Xell
Southwestern Mir, edge of the Fall
Swift flying swallows filtered through the bright blue sky and were deeply contrasted against the strong sun in the azure blue background. The apple of the sky’s eye. Within the scope of the blue sphere was parameter of hazy blue mountains. The very peaks topped with icing like white snow. Greenery and forest trees flourished the scenery. Plummeting to the trough of the mountains were endless streams waterfalls and meandering rivers. All glistening whilst flowing and refracting the sunlight into a spectrum of rainbow lights. All complimented by a light Autumn haze.
An orchestra of life was audibly met through chirping birds, scuttling rodents and buzzing insects. Either gathering food they may have needed before the upcoming winter. Or, migrating elsewhere to escape the harsh temperatures that would be forthcoming in the next few months.
Walking towards edge to take in this view, was a grey reptilian, pint sized Draconi. With a plume of blue hair and tribal like white stripes across his grey scales. His footsteps rustled through the long grass shoots. Until he came to a stop with a couple of final thumps on the ground. For any closer and he’d be stepping off the edge.
Not that he’d fall to his death. No. His wings couldn’t serve him the gift of flight. However, what they could do to compensate was to help him glide to a limited extent. He’d use opportunities like these to jump over larger ledges as he knew he had his wings to defy gravity to a degree.
He was dressed light today. A blue camouflage singlet, combat trousers and a belt with a dagger in one of the slings. He had the bear minimum essentials to help him survive in this beautiful, but mystical and at times, foreboding forest.
He had been venturing through the forest for a long time now. For as long as he could remember. Despite having a destination unknown as of yet, it didn’t matter. The simple life in the outdoor world was all he sought and wanted to maintain. To break away from those habits.
It wasn’t very much to ask for, after all, was it?
Standing for a moment to take it all in, he still couldn’t help but scrutinise the view. A times, he questioned whether it was all real. Or whether it was a dream.
Or an illusion.
And then it happened again. His thoughts, drifting to that place again he promised himself he wouldn’t visit.
Why was he doing it AGAIN?
“Gah…” he winced as his whole body started to feel doused in wooziness.
His bright blue eyes suddenly had a red tint bleeding out the former harmonious colour.
Something that happened, every time his thoughts lurked to that dark place.
His head felt like lead and weighed on his shoulders so hard, he found himself buckling down to his knees. His femur bones felt friable and were obsolete in supporting his weight.
All energy was drained from him as he found the rest of his torso capsizing to the ground. Lying flat on his face as he found his mental state institutionalised elsewhere.
_________________________________________________________________
Light sleep
War. A memory that continues to filter your memories with nothing but a sense of void and emptiness. Like an overcast of heavy clouds oppressed with a plethora of shades of grey.
Or a filter lens over your eyes that stopped you from feeling the natural brightness or warmth of natural sunlight. Try as you might to take in the life of another day, somehow the soul couldn’t reach or appreciate it after such hard times. It was too tightly shackled and bound to memories of the past.
Win or lose, there was never any coming back from the scars that etched your soul and following you like a depressing plume of smoke. Not after the journey he had been through.
Xell felt like he had been to hell and back. Quite literally. Somehow, memories of trials he had been through were there.
Memories of people he had left behind. Wide eyed, helpless victims imploring for help before they fell to flames.
But only very small remnants of these memories would be recalled in the waking life. He had tried many times to consciously remember what they were. Never getting any closer to any answers no matter how hard he tried to delve into his own subconscious mind in deep thought. Like grasping at straws.
Instead, his own nightmares would come and haunt him of his distorted past. With sparing snippets of what he suspected may have been true events. However, they never lent any purpose other than to serve as a taunt or a reminder that there was still a weight on his shoulders.
Perhaps even unfinished business.
There was one part of his past he could clearly remember. A war, a battle, a bad decision, the death of many. Dear to him. Too fast and too cruel.
____________________________________________________________________________
NREM
The scene that materialised was an almost colourless and bleak scene which was suffocated with dense smog and mist.
Caterpillars of trench warfare, with scattered barbed wire and used artillery rummaged the wastelands of this warzone. What was most pronounced in the bleak battlefield were the hundreds of decapitated bodies, that were sprawled across the ground, practically drowning in dirt and their own blood.
Yet the mêlée persisted with continuous gunshots, grenade fires and the odd mine trap that would explode and blow its victim to pieces- a painful cry occurring nanoseconds before being drowned out by the explosion.
Amidst this crimson zest, besmeared with chronic ill stood a lone grey reptilian soldier behind a grenade launcher. Aiming to attack frontline enemy soldiers from a distant range. The lone soldier was Xell Rhinestone.
