Wake Up!

"Wake up!"

As these words came to Milan's mind, he immediately opened his eyes and straightened up in a chair. He was in his office beside his usual work desk. Everything seemed usual, except the voice that woke him up. Milan could have sworn that he had never heard it once in his life, yet it sounded so familiar.

Unlike most of us, Milan always remembered his dreams. Today, he dreamed of a magical place. It felt like a combination of all the ideas humanity had throughout its history. He was standing on a hill, looking towards a town where medieval houses stood across the street from commie blocks. He saw a herd of unicorns passing by, running towards a castle on the horizon. Beside him stood his friends. All of them looked like they were from illustrations of a fantasy book. A big troll with a smile on his face and an axe. A small human with a rifle on his back and strange-looking goggles. And an elf. He look on Milan with pride, but Milan could not look at him without feeling sadness.

"Hey, are you okay? You seem a little scared."

Milan's colleague finally noticed he was awake and looking around him, confused.

"Yes, no... Sorry, yes, it's okay. How long was I asleep?"

"Thirty minutes at least. I didn't track it really."

Milan looked around. Seemed like they were the only two people in the office.

"Everybody else already left?"

"Yeah, I'm also departing in a minute. What about you?"

"I'll leave in ten, just want to wrap up the work."

"Okay, see you Monday." He walked to the door, but stopped for a question he was hesitant to ask. "Since we are the only two people here, can I ask you about your... ears? If it's okay, of course? Like... how does that feel?"

"Well, " Milan laughed. "How does having normal ears feel?"

It was not the first time Milan had gotten that question, and most probably not the last. His ears were much longer than usual, with pointy, tapered tips and much greater flexibility. Some would call these ears elfish. He liked that feature of himself; it was something that always made him feel unique. And sometimes made him answer the same questions all over again.

"Parents said that they started to grow when I was around three." Milan continued. "My dad always joked that I should play in fantasy films. No discomfort whatsoever."

"Thanks, that was driving me crazy for months. ćao!"

"Ćao-ćao!"

Milan finished his work for the day, packed his things, and was on his way to a bus station. As he approached it, rain started dropping from the sky, and he could only hope that it wouldn't become worse.

As the bus arrived and Milan got on, he noticed a man rushing to board.

"Wait for him!" He shouted to the driver, not wanting a poor man to wait in the rain.

"Thanks for that."

The man jumped inside and smiled towards Milan as the bus started driving. There was something off with his smile and stare, but Milan couldn't be less bothered about it. He just nodded and took a seat next to the window.

"Whoa! The plan worked just as planned." The man exhaled and sat right next to Milan. He was talking very fast, probably not even thinking about what he was saying. "You know, as they say, never stop dreaming! Although if people hadn't stopped, we would probably never sit here today. Or maybe that's for the best to be honest."

"Yeah, probably."

As the initial shock passed, Milan reached into his bag searching for headphones. At the same time, the man took a bottle of beer from his coat, and Milan started regretting having asked the driver to wait for him.

"Should probably never have gotten to the autumn world. God, I miss Arcadia!"

"It's spring, pal."

Milan just found his headphones as he noticed that not only did the man open the first bottle barely touching it, but he also took an empty plastic bottle. Milan watched, confused, as the man poured the beer from one bottle to another, then the other way around. He also made a couple of sips with each pour, never stopping talking for a second.

"I don't think it will be spring ever again, brother. People stopped dreaming big, they are stuck in their routine, they just sit there, they doom scroll, and all they want is a peaceful life. Winter is closer and closer every year, and they did this to themself. And we are the victims of the world going to hell. Why did they stop, brother? Why did people stop dreaming? Why didn't you ever follow your dreams?"

That escalated quickly.

"Look, I just want to rest after work. Do you mind?"

He almost put his headphones on, but the man continued anyway.

"Let me rephrase. Did you ever believe in what you saw in your sleep? Did you ever try to find the other elves?"

