The X Guide

Ayen’s hair was longer than it had been three months ago, and he had not trimmed it once, so it now went past his shoulders. It was also smooth and thick enough that Devion and Khal loved to comb and stroke it, and so no one thought of cutting it.

Ayen had just let Devion do whatever he wanted with his hair, and now even braiding it. Khal’s voice was like a lullaby as he leaned against his chest.

The three seemed to have really forgotten what they came there for, and since the guides were not showing themselves yet, they decided to talk about something else.

This did not feel like wasting time either. They were together, so it did not matter at all.

"I haven’t told you two yet." Ayen’s voice was low, just whispering to the two of them.

He heard the two hum, and another hand stroked his hair. Devion hissed, and Khal let out a laugh. Ayen felt his chest move because of it.

"I had a dream last night." Ayen could not see their expression, but he knew they were listening to him attentively. "It didn’t look like a simple dream. It felt so vivid, and so I felt like telling you both. even if it turned out to be just a dream in the end."

"What is it?" Khal gently asked. Devion hummed slightly; his fingers in Ayen’s hair did not stop.

"I found myself standing on the edge of a rooftop..."

Ayen began recounting his dream from start to finish. He saw the chaotic city below and how a dark cloud hung over the city, which he found incredibly repulsive.

With precedent, Ayen was more or less certain it was a curse manifestation, so he had that aversion and disgust to it.

"Something within me urges me to do something... to purify it or kill it. It wanted me to step forward. But I’m on the edge of the rooftop; I’ll fall if I move a single step."

Ayen told them that since he was also cautious, he decided to remain where he was and wait until he naturally woke up.

"You did the right thing," Devion chimed after Ayen finished, his hands now beginning to untangle the braid to do it again.

Khal also nodded. His voice had a tone of relief in it.

"It might really not be a simple dream."

"I thought so too. Is it a subconscious warning?" Devion paused what he was doing and put his two cents in the conversation.

"Subconscious warning?" Ayen pulled away from Khal’s chest and turned to Devion.

"It’s a rare phenomenon where your subconscious warns you of an incident related to you," Devion answered. Actually, this was rare, and some might not interpret them in time.

Some would disregard dreams as just dreams, and so, the cases recorded were not many. Unlike premonitions, these dreams were harder to decipher and were somehow just a trigger from an incident that was related to the dreamer.

"Related to me? How?" Ayen could not help but ask. Since, how could it be related to him? Or... The city was not the one related to him, but the curse?

"It’s possible." Khal, who was lost in thought, finally spoke again and agreed with Devion’s assumption. "We don’t know if the incident in your dream already happened or might happen."

The two nodded at him.

"Can you tell us what you see in the chaos below? Anything?" Without clues, they could not deduce. "Buildings, or the state?"

From here, they could start to know from which place it was. Devion had passed, braiding Ayen’s hair and concentrating on the conversation.

Ayen paused and thought for a moment. He tried to remember his dream. It was vivid, so he could still remember most of it.

the buildings? Ayen immersed himself in his memory for a moment, the two espers not disturbing him as they fell silent. Ayen tried to recreate what happened in the dream.

He was standing in what he assumed was the tallest building in the city, since he could overlook everything from there. There were both advantages and disadvantages to this.

The advantage was that he could see a lot more of what was happening in the city when he scanned his eyes around. However, the situation below was unclear.

Ayen’s eyesight was not bad, but seeing that far clearly was not ideal unless he had an ability regarding enhanced vision. Still, he tried to deduce something that was happening below.

Where he was was probably the institute building. It was mostly the tallest building in any and every zone city, like the standard landmark.

From the layout and the state of the buildings. It must be a yellow zone with a considerable population. Ayen could not tell where it was from just by this observation, and he had not truly looked around much in the dream.

Without a basis, Ayen could not just magically look through that particular memory. This was enough, at least. His mind went through the chaos below him; Ayen had also only swept his eyes on them that time.

A lot of people were running from something... Ayen furrowed his brows. From what he could recall, since he got curious, Ayen did not see any monsters.

Who were they running from? Ayen recreated the scene in his mind and observed. The people were scrambling to run, and... right. There were people walking behind them. These people were calmly walking and did not seem as urgent as the people running ahead of them.

Ayen noticed it at first, before, and how peculiar it was, but his attention was caught by the dark cloud.

He did not know why that was the case... Wait. Ayen recalled the scene again. The people are running away, and the people behind are following leisurely.

Why?

There were no monsters in sight. Why were they scrambling to escape? It was not just one street either; it was like the whole city was in chaos.

Ayen thought for a moment, and he had the unbelievable conclusion, though he was confused.

If those people were not running from the monsters, could it be that they were running from the people walking calmly behind them? Ayen could not understand.