Night Terrors
When Malakai opened his eyes, it was to blackness. Silvery wisps of fog trailed before his nose, cold as death to the touch and seeping his warmth from his still body as they passed.
As he jolted up, two things came to his attention. The void he was in spread in every direction as far as he could see, endless and gaping and raw in a way that the vernid had never seen the likes of, besides when he'd lost the right in his right eye, and even then, this blackness was somehow... deeper. Secondly, that his body was not his own. It felt odd - weightless in a way that his cybernetics would not allow him to be.
It dawned on him that this may be a dream when he glanced down and saw he was sitting on the darkness as well, somehow. Ripples of water-like substance trailed away from his finger tips as he lent on his hands, only visible by their impossible reflection of whiteness that came from a light source he could not identify. A dream is the only thing that made sense, unless... he was somehow in another reality, but that made even less sense.
Shakily, he stood on legs that felt like someone else's and he let out a breath, the warm air condensation and turning into the strange fog that surrounded him, the only other occupant in this enormous space besides him. It made him anxious.
All of a sudden, he was blinded by a white light that appeared out of nowhere and encompassed the entire area, like some unseen being had flipped on a light switch he was unable to comprehend was even there in the first place. When he dared to reopen his eyes, shielding them with his hands, he was greated with an odd sequence of images, watching them, and sometimes himself, with a distant third party perspective.
Fidelia accepting his gift.
Another, of a gentle smile on her face as tears rolled down her cheeks, grasping at his hand as his other self sat opposite her, looking equally as emotional.
A small white and brown speckled egg rolling in and out of the lakes gentle waves, stuck in a shallow rock pool, cold as ice to the touch as his other self panicked and picked it up, running off to the side.
A first person vision of his own bruised and scratched palms, holding the one of the tinest of wooden prosthetics he'd ever seen, before his perspective shifted to be looking up at Fidelia, holding an identical hand to the one he held, and explaining how she'd carved it to look perfect for an 'Aiko'.
A gentle, wispy, childlike voice chattering joyfully in his head as a spirit flashed before his eyes, pure white and glowing with an innocence that nearly brought a tear to his eye. The name 'Aiko' flared in his chest and settled there like a warm, familiar weight.
As he came out of the visions, he stumbled back onto the watery floor and held his aching head, the oddly fuzzy and warm feeling still heavy in his chest, before it was replaced with a sense of dread so strong it took the breath from him.
The new visions were straight forward and much darker. Gone was the warm light, replaced instead with a muggy, harsh likeness. Under the smog he could just make out the bright spirit, curling and swimming in the air in a way that almost reminded him of Vita, if it wasn't for the five limbs he saw, and the fur. Something dark struck the bright light from the sky, turned it red as winter sunset, its dying shriek in his ears.
He was shot to a first person perspective, as the spirit continued its cries, melding with anothers that he soon recognised to be... Rivia's? Grims...?
His thoughts vanished as he looked up away from the grey-tone forest around him to focus on a large horned shape. It was bathed in shadow, red eyes peering from under its hood. It was as tall and as terrifying as an old forest god of legend, and it raised its mighty sword above its head, and struck him.
Just before the sword pierced his prone form, he wrenched himself up out of his bed in such a panick as he suddenly awoke, he fell flat out of his bed in a crumpled, agony strewn heap. He gasped, kicked and shoved himself as far from his bed as he could, ending up half ramming himself under his work bench.
He froze, terrified as the tendrils of his dream... his vision...? Clung to his fur and his thoughts like a sticky, corrosive mud he couldn't brush away to matter how hard he batted at his arms and his chest. He spat on the floor, only to realize seconds later the mistake he made.
The only danger in his cramped caravan, he learned, was himself. Venom was trailing from his mouth in acidic rivulets, scorching the floor panels. As the roaring of his blood started to slowly fade from his ears, he became aware, too, of the frantic hammering on the roof, and Grim's muffled robotic yells.
He swallowed thickly, and, heart finally starting to go back to its regular, painful rhythm, he pulled himself slowly out from under his bench and on wobbly legs, he made his way out of his caravan, half stumbling, only for Monti to catch him with his head, startling him.
Looking around the outside of his caravan, he saw that all his dragons were there. He gripped onto Monti's fangs, hugging his muzzle as he was gently lifted, righting him on the ground once again. Once he found his feet, he looked around properly, patting Monti's head as he slowly raised himself up to his usual height once more.
Grim was standing on the roof of his caravan, his limbs full of nervous tension and his wings out beside him, his lights all on and casting a jackolantern-like shadow on the surrounding trees from the fact his mouth was closed. Rivia was on him in an instant of being stood back up, roughly rubbing her face into his chest, before she sat back on her haunches and flat out hugged him with her bear-like foreams. Monti was behind him, but that was all he could really tell while shoved into Rivia's warm, reptilian chest.
"What happened?" his own voice echoed towards his ears, tinny and spliced from Grim's recording. His head was still buzzing and he felt both full of energy and exhausted. He was... grateful that Grim had decided to speak outloud rather then in his head. "You went all fucking weird and started screaming!"
Malakai rubbed at his sore throat. He was screaming...?
"I'm... sorry..." he finally replied after a good three seconds of trying to gather his thoughts.
Monti let out a soft sigh and relaxed. Grim and Rivia did not.
"We're going to give you about five minutes... after that, you need to tell us what happened," Monti said
Malakai nodded.