"Okay, that's enough." Milan stood up from his seat. "Maybe stop mocking people's appearance? Especially if they help you? I'm leaving."

"No, you're not."

The man put his hand on Milan's chest, blocking his path. Out of nowhere, there was an amethyst glow around the hand. As it stopped, Milan felt that something had changed. As if the world had new colors he hadn't seen before. It felt like a dream. Not just a dream, it felt like one of his dreams. It felt peaceful. Even natural.

Milan looked towards the man and saw someone completely different. In the clothing of medieval royalty, his face was more elongated. And his ears. Elfish ears, the same ones Milan had. He looked like a man from a dream. Not just a dream. The dream.

"Sit down."

Milan didn't say a word and just took his seat, staring at him.

"I bet I know why you don't ask anything. Not because you are shocked. But because you know exactly who I am. Deep in your mind, where they could not reach."

"I saw you in my dream. Who are you? And who are they?"

"You know that normal people don't remember their dreams, Milan? But you never were normal, and there is proof."

Milan touched his ears.

"You didn't answer any of the questions."

"No, I didn't. Let me tell you a story. It's about my brother and me trying to get into the autumn world. You might have guessed that I'm not exactly. How do you put it? Well, I'm not exactly local." It felt like with every word he said, his voice became quicker. "We needed banal shells, just like kithains, another faeries here if you insist. The problem was that the hunters had found us just in the middle of our ritual. I escaped, and the next thing I remember is waking up as a mortal kid. But... my brother. Well, he didn't make it. I can understand the hunters. I don't even blame them, they did what was right, you know." He talked without even taking a breath, or without giving a chance to interrupt him. "They were sure that they just protected a poor mortal kid's soul. But what they didn't know was that it was already too late. They didn't kill my brother; they accidentally fractured his soul, and part of it still found a banal shell. That's how a very special kid was born. Stuck between two realms, not really a faerie, not really a human. Someone who doesn't know who he should be."

"A banal shell? A faerie?" Milan tried to understand everything this man just told him. "Wait, am I your..."

"We need to leave! Right now!"

The man grabbed Milan's arm and almost jumped out of the bus. Milan didn't resist. After everything he witnessed in the last five minutes, it was the least strange thing that happened.

"So, as I was asking...."

"You are, yes."

The man slowed down, looked on the ground for a second, and then back into his brother's eyes.

"You are, yes. I'm sorry, it's just..." He looked like he was about to start crying. "I spent so many years trying to find you, and still could not decide what I should say to you. You can't even imagine how hard it was, brother, how hard was that combination of arts that brought me here to this exact moment."

"What do you mean by a combination of arts?"

"This."

Just a second later, Milan heard a loud crash and the sound of brakes. He looked to see where it came from and watched in horror as a car just bumped into the bus, completely wrecking part of it, and then catching fire.

"You were sitting in that very spot, Milan. I saw your face in the newspaper. Or, so to speak, I would have seen it tomorrow. The only victim of a tragic accident."

Milan could not stop looking at the fire. He should have been there. Should have been dead by now.

"What if you didn't make it in time?" He finally asked. "Or what if I didn't listen to you?"

"I broke the rules of time to save you, brother. Do you really think that death would stop me?"

He finished the beer, threw away the bottle, and immediately put a cigarette in his mouth.

"You never told me your name."

"It's Novak. At least, my human name is."

He lit the cigarette.

"Look, I'll be honest with you, I don't know what will happen next. You are now what we call a kinain, basically a human with faerie blood. And I don't know virtually anything about kinain. But now we can find our path together."

"I don't know what to say, to be honest," Milan said, and took a pause. "But now I really feel like myself. More than ever, actually. What's next for us?"

Novak smiled.

"You are supposed to be dead, brother. Once again, you escaped the destiny and spat the autumn world in its face. Now it will strike back. But now we are together again."

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