Patience and Uncertainty

Dusty wandered through an empty black space for what felt like an eternity. A splash of water echoed, ripples fleeing his foot into the void. He stopped walking.

“So, this is as far as you go?” A soft, harsh voice sank into Dusty.

“Who are you?” Dusty spun around searching for anything.

“You might want to look beyond the roles you’ve been given in this life.” The voice wandered past him.

“What do you want?” He spun around again.

“There comes a time in everyone’s lives when they need to make a critical decision, usually many times. You are being presented with one now.” The voice spun like a whirlpool around him.

“What do you mean by all of this?” Dusty looked down then took a step forward.

Water rippled away from his foot, it was deeper this time and the sound of water splashing lingered longer.

“I will not be taking any questions at this time.” The voice now came from behind him.

He turned around.

A fox plush stared him down. It made no sound, no movements, it simply… was.

Something grabbed his shoulder from behind as he tried to walk towards the plush. No matter how hard he tried to free himself, he couldn’t get any closer.

“Do not make the same mistakes you’ve made in the past.” The voice came from his right, but when he looked, nothing was there.

“W-what mistakes?” His heart sank.

A video played on a tv screen above the plush. It was a video of him when he had just started school. He was with his family. They were outside, the sky was clear, everything was as it should be. A man ran past them. None of them seemed to mind, it wasn’t an unusual thing.
“Wait, no, I remember this day, why are you showing it to me?”

The video kept playing. ‘Mom, Dad, something doesn’t feel right.’ The Dusty on the screen said.

‘What’s wrong, sport.’ His dad said. Sirens could be heard in the background.

“No. NO! I don’t want to go through this again.” He shut his eyes, grabbed his ears and fell to his knees. Tears poured down his face.

The screen disappeared with a click.

After being given time to calm down, Dusty opened his eyes.

Another plush stood next to the first.

“Each of these represents a mistake you made similar to the mistakes you would make if I didn’t intervene and may still make regardless. You have quite the history after all.” The voice manifested as a chill down his spine.

A third plush appeared. Then a fourth. A fifth. A sixth. A tower of twenty four plushes collapsed onto Dusty.

He pushed the plushes which now covered him aside. “What do you want from me?” He tried to remain calm.

“Think about the situation you’re in, how the situations of your past played out. What can you change to not make those mistakes again?” The voice came from everywhere and everything before concentrating on a single point in front of Dusty. The sound turned into a black mist, shaping itself into the form of a fox.

Dusty backed away. “W-What are you?”

“I’m you.” The voice carried throughout the mist, solidifying it. “Your past.” It morphed into the charred, ravaged remains of Dusty’s old life, smoke still fleeing his dirt covered corpse.

"No." He backed further away, terror in his eyes. “N-no.”

“Your present.” The creature mirrored Dusty’s exact position. His movements. How much his body quaked in fear. The terror in his eyes. “Your future.” The plushes disappeared. A thick air of silence permeated throughout the space. A copy of Dusty stood in front of himself. He was wearing the same armor he was in now, but he had a different sword on him. It had a blue hilt and a gleaming blade with a radiance that could not be contained by a sheath. Blood pooled from the mirrored Dusty’s jaw. His double collapsed onto the ground.

———————————————————————————————————————

Dusty woke up. He was still in a cave. The stone table stretched out before him, lined with soldiers asking questions to a discussion he shouldn’t remember. His body was tense.

He checked his jaw then breathed a sigh of relief when he couldn’t find a hole, easing some of his tension.

“With that last question out of the way, we will be making our final preparations and heading out.” The squad leader looked over at Dusty. “You. Follow me.”

“Y-yes sir.” Was that really all just a dream… He struggled to stay focused on reality.

———————————————————————————————————————

A chill crept throughout the orphanage. The wind howled outside as rain pelted its stone walls.

The orphans were huddled together underneath a blanket, pressed up against the stairs.

Fiivon carried a fragrant soup to them from the kitchen.

Vivian watched Mary, waiting for her to do something interesting.

Mary weaved grass fibers into a blanket wrapped around the scarecrow she borrowed from the fields.

