Chapter 13 – His Pain


    So he dreamed. Brandon couldn’t move. He couldn’t hardly breathe. He felt a great agony pounding at the base of his head, but all of this seemed so far away.


    So Brandon dreamed in that far off place just between sleep, unconsciousness, and death.


    Because he knew he was dying.


    Even in this foggy state of consciousness, his heart whispered to him what his mind couldn’t say. He was a goner. How much longer would it take? How long before the release was final? Or how long before he woke up and was forced to live underneath their thumb all over again?


    He didn’t know. So he dreamed.


    Strangely enough, dreaming was far too comfortable to him.


    Brandon actually dreamed often, every few days one would creep up and overtake him. But for him.....it was always the same dream. Always the same things. Always the same people. Always has the same outcome. Always the same nightmares.


    But this time, just before the predictable horror started Brandon saw something new.


    Eyes. Bright blue, slit, cat eyes, glaring at him first in anger, then in agony, pain. The eyes burned with condemnation. He had hurt this person. And so he had apologized, but now the eyes still glared, hunting him.


    Brandon screamed them away and suddenly. LIGHT.


    Like a slash of fire, it broke across his dreams, pulling him down into the nightmare that he had every few days on a tiresome loop. And as sad and crazy as it was this nightmare was the only thing that he had, that was his, that he always had, no matter what. A nightmare in a nightmare was his only calm. His only real comfort.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    And as fucked up as that was Brandon gave into the nightmare. Let it settle. Because he knew he couldn’t fight.


    The light of the sun, cutting into his eyes, blaring, the wind whipping. Rock all around. And the man standing opposite him.


    Brandon looked at the man standing before him. He was tall, slim, dressed strangely, and he had a head full of golden hair, almost long enough to reach his elbows. But for all the hair, this was a man, Brandon could tell, not only because he had had many years to analyze the recurring nightmare, but because his face was covered in paints and symbols that outlined his masculine nose, chin and forehead.


    And of all things to see in a dream....this man was holding a very large, very blood-covered sword in his large, and blood-covered hands.


    “Raise your weapon Brother...” The man said to him. He spoke to no one else, but this as always confused Brandon because he had no siblings. No family. But in this dream, every time he dreamed it this man called him Brother.


    “No Kail...” Brandon felt himself respond in the dream, he felt his lips moving, though he wasn’t sure he was even forming the words or were they being imposed on him?


    He looked down at his on hand where an equally long blade sat in his smaller emaciated grasp. This blade was also splattered with crimson blood, but Brandon couldn’t see any blood on his body anywhere else. He never could when he had this nightmare, leaving him to wonder where the blood came from.


    Among so many other things like; who exactly was Kail? Being one of the bigger ones.


    The man, Kail smiled sadly at his answer.


    And Brandon watched for the thousandth time as this man laughed and closed his eyes like he was in some great pain... And for the thousandth time the drama just cut off. The light blared across his sense like needles to his brain. Everything got thrown up, then down, then it vibrated.


    He felt the pain in his stomach. Spreading out like ice and fire, numbing and stinging all of him. Then there came the fall. He felt like someone was tearing him apart, chopping his soul into pieces and then stomping on every little bloody chunk until he was nothing.


    Then suddenly he was one again. The man, Kail was gone, the darkness was there, but there was no light, no blood, and no sound.


    Until a little while later the light cut back into his mind and it all began all over again.....


    It was nothing new. But the pain....the pain was always fresh for him.