Are you Real?

The whir of machines drowned out when Kaleina felt her mind bend into impossible shapes and her body contort as they whipped her through time and space. The pain and pressure built up in her chest until she felt as if she would snap. But as she opened her eyes, all the agony had faded away. But it was almost immediately replaced by a heavy aching in her chest. Her golden-brown eyes flit across the empty streets which were abandoned. Blown to pieces and burned to the ground. But why? She found a poster of her face, Prisoner 567, cracked and dusty. Kaleina bet the destruction of her beautiful town was made to intimidate and to impose power upon her people. Not exactly surprising, but still it pulled at her heartstrings. She scanned the rest of the poster to see what the charges were. Her hands shook so badly that the paper fluttered to the ground. Murder? Kidnap? They called her an assassin, a killer. But that was impossible. She had grown up in a household of healers. She had spent her childhood learning how to treat wounds and burns, binding broken bones, and staunching blood flow. Kaleina shook her head, unwilling to believe it. She must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But this. This would be how people remembered her. And even long after she was executed, people would still scorn her name, and mistreat her family. 

She had to move along, before she tore herself apart. A loud screech came from behind the now flattened hills. She crawled up a tree and found sanctuary in the high branches of a tree, ears and eyes finding the bloodied fields. On one side there was a single man. The other side of the field was occupied by a uniformed army, marching toward the meager figure as the sunset faded to a dark red. Was this really the future? Her future?

Her eyes squinted as a gold emblem of a hawk shone stark against the man’s dark shirt. It was her emblem, and that was… Adrian? What was he doing here? He looked so much older, taller, stronger. Nothing like the gentle brother that she loved. But if he was uprising against their country’s government, there was only one person the government felt pleasure in sending to put it down. The eldest. Derias. Her brothers were fighting head to head. But over what? Kaleina stared in bewildered shock as the light blue colors of mourning waved. Over whom? She heard Adrian yell mercilessly at Derias hurling insults and taunts. But Kaleina barely registered them. All she heard was his first sentence. His first accusation. ‘Why do you mourn, dear brother, if you are the reason she is dead!’

Wait, she was dead? It couldn’t mean her, could it? Bile rose up her throat so fast she could barely stop herself from vomiting all over. So that was what they were fighting about. Kaleina had been foolish. She should have known. She had been named an assassin, so she had been granted an assassin’s death. Brutal and tortuous. Now her brothers were on two sides of an escalating war, she herself was dead, and the country stripped her family of all honor. Her eyes widened with unconcealed horror as her older brother motioned his troops back. Even though Kaleina wasn’t close enough to read Derias expression, she already knew what would be written all over his face. Remorse. But Adrian raised his sword, his anger reflected in the blade’s glow. She caught a glimpse of his face. His dark eyes that used to be alight with a passionate fire. The hate and disgust displayed so clearly across his handsome face. And his expression didn’t show a trace of guilt, just a haunted look that made her wonder if her welcomed death. 

Her tears flowed freely down her pale cheeks as she realized that, she couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop the fight to the death that only one of her brothers would win. Not if she wanted to start a war that would last through time and space at the same time. Present and future. She felt torn. Having to weigh the fate of world versus the fate of her brothers really wasn’t fair. Her knuckles were white against the dark bark of the tree. But as Adrian raised his sword, and Derias’s blade rose to meet it, she shattered. Kaleina’s self-control was no longer part of this. This was about her family, fighting over her death. She scrambled down the tree as fast as she could, ignoring the stinging in her palms. The wind sounding more like a warning. Pleading with her to stop. But she couldn’t. She stumbled toward them, her feet not quite keeping up with the intense urgency in her mind.

“STOP!” Kaleina screamed, the strangled noise coming from her throat didn’t sound like her.

Her brothers ignored her, not quite realizing who they were talking to. She had one shot. One shot before everything she loved was lost. And she wasn’t going to let it slip through her fingers easily. Kaleina jumped toward them, knocking their feet out from under them and hitting Adrian’s wrist with her elbow. He instinctively threw the knife, sending it spinning toward Derias’s face. But her hand reached out, wrapping around the handle as she turned and pointed it at Derias’s neck. She planted a foot on Adrian’s chest and could see his struggle to get back up.

“Idiots.” Kaleina couldn’t resist a smirk as she looked down at her older brothers. Derias’s men began to run to his aid but held up when he signaled them to stop.

She could see the disbelief, surprise, sadness, grief, and sense their tensing muscles just by looking into their wide eyes. “We watched you die.” Derias mumbled. “Hung in the gallows for everyone to see. Your shirt was cut short, so the wounds from the whip were exposed. You died.” Tears flooded down Derias’s flushed face as he shook his head. “You died. While I stood by and let it happen.”

Adrian couldn’t seem to force his words out. A faint beeping drew their attention. Her wristband. Oh no.

“I’m sorry. Please don’t fight over me. It’s not worth it.” She forced down her sorrow as she hugged her brothers tight. “I’m not worth it.”

Adrian seemed to finally get his tongue to cooperate. “You are always worth it.”

A sad smile spread across her face. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Her brothers replied.

 The world once again spun, blurring her vision as time folded onto itself. And she was gone.

Kaleina was once again strapped to the same multicolored wires. And not a second has passed. But now the people in the room had went silent. The soft beeps of the machine filled to stunned silence as a doctor stalked up to her. “What have you done?” His voice was slightly hysteric, but she could see him gritting his teeth in anger. His face had been leached of color as it now matched his white coat.

“I saved them.” Kaleina replied, venom dripping from every syllable.

“And you started a war that will never end.” He spat back. “A war not even the gods can stop.”

“A war that transcends space and time for eternity, and on and on and on. But what you don’t get is that they mean everything to me. And if I can save them…” Kaleina partly cursed herself for her selfishness.

As if the doctor could read her thoughts he smiled. “Well, its lucky that there is still a way to stop the war.”

“How?”

The doctor dug a knife under her chin and Kaleina gasped against the cold metal. She felt it bite into her skin and saw the blood leave rivers of red on her grey blouse. His pressed the knife even deeper into the shallow cut and whispered, “By killing you and everyone who saw.”

“But how do you know I’m real?” A slow smile spreads across her face. Warmth races like wildfire through her veins and her form faded.

She was gone. And she was free.