Dissolution by Kyle West

Author:Kyle West [West, Kyle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-10-21T22:00:00+00:00

* * *

In my trance, the tree slipped away, and the Wanderer was gone. I found myself floating as one floats from one dream to another.

Alex . . . can you hear me?

There was no response.

Alex . . . I need you. We need you.

Suddenly, I opened my eyes and found myself on a wide, desert plain. The sun beat fiercely down on my brow. I raised a hand to my eyes to shield them from the sun.

Ahead, materializing from the shimmering heat, a figure walked toward me.

I walked toward the figure, too, and then ran ahead to catch it, but as I got closer, the figure bled into the surrounding desert. It was just a mirage of my own imagining.

“Alex?” I called.

“Alex isn’t here.”

I turned to see no one other than Isaru. I reached for my blade, but found that it wasn’t there.

He smiled knowingly. “You won’t need that here. In this place, I can’t harm you.”

“You’re real,” I said. “Right?”

“I’m a preserved memory of myself,” he said. “Isaru before he was possessed by Rakhim. I entered the Xenofold through the connection you forged to the Hyperfold, from when you entered it for the first time. I’ve been here ever since.” He squinted at something in the distance behind me. “Let’s find some shade. I have a feeling we have a lot to discuss.”

Confused, I followed him, wondering if all this was even real or merely a vision. This preservation of Isaru had been here the entire time? I had nothing but questions as we walked, the desert heat baking my skin. We entered the shade of a nearby mesa, where we sat on some rocks.

“So, you’re really Isaru,” I said.

“Yes. I don’t know what happened after the Hyperfold. After . . .” He shuddered. “I don’t want to think of what it felt like, when my body was stolen from me.”

“Then don’t,” I said. I was having trouble thinking of him as real, and was wary of any sort of trick. Yet I wanted to believe that this was Isaru, the same one I’d journeyed with to Hyperborea all those months ago.

“You’ve come from the outside,” Isaru said. “I figured you would, someday, either of your own will, or because you’ve . . . well, died.”

I shook my head fiercely. “No, I’m not dead.”

“Then you’ve come for a reason,” Isaru said. “To find me, perhaps. To free me.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s impossible . . . not unless you were to somehow destroy the Hyperfold and get my body connected to the Xenofold again.” He paused to think. “Sometimes, I have dreams here. I dream of what I do up there, and I wake in a cold sweat . . .”

I realized the truth then. “You’re real. You’re really real.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

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