Waking Up Again

The sun pierced through the pillars of the stone-arched gazebo, a temple-like tallness that followed marble-carved intricacies from the base to its roof. Vines engulfed what space it could and left barely a foot of limestone sheen to be seen. But a familiar drape surrounded the space. Wisteria, and their lovely twining vines that hung low towards the rooted ground, drifting barely against the wind's subtle grace. It was mid-noon, that much was feasible.

He couldn’t see, not too much at least, as he felt himself waking up, or the equivalent of. Akari’s eyes were heavy and rigid, but so was the rest of his body; all of him refused to move. What am I? He first asked himself, wondering if this was some sort of dream and perhaps he was simply not human. But the longer his attempts on moving became, he could slowly deduce that he at least had the limbs of a regular humanoid, some kind of bipedal, somewhat human.

If not for the strands of white that fell around his face, slowly starting to tickle his skin to stimulate feeling, he would’ve thought himself some kind of creature.

White… Hair…? How odd. More strands fell after, almost shrouding his view if he was able properly see, that is until he could. His vision started to clear up. From a horrific blur, comparable to tear-filled eyes that have yet to fall, he began to blink and finally discern what was in front of him. Marble, leaves, and the wisteria. It seemed like the more he visually noticed, his body soon started to react to the world around him. Well, at least he wasn’t in pain.

If this was a dream, it was weirdly authentic.

After a few minutes more of trying to move, he managed to free the stress and tension from his arms, neck and spine, allowing himself to slowly lean forward as his legs woke up presently from the incline of his weight. He would catch himself before falling forward onto the marble.

“Gods… You’re awake,”

The voice of an older man reaches him, and by instinct he looks up.

A man a few yards from the marble steps stood quietly, staring from afar as Akari only stared back in response. Awake? I certainly am. The man was dressed oddly, or rather, in clothing that seemed otherworldly—no, his robes best resembled attire from the 13-14th century, amidst a medieval era of sorts. In fact, Akari best described the man as some sort of scholarly professor, at least mentally. Only then did something click for Akari; what was he wearing?

It didn’t take too long to find out, as Akari achieved the bare minimum of movement by getting onto his feet, edging towards one of the pillars beside him and using it as a crutch to lift himself off the ground, he could hear the sound of metal being scraped against more metal. Then more things started to click.

The weight was something he’d never experienced before, although the longer he stayed on his feet, the more his body got used to it. As if, this wasn’t his body. But the metal was an obvious indicator that, yes, what he was wearing wasn’t anything light of the sort, it wasn’t comfortable robes or soft fabrics but dense chainmail and clanking plates of armour. Each bend or stretch of his limbs caused the pieces to rattle and crack together—he was a walking alarm.

“Ah, let me help you!”

Said the older man from afar as he rushed towards Akari in lighter steps, and once close enough he reached out for—supposedly—his arms. But as a tendency to the unfamiliar, Akari found himself retorting from the other’s advances, jumping back almost which helped the rest of his body stir awake.

“Who are—”

Without finishing his sentence, he slapped his gauntlet-covered hand over his mouth, surely stinging his lips but cooling them down at the same time.

This isn’t my voice. It was deeper, a little colder—older. There were unmixed drops of maturity at the end-tone of his voice, but he didn’t need to know that to know that it wasn’t his. It was an odd feeling, in the back of his head as he attempted to comprehend exactly what was happening. The longer he stuck himself in his thoughts, the less sure he was that this was a ‘dream’. Dreams aren’t this easy to fathom, at least, not for Akari.

His dreamland consisted of his clean-cosy room, with him rolled up in his favourite blanket on a Saturday evening, with snowfall outside his window and soft classical ambience playing in the background while he watched the latest episode of his favourite show.

This dream was the equivalent of some sort of fairy tale prologue.

“I can’t believe it,” Akari’s eyes drew back to the old man. “It worked… You worked!”

At this point, Akari didn’t want to try and speak, too confused to really do anything as focused on what else was nearby. His surroundings, as lovely as they were, seemed very familiar. Whether it was the signature wisteria he often drew in his concept drafts, or the man and—Hold on.

“I worked?” He said more confidently, more forwardly.

“How do you feel? I assume you must be tired, after all, being stuck in stone doesn’t happen to just anyone!”

“Stuck… In stone?”

These words—were more familiar than the wisteria or the figure of the scholar-dressed man beside him, as Akari had a feeling that he’d heard these things before. Though they were only a few sentences—barely sentences—he could never forget where they came from, after all, they were the first words the protagonist heard, from the first chapter of his manuscript.

If he could, Akari would be flicking through the pages right now trying to find the exact lines, but all he could do was stare at the ground and mentally skim through his memory instead. But it wasn’t hard, not even a struggle, as these were the first words he ever planned with Haruka back when he was still beginning the story. How could he forget?

“I… I feel…”

Sick.

Akari knew this went down.

As the story goes, the loyal knight, Ain, serves only the Crown Prince, Kalveren. But is cursed to one day turn his loyalties to the dirt and betray the prince, ending him and himself as the tale ends at the tip of a bloody blade.

... There must be another way….

He was on the verge of throwing up really; holding back such an urge as he leaned against the pillar for a little longer, pressing his head into the chilled stone. He hoped it would cool him down, for all the thoughts racing through his head only warmed him from the neck up.

But to be entirely truthful, the reason as to why Akari had worked so hard to finish the manuscript in such a short time, was to change Yuma’s mind on the ending. His manuscript’s version—the one scattered who-knows-where—didn’t end as miserably as the last six manuscripts he’d written; it didn’t end with Ain killing the prince, though he hadn’t properly written an ending for it yet.

However, he could tell that this—whatever this was, this world or narrative, wasn’t based on his manuscript. He had started his version entirely different from how it was now. Instead of some mid-noon, canopy-covered prologue, it began somewhere in the castle, somewhere far from here.

That must mean… Akari’s head darted about, as he moved off of the pillars and stumbled out of the marble temple, staggering onto the cobble path as he searched for something to see his reflection. He wouldn’t believe it until he saw it. Not even as snow-white locks draped over him, like some sort of veil as it caressed down his face and neck, blocking a bit of his vision as he trudged down the cobble. Not even when the signature weight of silver-plated armour reflected what little flecks of sunlight reached him. Not even when the voice he beheld was one so familiar through words not by sound.

When he reached it, a fountain further down the path he swayed himself over, he faltered to his knees. The sound of his greaves scratched against the stone below, as he lurched his upper half over the structure’s edge and by holding himself up a little higher, what he was was indescribably familiar.

“No…” He whispered beneath his breath.

He brought a hand to his face, grazing the metal fingers of his gauntlet down his cheek. In bated breaths, he couldn’t believe it, even when it was right in front of him; his heart raced as his eyes took in every single warped detail in the moving water below.

Akari plays Ain, the silver knight.