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Ever since I woke up from that slumber, I had been getting the same dream over and over.
No.
Saying these dreams didn’t change would be an understatement. They would, ever slightly, change a bit. Or maybe it continued. I didn’t really know. From one point to the next, what wasn’t shown before in my dream appeared in the next one. Waking up signified the end of one section, and the next sleep I had would begin from where I had left off. It was like an autosave in video games. I had never played them, but if I had to guess, the feeling I got from this could be, presumably, compared to that of an autosave.
However, at the same time, I had my own suspicion. These dreams, or what I called dreams for now, felt too real for merely… dreams. Whenever I woke up from my sleep, I could feel a piece of a puzzle filling a giant hole in my head. Sometimes a dream would give me two pieces. They were like recollections, trying to place themselves within something I had… forgotten.
Again, whether they were dreams or the memories I had from my previous being, I knew for a fact they were important. And I remembered them. To the tiniest detail, I could remember them similar to an old black and white film roll that had to be restarted from time to time.
My first dream was an encounter with a woman that had a long white hair. It looked lustrous. Each strand gave that sense of an elegance that no other people could replicate. Yes, they were too elegant and graceful. Her presence commanded the air, showing the difference she had with other humans. Yes, as if she wasn’t a human herself…
What would be my regret was that I couldn’t remember her face. I didn’t even know whether my dream showed me that. Not even with my second, third, or the future dreams I would be having. It was a pitch dark puzzle piece that I couldn’t make sense of. At the same time, this dream would be the first one that introduced me to the word “sinner”.
Then my second dream happened one day after the previous one. It was still the same woman. I was there with her, standing side by side on top of a skyscraper. The wind blew her hair, making every strand waved beautifully to the sky.
“What would you do if the world ended now?” she said. Her voice was warm and gentle. It made me feel some kind of nostalgia, but to what? Until now, it was still a question I couldn’t answer.
I answered her, but weirdly enough, my own voice didn’t reach my ears. Something blocked my ears, or maybe this dream of mine rejected my will to know and understand. I clearly saw my lips moving. Still, no voice was ever heard. Silence was the only thing I received, at least until she began to say something else.
“That sounds just like you.” She let out a small laugh. A chuckle. The black mist hiding her face faded a bit until I could see her rose-colored lips. Then again, that was the only thing my eyes caught. “Well, if you ever find yourself in a difficult situation, think of me. I would reach my hand for you. That’s a promise.”
She walked a few steps, getting nearer to the edge of the building. Although it was in my head, I knew the building wasn’t a short one. But she still stood there, not caring if a strong wind would ever blow her away. No. She was able to stand there without flinching because she knew she was tougher than a mere blowing wind.
“Until then, goodbye.”
Then she vanished into the thin air, marking the end of my second dream.
Beginning with that, she had never appeared in my dream even once. Not knowing her name and even her face, not to mention the relationship between us, I was lost. Similar to walking on a path deep within a ruin, I didn’t know whether the questions I had in my head would ever be answered.
I kept hoping that the next dream I had would include her. At this point, I just needed an answer. Why I had been having these dreams? Were they my actual memories? Who was she? I woke up not knowing who I was, and there was a part within me that believed she held the answer to these questions.
Alas, that hope had never come into a fruition.
Instead, I met with new people in my future dreams. Again, I didn’t know them. Their faces, similar to that woman, were blurred by this faint aurora, not giving me a chance to get a glimpse of who they were. Even then, they also gave me this sense of nostalgia that I couldn’t grasp.
I remembered I was playing a chess with a certain lady. Her movement on the black and white board was ferocious. Making a counter for every step I made seemed to be an easy task for her. In the end, I had never won a single game. There were times when I got close, but maybe that was only an assumption in my head to save me from being too embarrassed.
“******, You really don’t get it, do you?” she asked. She leaned on that beautiful, comfortable chair of hers. There was no doubt she said something there, but then again, blurry noises were all I could pay attention to.
In another instance, I was sitting in a passenger seat. A young man, presumably quite rebellious from the way he had a blonde spiky hair, was on the wheel. He was quite skilled in driving for his age, avoiding traffic and other cars while still maintaining his speed. A hat covered the top of his head, not saying that I could see his face either way.
“*** ** and **** have been waiting for you for these past few months,” he said. He rotated the steering wheel to his left before the car followed the direction. “They can’t wait to mess you up. Don’t know if that’s good or not.”
Two other names I couldn’t hear. They were blanked out words that my ears weren’t able to figure out.
“*** ** still wants you to join her group, you know? She couldn’t stop pestering me about it.” The young man sighed, but it didn’t sound like he was annoyed at all. “So you had better come up with an answer soon. I don’t think my ears can hold it back anymore before they burst out. Spare me, okay?”
He accelerated the car, startling me, who was leaning back on the seat. I thought we were going too fast when I realized there was not a single car on the road. They had been there, but right now, they disappeared from my sight. Rather, a giant tunnel engulfed by darkness blocked our way. I couldn’t explain how frightened I was, thinking that we would crash into it and broke into small pieces. There was no way for me to stop the driver, so I was just bracing for the impact.
