quickly disappearing. It must be the blowback from the two fighting.

It is remarkably less than before, however, and I can only assume that it is from the distance. They truly do seem much weaker, not that it matters to me, though. The difference between getting your head blown up and a single bullet entering it is null.

So, I am left with only my thoughts in this nightmare of a dream. Things like this are why I don't like to sleep, and I have to agree with Abraham. Sometimes it's better to just stay awake. It seems as though the mind opens up to dangers when it is unconscious, and Abraham likely knows that all too well. Those of us with Sigils that open our minds or souls seem resilient yet dangerous to the minds of others.

As I fall for what seems like hours in this pitch black that has been forced upon me, I can only reflect. My heart begins to slow as my body comes to the realization this fall likely won't end any time soon.

Could I have been more careful entering this dream? Possibly, but I don't know how. There is very little I can do when an actual Angel has infiltrated my dreams and is simply waiting for me to fall asleep. I could have just not gone to sleep, but then, Johnny's prediction would come true. I would die from overexertion.

I think I've just been fucked from the second I broke those inscriptions. They were enhancing the Crossroads and keeping Ewaki at bay for Aniwye to prepare. The moment I started to break them, I sealed my fate. I allowed Ewaki to emerge sooner than it should have. But how could I have known? I just did the only thing that helped stave off the laughter. I ran from one danger right into the jaws of a much larger beast.

Everything about this trip has gone to hell the second we entered this swamp. I know that Blake loves her homeland, but I certainly don't. This dirty, wet, and nasty place full of danger is far worse than the Bonedunes, where the only form of water is when someone bleeds or cries. At least there, you find a creature only every few hours while moving, not every two seconds.

I know what I should have done. I should have paid more attention to the Bloody Palm. It might be insane, inhuman, and just as likely to kill me as those Angels above, but at this point, we are one and the same. My life is its life. My death is its death, no?

Reconciliation after what happened with Johnny might be impossible, but surely it's worth a try. The artifact never seemed to like me in the first place, but at least it helped when it was needed, even if it tried to devour me just as often. Now, all that happens is that it sits there quietly, preparing, building, and waiting for something. For what? I have no idea. Maybe for a moment of weakness. One where it is sure I will lose, and it will win.

If anyone knows me best, it is undoubtedly the palm. We've been together 24/7 for months at this point. It knows my every move, my every emotion, and probably my every thought. It will surely be able to find a time when I am defenseless and take advantage of it.

That is, if I survive this. Maybe it would even want me to die in this dream. Perhaps if I am put to eternal slumber, it will be able to safely take me over, turning me into a full Wendigo. Who knows. I certainly won't ever find out the answer even if it succeeds, as I'd be dead.

So many questions do remain, however. Like how did Ma die if she was a persona of Aniwye? Would the Ether given not protect her, or maybe the Ether run out? Aniwye did say she'd come back to deliver more, but maybe she never did. Maybe something stopped her from doing so. Or maybe my father never showing up made her stop.

Ma did slowly grow more and more sluggish over the years, gradually losing her ability to do anything. Why am I still calling her Ma? I–I don't know. I can't help it. Even if she might not be my mother, she raised me. Even if she was harsh, brutal, and cruel underneath the facade, she is still my mother.

The memories of her love are just as powerful as the ones of hate. Her dabbing my head with cold rags when I was sick as a child with the flu. Her singing me lullabies to help me fall asleep. Her delicious cooking could pull me out of any slumber. Her… everything. These conflicting memories confuse me so profoundly that I don't even know what to believe.

Why? Why is all this happening to me? The one solid rock that I had throughout my whole life. The one person that was always there. The only person to ever love me. The memory of her has been shattered into a million pieces, yet I claw at the shards, cutting myself for every detail I grab.

Tears fall from my eyes, but they fall upward because of my weightlessness in the air.

Why did it have to be her? Why couldn't it have been my father who was the evil one, although it seems as though he might be in on this somehow? I don't even care if I slam into the rocks below. I just want to get this all over with. What point is there if my whole life has been a lie?

Just as my mind turns to despair and hopelessness, something happens in the dark. A deep, thunderous heartbeat that shakes me to the core resounds. It vibrates my whole body so hard that the entire world in this dream begins to shake. And after a short moment, this vibration breaks the dark with a burst of light, and instead of falling into the ravine below, the pulse pushes me to go flying forward straight ahead. I tumble through the air out of the gulch and onto the terrain nearby. I roll for dozens of feet painfully as I get scraped, cut, and bruised along the whole tumble, but I don't resist. What point is there?

Slowly I sit up underneath the soft light of Olijee, the first son, high in the night sky of this dream. In front of my eyes is a trembling Aniwye. Her chest is heaving with breaths so deep I can feel it from at least thirty feet away, and her massive cleaver is over a dozen feet away from her body.

The Ogre struggles to breathe as she collapses in front of an unmoving pair of leathery wings. A broken crystalline jar lays shattered on the grass as Aniwye holds the eyeball of Ewaki in her palm and a sizeable beating heart in her other. The heart reminds me of the one from within the Crossroads' crystal. Is that the one and the same? Probably not. It is a dream, after all. Aniwye might have been able to summon it somehow.

Simply out of morbid curiosity and nothing else, I ask her if she killed the Angel.

"Did you kill Ewaki?"

The Ogre shakes her head. A deep yet faltering voice comes from her chest as she tries to catch her breath.

"No. I only slayed the bit it put inside of you, little one. I'm sure my main body and it has either slain the other or have come to a temporary truce. The persona I left within you, this bundle of Ether, is rapidly decaying, though. That tramp was a hassle to put down, even for me, and I can't imagine the full one being much different. Had your mind not been on the battlefield, it would have been much easier, though."

I just nod dumbly at the Angel as I watch streams of blood fall from her body. When the crimson liquid from the demon hits the ground, the grass of the dream decays and shrivels rapidly. Apparently, her blood, even dreamlike, is enough to damage my dreams.

Slowly, the demon begins to fade, just as she mentioned. The pinkish-purple Ether that used to come from her with blinding intensity sprinkles out in poots of such magnitude that even I could copy.

Aniwye turns around as she does so, and of course, the Angel, who specialized in the mind, notices my mental state. She comments on it as her dreamlike body breaks into segments of Ether.

"I see you found out the truth. You were meant to learn much earlier, but that thing in your hand stopped the release of the information slowly. It was never meant to come all at once, for I believed it would destroy you. But you will persevere. You are a Struggler, after all, aren't you?"

I see for a single moment, the face of the Ogre turns… caring? No, that can't be it. Demons can't care for people. They only care for themselves and their own race. Nonetheless, her face makes the expression a mother would when leaving their child forever. The one Ma made on her deathbed. A splash of sadness, a handful of pride, and a mountain of hope.

"You will persevere. I did not truly make you, Wyatt, so I cannot claim the right to do so. But what I did do, was give you a gift no one else could. I gave you both a caring childhood that would act as a stone to keep you stable in any hurricane alongside a cruel one that has given you the instincts and drive to thrive in that hurricane."

After she finishes, I go to ask a question, one that I want to know the answer to more than anything else. I don't care what she did at this point. I just want to know one thing.

"Why?"