"In a dream," he added quickly, wiping sweat from his brow.
Ayvira raised a brow. "A dream and you’re as scared as this?"
He looked down at his trembling hands. The heat, the roar, the red dragon’s eyes, they were still vivid in his mind.
Devon leaned back against the wall. "This tower messin’ with your head, maybe. Or fighting lots of monsters has made you scared."
Drahon didn’t answer. He felt this wasn’t just a dream. It was something more than that. A glimpse of something he was to face? Or worse... something coming.
He remembered hearing at the orphanage some nurses discussing that some dreams are just glimpses of what was to happen in the future. He always dismissed it as them being superstitious.
It was like saying dragons are real...
Wait, dragons are real... at least in the world he was in. So if a dragon can be real, then why couldn’t dreams being a glimpse of the future be real too?
In the Dragon World, anything was possible, so his survival depended on believing in weird and unbelievable possibilities. If it was back in the real world, he’d have a right not to agree with this. But in a world as mythical as this, anything was possible, and so was the dream.
Devon stared at Drahon, noticing he was still a bit afraid.
"So what was the dream about?" Devon asked. "What happened in the dream to make you break character?"
"Break character?" Drahon asked.
"Yes," Devon replied. "You’re not known to be this wimpy and afraid."
Drahon stood up and looked at the walls of the tower. It wasn’t something he actually wanted to do, but he did so out of impulse. He didn’t see anything of interest, and that wasn’t his aim for staring at the wall. His reason for doing so was to avoid eye contact with Devon and Ayvira, who were very serious.
"I fought a dragon in the dream," Drahon began. "It was like any of those battles we usually fight with monsters, like the one with the Draconic goblins, but for a dream, this felt way too intense..."
Devon interrupted. "That’s usual. Some fights in dreams ought to be intense."
Drahon shook his head. "No. This was way too intense, more than ordinary. And the dragon was very powerful. Both of you weren’t there, so I was alone, fighting this goddamn creature. I never knew what started the fight and just met myself in the scenario. It was resistant against all my attacks, and in the end, roared me to death."
Ayvira furrowed a brow. She was thinking and wondering at the same time.
"How did the scene of the battlefield look?"
Drahon hesitated, suddenly forgetting all the details. He tried so hard to remember but... the dream was starting to leave his mind.
"I’m slowly forgetting..."
Devon’s interest suddenly piqued. "How can you forget!"
"It’s not some fantasy stuff. I tend to forget some dreams since I was a kid. I mean, I remember this, but just the scenario..."
He suddenly hesitated, squinting his eyes and tilting his head sideways. "The sky had a sun..."
Devon’s curiosity grew. "Could you tell if it was the game world?"
Drahon nodded. "I’m pretty sure it’s the game world."
Ayvira and Devon exchanged glances.
"This world is normally without a sun."
Drahon scratched the back of his head, trying to remember more details. "The dragon was red too."
Ayvira stroked her chin. Stroking one’s chin was normally what a man might do, so Ayvira doing so seemed odd, especially since she didn’t have a beard to begin with.
"I shouldn’t be so afraid of a dream. At least it isn’t real. But the thing I’m afraid of is if it is to become a reality," Drahon said. "And I wouldn’t have bothered to tell you guys if I hadn’t woken up with a start, I didn’t expect to do so myself."
Ayvira still stroked her chin. "I’ve never seen a dream come true... although, actually, I have once, but I’m not so sure of the fact, as I was told. My friend said he dreamt of his dog dying, and some days later, the dog died from some illness."
"A coincidence?" Drahon asked.
"I don’t know, to be honest," Ayvira replied. "It’s still a mystery to this very day."
"It might have been a coincidence," Devon blurted rather too quickly. "The thing is, you can’t be sure. You’d need a proper sample and some stats to know for real. One dream matching real life could be pure luck; only testing a lot of cases would show if there’s actually a pattern. But we’re no researchers, so we won’t know."
Drahon was silent now. He thought of the possibilities of what his friends were saying, and he couldn’t just decide on one thing.
"I’ll advise not to take it seriously," Devon said. "Taking it seriously will only limit your potential and might eventually kill you, like in the dream."
Drahon furrowed a brow, looking at Devon in surprise.
Devon now leaned against the cracked wall, his arms folded. "You think it was a vision? Some sort of prophecy?"
Drahon didn’t answer.
Devon scoffed. "Dreams mess with your head, Drahon. They twist things and make them look real when they’re not. You put too much faith in one, it’ll lead you exactly where it wants."
Drahon looked at him, frowning. "How? This felt real."
"Of course it did," Devon said, stepping closer. "That’s what makes it dangerous. The more real it feels, the more control it has over you. But ask yourself: what happens if you start living to avoid that future? What choices will you make to stop it? What paths will you cut off because you’re afraid they lead there?"
He paused. "You might just walk straight into the very thing you feared... not because it was fate, but because you believed it was."
Devon turned away. "I’ll advise you just be careful. In any case, if you encounter some red dragon, or even a blue one, just... I don’t know, try not to die."