However, instead of losing consciousness**,** we went through the tunnel and appeared on the other side. No, “we” wouldn’t be the correct word. The young man wasn’t with me. I was alone, standing on what could be called a ruin of what had been a large, dense-populated city. Buildings were falling down, and some of the flames were still raging, increasing its fury in every direction based on where the wind led them. Broken cars were parked everywhere. They didn’t have doors. Their windows were shattered. No trees or other green lives were visible to my eyes. The blue sky was no longer there, only black clouds dyes in red blood that would make everyone seeing it cower in fear.
It was the scene out of a nightmare. Out of a hell. Saying that it was a catastrophe would be an understatement.
What happened? Was it a war? Or was it a natural disaster that made all of this happen?
More than that, why was my dream showing me this sight? Although I knew it must be important, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t recall any of this. It made me question my origin again, something that would probably never come out to the light.
As I walked farther on this no-man's-land, a white silhouette was nearing me from the front. It marched toward me. I stopped on my track, witnessing this certain figure walking closer with every step. Once it entered my line of sight, I saw what it was.
A little girl. A white fabric that couldn’t be called a cloth covered her upper body part while her legs were victims exposed to the intoxicating air surrounding us. Weirdly enough, I could see her face. She was different from the other people I had seen so far. And yet, it didn’t surprise me until I saw her eyes.
Her eyes were pale. I thought she was looking at me, but it would be more accurate to say that her eyes, coincidentally, stopped moving while they were facing toward me. The ember of life in her eyes had diminished into two blank stares. They were lifeless.
And for some reason, she still moved. She still walked, wandering aimlessly without someone to guide. A walking corpse amidst such an awful disaster. What could have happened?
I had no time to question myself again, though. The world around me suddenly crumbled away. The dusts were accumulating, bringing me a sense of terror that I had never felt before. The girl disappeared, and at the same time, my vision became blurry bit by bit.
“—ef.”
As I opened my eyes, a girl was looking down at me. I could see her face. An eyepatch was covering one of her eyes, and that light gray-ish blue hair fell onto me.
“Chief, finally you wake up,” she said. Hecate’s voice was soft, like usual.
“D-did something happen?” I responded to her words with a question. Since I could hear my own voice now, it would be good enough for me to think that this was the real world.
“You were screaming and sweating in your sleep. I thought you were having a nightmare.”
Hecate had little emotions in her voice. But I knew for a fact that this girl was a kind one. Her words were full of concern, comforting me like a soothing lullaby. I was afraid that I had been using her kindness for my gain. As the time went on, though, I knew I could trust her.
“Hecate, I want to ask you something.”
Hecate was still standing beside me. “What is your question, Chief?” She didn’t miss any beat.
“Who do you think I am?”
There was a brief silence after I asked her that.
“You’re chief. The person whom I serve,” Hecate said. She didn’t waver when she said that. The answer was already with her even before I asked.
“Even though I don’t even know myself? Can you still call me your chief? Do you still believe me?”
“I do, Chief.” Hecate locked her eyes with mine. If she looked at me with those clear eyes, clear of any malice and doubt, how could I suspect here anymore than this? “I don’t know what kind of nightmare you had. But I will be beside you forever, so please rely on me… no, rely on us whenever you please.”
Right after her words ended, a shorter girl entered the room. An adorable white cap protected her head and the silver-ish hair waving behind her.
“Hecate, I brought the cookies and—” She didn’t finish her sentence when her eyes met with mine. “Y-you already woke up?!”
“Good morning, Hella,” I greeted her. Faint red strokes appeared on both of her cheeks.
“Hella brought you some cookies and milk, Chief. She thought it would help you calm down a bit,” Hecate said. Wasn’t that a bit cruel? Hella only got more embarrassed when you said it like that.
“T-this isn’t for you!” Hella kept her attitude. But after a few seconds, and by that I meant three seconds, her mood shifted quite a lot, or maybe it was her true emotion. Either way, she offered the food and drink she had brought with her. “Well, I guess it won’t hurt to share some of these!”
“Thank you,” I said. Seeing her acting like that, I couldn’t hide my smile.
“Hmpph!”
I ate the cookies and used the warm milk to wash down my throat. They tasted nothing unusual, but I didn’t know what it was. They were more delicious than the usual. No matter how Hella tried to act with a hostility toward me, I couldn’t ignore her attention to me.
Hecate’s words were very soothing. She pushed me on the back with her voice. And Hella gave me such warmth with these cookies and milk. I could feel her care and attention on my entire body.
“I… I really glad to have you two.”
Those words just came out of my mouth without me noticing it. Hecate widened her eyes, and Hella’s face just became a tomato. I laughed at it.
“Thank you, Chief. That makes me happy.”
“J-just shut up!”
Maybe I didn’t know my origin. I didn’t even know the past that I had. But these two people made me realize that it wasn’t a big deal. As long as I could thrive forward, then nothing else mattered. It was the future that I had to pay attention to.
“Let’s go, both of you. We are going outside.”
“Yes, Chief!”