“Krrrrrrch- mayday mayday. Our battalion has been reduced severely. Krrrrrchhh. Status reports indicate of 1000 men, 800 have deceased, 80 lie in critical condition with a life expectancy of less than 24 hours. And 20 still stand. Back up is obsolete and medical teams are overwhelmed with casualties… will the remaining survivors retreat immediately… krrrch…”
The blood-stained and muddied radio resonated in a crackling fashion, earning but a slow and morbid look from Xell, before he turned back to look through the target area for any approaching enemies.
“Krrrrch… Sergeant Rhinestone… RHINESTONE… krrrrchhhh… did you withdraw your troops like we commanded you to do so…? Krrchhhhhhh…”
It was then that the raspy radio sounds began to grate on Xell’s sanity, drawing yet another morbid turn of his head and bleak, defeated expression. If one where to stare at the façade that overlay his feelings, one might find overwhelming depths of guilt between his eyes.
“Rhinestone… RHINESTONE…. Arrrrrrghhhhhh…. Krcccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…..”
Xell switched off the radio immediately, his wincing expression with heavily shut eyes holding back an almost overwhelming and deep pain. A break down…
______________________________________
REM
He wondered how their families were holding up after that bad decision. What would’ve happened if he had made a slightly different call. He wondered if they even knew they all died.
Because of him.
Back then, he wanted to run away from it. The idea that one irreversible mistake had cost him everything and bestowed death and ill onto hundreds, if not, thousands of others made it impossible for him to move on.
In the end, at some point, it seemed he didn’t have to run anymore.
As the nightmarish war scenes fled away like an industrial smog, Xell finally found himself in a coherent scene. A conversely still setting. Opening his eyes to a saturated greyscale scene around him, he could see himself standing. Standing on a platform which was out on a stage. Almost as if he was looking back at an audience. Except none of the seats were filled at this point.
An assembly of linear chairs were decked out from row to row on an inclined plane. Some more faded glory luxurious seats boasted from heights above framed by faintly tinted crimson curtains. Tatty and dusty.
Nothing but void air and filtered dust looming above the deadbeat, worn looking seats with patches of foam seeping through the perforated materials. A theatre that looked in dire need of maintenance which one could possibly even deduce as abandoned.
The only life that could be heard whatsoever was white noise resonating from an organic air vent several feet above his head.
“Great audience we have tonight.”
Xell’s ear twitched as he heard a voice next to him from a dark figure that was just roughly 5 metres from where he was sitting. A monotoned, wooden voice that was borderline irritating. Almost like one belonging to a therapist who was judging their subject incredulously.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Xell’s eyes meandered peripherally to the unknown entity before turning back to look at the empty audience.
“Where else would I be?” the voice replied curiously.
“Hmm,” Xell lightly shrugged his shoulders lightly. His crimson tinted eye once again swooping towards the figure standing in the same vicinity as him. A shadowy figure just obscure of the ghostly stage light.
“Am I supposed to talk to you?” the Draconi blinked morbidly, still staring out to the distance.
There was a moment of silence. The silhouette shadow of the organic fan could be seen turning against the dim lighting on the stage.
“It seems you don’t want to talk to me.” The tall figure replied “maybe you’ll be more in the mood next time.”
Silence draped the scene again. Xell shrugging his shoulders lightly as his apathetic eyes continued to take in the ominous surroundings.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The conscious world
The whole ground shook as the vibrations through the cliff platform defibrillated Xell’s body back to life. A thunderous bang cutting the atmosphere like a knife that sent screeching birds catapulting through the skies.
“What the…” adrenaline hitting his body hard which jolted him up to a stand. Except, being near a cliff top, he almost lost his balance.
“Wow…!” he cried out impatiently and flailed his arms, before managing to calm down and narrowly missed tumbling off the cliff. Sticks, stones and leaves skidding off the edge from his uneasy feet. The diving view making him feel somewhat dizzy.
It didn’t help that he had had another episode.
He rubbed his eyes, which by now had resumed to their former harmonious blue colour, and looked down upon the destination of what may have caused that quake.
A mushroom of smoke started to dissipate into the air. Grey and black all slicked up into a sickly emission.
He recognised where it was all coming from. An end of the Forest he was forewarned about visiting at all. A sinister, foreboding and almost extra-terrestrial part of the planet that not many had explored much for reasons unknown to him.
A place known as ‘The Fall’.
He glanced down at his hands and noticed he was shaking. A cold sweat starting to condense upon his forehead which dripped uncomfortably across his brows.
He knew what he needed to get to get through the night.
If it was a vehicle that had crash landed, maybe he could find a supply before it would blow up in flames.
There was only one way to find out. To trade in his life for it, at this point, he felt he had no choice as to what dangers may implicate his life. His surreal alter ego life was just becoming overbearing, to say the least.
After chanting the directions and a small action plan under his breath to reach the area in question, Xell turned on his hindlegs and started to make his way towards the plane crash.
