The Truth About Alvery

The young man got down from the branch that he was hanging from a few seconds ago. He looked sideways, making sure there weren’t any of those creatures called Nightmares around. Hairless creatures with gray wolf-type of body. They’ve been having no boundaries when it comes to all the queendoms being divided. Most part of the Dark Forest is part of the Mirror Queen’s queendom, Spiegel, and it looked like she didn’t care that they were crossing those boundaries.

             The beginning of this young man was unknown since he doesn’t remember where he comes from, nor who his parents were. He recently woke up from the longest sleep a man can have, and an unease feeling invaded his heart and mind every time he tried to go back in time, back to those non-existent memories. But after long nights of no more sleep, but just thoughts about who he truly was, this young man remembered something. His name is Alvery, and he is willing to find his true self.

             After he made sure the area was safe, he pulled up the hood from his cloak and started running between the trees, skipping and jumping logs, rocks and fallen tree branches from the Dark Forest with his long staff made of wood. The tall trees with their black leaves were blocking the sunlight, which made it harder for Alvery to spot any Nightmare around. He stopped for a second to catch his breath, and he submerged into the sound of his pounding heart. He was never been attacked by a Nightmare until the moment he looked to his right side and a pair of golden eyes were floating in the darkness of the forest. The creature jumped too fast, leaving him with no time to escape.

             Alvery pushed the creature away from him with his staff. If it only breaks it was going to be the end of his journey.

He needed to do something before the creature ate him alive!

             And it all happened fast. The Nightmare was pushing towards him, biting the air, getting closer to his face. Alvery didn’t stop pushing until his arms started to shake. The creature was having all the advantage, but Alvery couldn’t let him vanish him like that from this world.

             Alvery stared at the Nightmare, colliding his dark eyes with the golden ones in front of him. And then he felt it radiating out of his body. Out of that anger, something was born, and the Nightmare started to put less pressure over him. Suddenly, the Nightmare steps out of the fight and started to breathe heavily, its body trembling. It kept walking backward, away from Alvery who seized the moment to stand up from the ground with his staff. He didn’t change his sight from the creature while it was walking side to side, almost looking paler than usual. Something was off from those golden eyes.

The Nightmare howled at the hidden sky. It was loud enough to scare Alvery a little bit. His heart never stopped pounding, but all his thoughts were invaded by the sound of footsteps running fast towards them. And in a blink of an eye, three more hairless Nightmares showed up with their long claws and pointed teeth. This time it was Alvery who was shaking, and the Nightmare that he fought was standing now in its four legs, staring at him with hatred in those golden eyes.

Alvery turned around and started running without stopping.

He ran as fast as he could like he never did before, but a branch was on his way and he ended up on the ground. His first instinct was to cover himself with his arms, even though he knew that wasn’t going to stop the Nightmares from killing him.

And he waited for like what felt an eternity. Maybe he was already dead, and everything happened fast. So, he took the chance to raise his head and looked around, but there wasn’t any Nightmare behind him ready to eat him. He slowly stood from the ground and took a better looked around. It was almost as if they were never there, but he was sure they were real enough to leave all his cloak full of saliva.

Alvery was cleaning his cloak when dried leaves from the ground started to move. He changed his sight to it but didn’t see anything. The leaves were moving by itself, spinning faster with every second, almost as if they got tangled with a small tornado. And then suddenly the wind started to get even stronger, to the point where Alvery had to raise his hand to cover his face.

And between narrowed eyes, Alvery saw a dark shadow coming out of a mountain of leaves from the ground. He had to rise his sight to spot the face of the creature that was now in front of him, and his heart froze when he saw the creature between the small ray of light that went through the black leaves of the Dark Forest.

The creature had gray skin, just like the Nightmares, with long thin green hair and metallic blue eyes with an electric purple iris. Its tongue was a gray long-serpent-type, and the creature lifted one of its long and so sharp nails pointing it at him. Alvery didn’t do another thing than to point his staff to it, but the creature started giving a few paces on his way.

“Stop right there, or I’m going to hurt you!”

“Oh, are you?” a voice said inside of his head. Alvery’s body gave a jolt when he heard the creature’s voice.

“You can talk. Who are you?”

“Of course, I can talk! I’m what everyone from Onaendra calls the Mystical Lady. Haven’t you heard from me?” To his surprise, the creature’s voice sounded less deep than inside of his head. Alvery shook his head, which made the Mystical Lady gave a sarcastic laugh and kept walking towards him. For some reason, Alvery was being stuck in that same spot. “Oh, but I know a lot about you.”

“You do?” Alvery asked curiously this time.

“Yes, and something tells me the answers you’re looking for has to do with that.”

“yes, but I- “

“Hush! Listen well, Alvery.” He stared at it after the creature mentioned his name. How did she know? “The answers you’re looking for are easier to find than you think. They live inside of you, but for that, you need to seek the truth. Listen to me when I say that some pasts are better left buried than digging for them.”

“But I deserve to know who I am.”

“Do you, Alvery? Seek what you’re looking for in the flames if that’s what you want. Open the truth and lock the past. Use your power, the one that you used against that Nightmare. Use that power that comes from all our minds. That’s exactly where you must start if you want to make something of this journey.”

Alvery didn’t know what to say while he was processing everything the Mystical Lady just said. Was it important for him to find out who he truly was? Was it worth it? Couldn’t he just keep moving on with his life, and find out more about these powers that were growing inside of him?

But just a look to the creature vanish in the darkness of the forest was enough for him to realized that he really wants to know his past and what his future was about to become.

~*~

Alvery didn’t see any other Nightmare around the Dark Forest.

He walked safely back to his cave, his home. Alvery lit a fire over a piece of wood and started throwing pieces of it on the fire, thinking on the Mystical Lady’s words. She said once that he needed to seek in the flames, but what could he find in there? Alvery stared at it for a whole hour but nothing was happening. He didn’t feel different or had any revelation. What was it that life wanted from him? What was he expecting to happen?

He also remembered how the Nightmare reacted once he radiated that power out of his body. It was almost as if… Just forget it, he was starting to make no sense of all of this, maybe it was time for him just to push this to the side and never go back to it again. But deep in his heart, he knew that he didn’t want that. He needed to know so much more about him.

He tried to look again into the fire until he started seeing shapes. Blue, yellow, orange, and a tone of red flames were dancing in his vision, his eyes started to get watery thanks to the gray smoke that was coming from it. And then he saw it. The shape of a king with his four daughters and a queen. How they were all living miserable and no one did anything against him. How he came to life inside of the body of a princess and what made him be Alvery.

Alvery’s body was shaking.

The flames also showed four sisters around the body of the princess he was in a dark past life. How he and five more were extracted from her body, known as the princess’s Personas, and ended up in some type of crystal. Those four sisters were being wicked against their little sister, taking her true self out of her and locking it in that crystal. But all the plans went wrong when they decided to destroy the crystal since those other five souls reincarnated into human bodies.

And Alvery was one of them.