“What are you doing that for?” One of the orphans asked.

“It is a precaution I hope we do not need. The rain and fog will make it easier for anyone who might come after us to get confused and think it is me. It will work for now once I finish weaving these fibers in, but if it is going to work when the sun is out or the weather is clearer, I will need to make it more convincing.”

“Why are people after us?” The child asked.

Vivian lazily smiled in anticipation of what Mary might say.

“Because I solve problems, and problems do not want to be solved.”

“Because you… solve… problems?” The child looked confused.

“You solve problems? They already watched you kill people, you didn’t have to say it like that.” Vivian said without moving her hand off of her mouth.

“I do more than kill people Vivian.” Mary finished her work on the scarecrow and stood up. I am going to keep watch outside. I do not know how long I will be gone. Remember to head back to Jesperville if it looks like anything will go wrong or has gone wrong.” Mary rubbed some ash on her face and jacket then removed a deep, green pigment from one of her pockets and placed splotches of it on her face between the ash. “I will see everyone later.” Mary waved as she walked out the door.

Buildings creaked as the wind whipped through Woodside. Flashes of lightning which did little to illuminate the hamlet covered in a fog so thick Mary couldn't see her own coat hood. Thunder boomed following each strike. Pellets of rain bombarded the area, turning the dirt road into a slippery mess.

Mary turned on her goggle’s thermal vision. She looked back at the houses. The inhabited ones seemed to be holding up and their warmer signature suggested whatever was inside them was alive. Mary walked towards the northern end of town and planted her scarecrow double in the center of the street near the edge of town.

After watching it to make sure the wind wouldn’t knock it over, Mary raced towards the northwestern edge of the forest, against the wind. 

She sat in a leafy bush with branches resembling daffodil stems. Her back rested against a wide but short tree with an almost grey, tan coloring and bark with a  birch-like texture and a rocky hardness. She waited, motionless. A black crystal rested in a makeshift sling wrapped around her hand.

———————————————————————————————————————

Eighteen people lined up in front of the squad leader and Dusty outside the cave, visible through the fog and rain only by the light emanating from their staffs.

“Keep yourself tightly packed together!” The squad leader shouted, his voice barely audible over the roaring wind. “If you get poked or cut by anything, use antidote magic immediately!”

Dusty tapped the squad leader’s shoulder. “We should really wait until the weather clears up. The people who we are fighting are sneaky right, it seems like a bad idea.”

The squad leader shrugged it off. “We have ways of dealing with the weather and everything we have seen them do. Now is the best time to strike before they become too entrenched to easily deal with.” Only Dusty could hear his voice.

Dusty thought back to what the fox said in his dream and his past. We are doing something about a bad thing and maybe things will be different this time. I also don’t have any reason to trust that creature so it could be trying to ruin me.

“We will be marching in a circular formation to make sure we have eyes in every direction!” The squad leader's shouts became less confident. “We have not received any reports from our troops in Woodside since our target returned to the city hours ago, but we need to remain on guard regardless! There are many things that could still go wrong and we will need to be in the best shape possible to fend off one of her companions! ASSEMBLE FORMATION NOW!”

The team faced outward and formed a circle around the inner troops.

The squad Leader motioned for Dusty to join the formation. “Under no circumstances are any of you to engage without orders to do so unless immediately threatened! Our objective is to reason first!” The squad leader joined the formation next to Dusty.

Dusty tapped the squad leader again. “If they’re so evil, why are we trying to reason with them? That seems like a bad idea.”

The squad leader tensed up then looked towards Dusty. “Because we are at war and they would be too valuable of an asset against the much more evil Brass Armada to not try a diplomatic approach.” He expectantly waited for Dusty to respond.

Dusty stared at him without responding.

“That’s why there are so many of us here, in case diplomacy doesn’t work. We wouldn’t need as many if this was a simple extermination mission.” The squad leader rustled Dusty’s helmet. “And didn’t I tell you to stop asking so many questions.”

“You did, sorry sir.” Dusty lowered his head.

The squad leader raised his staff and pointed it towards Woodside. “FORWARD MARCH!”

The formation advanced.