A voice, he realizes after focusing, after it comes closer and takes with it some of the pain. It's familiar, somehow. He must've heard it recently before. He can't open his eyes, but he knows the way it echoes from remnants in his brain, in his ether, and with herculean effort the source attempts to open them. Violet eyes slowly, slowly open to see the way that the orange thunder coming from his soul grows in intensity, and in that bright, bright flash of light he sees a shadow standing over him, shielding him, becoming engulfed by his own destructive force--
--and Zelos screams.
It only lasts about a second or two before he slaps his hands over his mouth, eyes wide and lost yet staring ahead. He's jumped into a sitting position, the knee-jerk reaction a reflection of him wanting to get as far away as possible from the dream, and his breathing comes in harsh, shallow breaths that he struggles to control. Zelos nearly chokes. Where is he? What the hell was that?
Breathe, just breathe. One, two. You can do it.
Slowly, then all at once, everything comes back.
His awakening, his driver, their memory share and their escape. Anna, her blade, Sheena's friend and their tentative plan to go see Mithos. The nap he took a few hours into his watch with Malos when he got bored. The port he'd opened in his sleep, the Aegis dreamspace open and apparently mixing with Sheena's restless dreams. Sloppy. Careless. Foolish. Zelos takes a deep breath. Holds it, exhales shakily, notices his own trembling. It wasn't real, he tells himself. It wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't real, but the leftover ache in his bones still keeps him half-anchored in the dream, that all-too-familiar feeling of his ether being pulled from his veins to power something horrible burned into his retinas from both the dream world and reality itself.
And then he remembers Sheena. Remembers her voice, her shielding him.
Remembers his ether destroying her.
Zelos lowers his head into his hands, groaning. He doesn't know why that feels as wrong as it does, why it hurts, but the feeling is intrusive and he wants it gone. Come on, wake up. Wake up, wake up. It's okay. It's alright. You're not in the cannon anymore, you're out, you're out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la6Kc7RAmWc hey
hears
a
sound
A voice, he realizes after focusing, after it comes closer and takes with it some of the pain. It's familiar, somehow. He must've heard it recently before. He can't open his eyes, but he knows the way it echoes from remnants in his brain, in his ether, and with herculean effort the source attempts to open them. Violet eyes slowly, slowly open to see the way that the orange thunder coming from his soul grows in intensity, and in that bright, bright flash of light he sees a shadow standing over him, shielding him, becoming engulfed by his own destructive force--
--and Zelos screams.
It only lasts about a second or two before he slaps his hands over his mouth, eyes wide and lost yet staring ahead. He's jumped into a sitting position, the knee-jerk reaction a reflection of him wanting to get as far away as possible from the dream, and his breathing comes in harsh, shallow breaths that he struggles to control. Zelos nearly chokes. Where is he? What the hell was that?
Breathe, just breathe. One, two. You can do it.
Slowly, then all at once, everything comes back.
His awakening, his driver, their memory share and their escape. Anna, her blade, Sheena's friend and their tentative plan to go see Mithos. The nap he took a few hours into his watch with Malos when he got bored. The port he'd opened in his sleep, the Aegis dreamspace open and apparently mixing with Sheena's restless dreams. Sloppy. Careless. Foolish. Zelos takes a deep breath. Holds it, exhales shakily, notices his own trembling. It wasn't real, he tells himself. It wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't real, but the leftover ache in his bones still keeps him half-anchored in the dream, that all-too-familiar feeling of his ether being pulled from his veins to power something horrible burned into his retinas from both the dream world and reality itself.
And then he remembers Sheena. Remembers her voice, her shielding him.
Remembers his ether destroying her.
Zelos lowers his head into his hands, groaning. He doesn't know why that feels as wrong as it does, why it hurts, but the feeling is intrusive and he wants it gone. Come on, wake up. Wake up, wake up. It's okay. It's alright. You're not in the cannon anymore, you're out, you're out.
It's okay.]