This time, the dream wasn’t in a large room with red carpets and beheaded subjects. It was a valley filled with an array of flowers. It was amazing. The sun was in the sky, the wind blew so gently, the flowers seemed to nod to whatever it was saying. I knew it was a dream but this meadow was incredibly beautiful. I had drawn countless like these as a child but nothing could compare to actually seeing it. Albeit in another person’s dream.

A hard slap made me turn quickly. A boy was on the ground, a hand over his face. He lifted the hand to reveal a bloody lip.I winced.

The boy’s hair was black and with his uncanny resemblance I knew it was the wolf king but he didn’t have the familiar red eyes instead his eyes were a resplendent blue.

“Get up cub” a man said laughing. The man’s eyes weren’t red either. He squatted to the boy’s level.

“If you don’t get up now, the fighting won’t be any easier” the man picked up a flower.

The boy got up. He dusted himself off and assumed a stance of some sort.

“That’s it. That’s the look I want to see.” The man got up and applauded, “Now come and get me.” The man taunted.

The boy vanished into thin air. I gasped. The man instead laughed, his eyes looking for something I could barely see. And then the man screamed when three claw marks appeared on his thigh.

“I got your scent now cub. Your next attack won’t be easy.” the man said disregarding the wound.

Then a shadow appeared behind the man. A small shadow that came into the light, revealing the young wolf king. However, like a rat caught in a trap, the man turned just as fast and I saw the man’s elbow come down. It’s target the boy.

“Stop!”

I don’t know what got into me or why I decided to even say anything but I screamed and time froze. It went still as if some otherworldly power had decided to hold that moment briefly enough for me to realize that I had messed up. The man stood there frozen, his attack frozen as well, however the boy fell to the ground with a groan.

“Are you okay?” I asked and the boy stood up quickly, with his back facing me.

“Don’t run” he said.

I was suddenly filled with this feeling of trepidation. I wasn’t looking at the young boy anymore. I could feel it. I was talking to a different being altogether.

The boy turned and I was right. His eyes had turned an immaculate deep shade of blood red. The wolf king had descended upon the meadow or rather, his living conscious.

“You’re the same one from last time” he said. Neither of us had moved. We stood there staring at each other.

I swallowed. He continued talking.

“My name is Dominic, The King of the Wolves.”

“I know” I said.

“Why are you here?” he sighed as he looked at the frozen dream.

“I came to talk to you.”

“Oh?” he raised an eyebrow.

“I…I…” I didn’t prepare this far into the conversation.

“Are you afraid?”

His eyes, they were domineering even from the body of a child. I could feel a pressure emanating from his every word.

“Yes.” I admitted.

“I want to help you” I continued.

“Help me?” he laughed.

“Yes. I want to wake you up.”

His laughter got even louder “You seem not to understand girl. This” he raised his hands at the dream “This is my repetitive reality. I am stuck in these dreams forever.”

“I can get you out.” I cut him off.

“How?” he stopped laughing.

Even I didn’t know how but apparently, my being here was doing something.

“That’s my problem, not yours.”

“So you don’t know.”

“I do” I urged.

I blinked and he was right in front of me. I could feel my heart in my throat.

“At what cost?”

“Pardon?”

“Obviously you wouldn’t come here unless you wanted to strike a bargain”

Right, I reminded myself.

“Your revenge.”

“What about it?” he was circling me. Looking at me from every angle.

“For a year, you cannot exact your revenge.”

And suddenly the dream world’s sky turned a shade of red. The same color as his eyes.