"Thanks, I appreciate your help. Your being here really makes things easier for me."
"Don't think too much of it, I'm happy to help anytime you need me, I know how difficult it can be, being in an unfamiliar place."
"Hmm?" Kael thought maybe there was more to that statement, but he chose not to pursue the matter.
They talked a bit more while Kael ate, mostly him asking questions, while Elara filled him in on random details.
Elara didn't stay long afterwards; she just gave him a reassuring look and a shoulder pat before leaving.
That left Kael alone again to ponder his situation.
He spotted a bathroom in the corner of the room, which was a surprise. He was even more surprised to find that the bathroom had a running hot shower.
He had half expected water to be another precious resource, hot water even more. But it looks that as not the case.
He got rid of his beast skin clothing and got into the shower.
The instant the warm water poured down onto his head, cascading down his shoulders, Kael's tense muscles began to unravel.
As though each droplet carried a gentle massage, coaxing tight fibers to loosen. He tilted his head back, allowing the stream to wash over his scalp, and down his neck.
The shower floor slowly got stained with the red-black color of his own blood and dirt that had caked around his body.
"Huuuuuu!!!" He grabbed a long drying towel hanging inside the shower. Stepping out of the cubicle, Kael let out a long sigh.
He found comfy sweatpants in the cupboard, put them on and they proceeded to lie on the bed, looking up.
It felt like every time he got a chance to breath, his thoughts would just run wander around.
"Why me?" he whispered to himself.
The bed was soft, too soft for his turbulent thoughts, but exhaustion had other plans.
The weight of the last few hours, hell, the last few centuries, which he knew nothing but darkness about, dragged him into sleep faster than he realized.
In his sleep, Kael had an incredibly vivid dream.
He was standing at the edge of a burning field.
Flames rippled across the horizon, but they were silent.
Smoke curled like serpents into a sky stained with crimson streaks.
The world felt wrong, distorted, and eerily fluid, like he was walking through a dream.
No, not walking. Floating.
A voice echoed, low, an eerie voice, layered with many tones."He returns… outside of time."
Kael turned.
Shapes loomed in the mist, too tall, too still.
They had no faces, just glowing symbols where their heads should be, rotating slowly in place.
One of them raised a hand, and the burning field froze instantly.
"The void remembers you," the voice whispered again. "Even if the world does not. The void adores you, remember, remember who you are..."
The ground beneath Kael's feet cracked open, and beneath it, darkness appeared. Swirling, endless darkness that felt like it wanted to devour him.
The darkness spread from the bottom up and started to swallow him whole. Kael began flailing to shake it off, but he couldn't.
The darkness was greedy; it wanted to devour his whole being.
An immense pressure built in his chest, his head, his soul.
Baddum!
The dream pulsed like a heartbeat.
And then—
Hisss!
Kael woke with a gasp, his body soaked in sweat, heart thundering.
He was back in the room.
Morning had barely broken, just the faint glow of warm sunlight bleeding through the window.
He sat up, breathing hard, his hands shaking, his whole frame was shaking.
"What… the hell was that?"
It hadn't felt like a regular dream. It was too real. Too heavy. The sensations had weight, presence, and intent.
It was as if something, or someone, had reached through the dream and touched him.
He stood and stumbled to the wall console. With no idea what he was doing, he tapped the screen until a simple interface lit up.
Time, temperature, and security notices. And a blinking message from Draven:
[Come to Sector 3-B by 0900 hrs. Registration required. Your ID strap has a map of the city for navigation, use it.]
Kael groaned, rubbing his temples.
"Yeah… great." He sent a message to Draven, [I'll be there].
It was still very early in the morning.
So he washed up, dressed in a basic grey uniform left in his closet, and went out to find what Elara was up to.
After spending half an hour roaming around the cohort's quarters and still unable to find her, he gave up and made his way to the building marked on his map earlier than the appointed time.
Outside the quarters, the city was already buzzing with early activity. He made his way through the residential complex until he reached the general administration area.
An officer was waiting on standby.
"Excuse me? I need to go to Sector 3-B." He approached the man calmly.
"Are you Kael?"
"Yes, I'm supposed to meet Draven at Sector 3-B."
"I'm aware, I was notified in advance, right this way."
He was led to a plain, grey building higher up the mountain, and through an elevator built into the mountainside.
It seemed to him that the large stronghold was built with emphasis on utilising the mountain while putting up various structures.
'I can't deny that it has a nice appeal to it. That makes it unique in its own way.'
The gaurd escorting him came to a stop in front of a wide door, Observation Lab was written over the door.
"This is where I'll leave you. Good luck." The man proceeded to leave.
"Hmmm," He stepped forward and the door slid sideways on its own, opening up into a dim lit passage of some sort, where he had to walk further down.
Kael stepped into a wide, circular chamber with scanners and glowing rings mounted on the walls. Elara was already there, leaning against a console with her arms crossed.
'No wonder I couldn't find her, she was here the whole time.' He thought.
Elara was dressed in the simple, light military gear that most people in Raventhorne wore today. Her long chestut hair tied back in a pontytails.
"You look better, did you sleep well?" she asked.
Kael hesitated."Not exactly. I had a… weird, unsettling dream."
Elara arched a brow."That vivid?"
"Yeah. Too vivid."
She frowned, looking like she wanted to say something, but just gestured to the center of the room.
"Draven's not here yet, but the techs will run your base scans. See if anything lights up."
"Lights up?"
"Just humor us. You were comatose for five hundred years and woke up like it was a nap. If there's anything off about your physiology, the Dream Circuit Resonance Scan should catch it."
Kael stood awkwardly in the circle as technicians activated the system. Lights flickered around him. Energy washed over his skin, cool and tingling at first, then growing warmer.
Then…
The console sparked.
An alarm chirped.
One of the technicians stood abruptly, eyes wide."Sir! Unusual spike, no ascended baseline, but the scan shows... resonance."
"Resonance?" Elara repeated, stepping forward. "How is that possible?"
Kael stood frozen."Uh… someone wanna explain what that means?"
The lead technician hesitated, then slowly turned toward them.
"It means… he doesn't have a Dream Core, but somehow… the dream energy is still responding to him. No, not what you think, it's essentially avoiding him like, like... It's afraid to enter his body...Or maybe, afraid of something inside his body."
"I have never seen anything like this. What could this mean?" The other technician, an older lady, spoke while standing over the console.
Elara's face went cold. Not angry, more like a strange mix of worry and disbelief. "That's not possible. No core, no circuits, no interaction. That's how it works. "
"Usually yes, but this sort of interaction, has never been seen before, and there's the question of whether this is a good or bad thing hanging over our heads, just the thoughts running through my head of what this could mean alone could shift the whole dynamic of how we approach things."
Kael, confused and alarmed, looked between them."What does that mean for me? Good or bad?"
The technician swallowed."We don't know. Yet. But… we've never seen anything like this. We will have to run a deeper scan on your body to see what could be causing this reaction."
Elara stared at Kael.
And this time, her smile was gone.