Let it be a dream

Let it be a dream
Avaris stood in the center of his own undoing.

It wasn’t a dream.

It was something worse.

Memory and decay were stitching the world around him together, and the seams were coming loose. At first, he was immobile and unable to breathe.

He felt the silence grip his throat. The wind had stopped. No scent. No sense of gravity. Nothing but silence. It was as though time had stopped for a cruel or holy purpose.

He blinked.

And then, it began.

A dinner table formed around him, not like it had once been, but as if it had been remembered by someone who hated it.

The silverware was rusted, the plates were chipped, and the length was excessively white. His mother smiled at him with eyes that didn’t belong to her. On the other side of her, his father sat motionless.

His brother's seat was empty; in fact, he was whispering his name while curled up beneath the table like a dying animal. The food had an iron-like smell. There was no warmth. The only sound was the scratching of porcelain by knives.

Avaris didn’t eat.

Suddenly, ash fell from the ceiling and stuck to his skin like guilt.

He made a turn.

And now he was in the graveyard.

He saw unmarked stones. Rain that did not fall but instead hung in the atmosphere. He knelt, digging with bare hands, again and again, looking for something he was never brave enough to bury properly.

His fingers discovered his own name engraved in the dirt, along with bone, a locket, and a piece of silk.

He screamed but no sound came out.

Instead, the world twisted again.

Now he found himself in a golden, hideous ballroom. Everyone was giggling, with each mask turned toward him, as it was the Grand Dukedom's masquerade. They danced in circles while their limbs moved like puppets and they toasted with poison.

He was dressed in what felt like shackles. He grinned too broadly... it was surprisingly strange.

This wasn’t a memory.

It was punishment.

He wanted to leave, but then his eyes found him. Standing there, his arms crossed and a strange smile on his lips.

Dyvian.

With his arms folded and his eyes burning, he leaned against the distant wall.

Gods, that face.

Avaris nearly collapsed.

Although the demon remained motionless, his presence was like fire in a frozen environment. The warmth Avaris had denied himself for too long. Their evenings spent together were more than just recollections; they were actual, living, and reverberated in his chest like a second heartbeat.

Avaris tried to run to him.

But the floor was made of mirrors. They shattered beneath every step. Reflections of himself, younger, weaker, and more alone, caused him to cut his feet. Each version whispered something he didn’t want to hear.

“I miss you,” Avaris breathed.

“I always do.”

He nearly made it to Dyvian.

Then the world collapsed like a dying star.

Now, it was darkness again.

But it was strangely familiar. Perhaps he had visited this place before, either in dreams or in the pauses between breaths.

The sky above was vast, black, veined with crimson like a wound that hadn’t healed right. The air was heavy and charged.

His back hurt like it was on fire.

Avaris felt something strange curling up from inside him and suddenly, fear overcame him when he saw wings appearing on his back.

There is nothing sacred about the wings.

He stumbled forward, and they followed. They looked monstrous, otherworldly, and somehow beautiful in their brokenness.

The feathers shimmered like oil on water, like embers that refused to die. It appeared to be burned through and cracked at the edges, as though they had been attempted to be eaten by an old fire but failed.

Avaris wasn’t flying even though he had wings now. He was falling instead.

But slowly. Almost like the world wanted to watch.

Darkness oozed into shape around him.

First came his mother, with a knife-like piercing smile.
“You traded us for love. Or was it power? "I forget," she sobbed, as if betrayal were merely rumors.

Then there was Xaren, sitting like a god on a throne composed of all the regrets that Avaris had ever attempted to bury. “You always did like to pretend you weren’t one of us.”

Then there was even Crown Prince Theodore, standing tall and menacing, with his sword out and a crown on his head. "To keep your heart warm, you allowed the world to burn."

However, Dyvian was the one who undid him.

He was standing on the precipice of a seemingly endless cliff with a pitch-black sky devoid of stars. His expression was unreadable, his eyes were dimmed, and his wings were folded in.

Avaris took a step forward.

“Say something,” he whispered.

But he heard nothing.

And that silence, from him, cut deeper than any blade.

“Please,” Avaris said, his voice cracking like old glass. “I’m tired. I’m tired of being broken in so many shapes that even love can’t hold me together.”

Still, Dyvian turned away. At that moment, Avaris felt tears gathering in his eyes and his body moving against his will towards the cliff.

And then, Avaris fell. But it wasn't just through air.

It was through grief.

Through everything he’d ever given up to survive.

...

He gasped, a sound too harsh for breathing.

Like a man ripped out of death before he was ready.

A sharp pain tore through his chest. His limbs resisted being controlled. He was drenched. With sweat. With tears.

But someone was carrying him.

Running.

He could feel the heat of a heartbeat against his cheek, the feel of hard leather, and armor.

“…Dyvian,” he croaked, too weak to believe.

But it wasn’t.

It didn’t feel like him.

This rhythm, this smell, it was more measured and cold.

He forced his eyes open. His Vision blurred, but the outline was familiar.

Broad shoulders. A body built for war.

But it wasn’t Dyvian.

It was Crown Prince Theodore.

And even now, after all of it, fate found a new way to twist the knife.And as the world faded again, just before the dark took him, he thought:

Please… let it be a dream. Or let me never wake up.