Zodiac:The Unborn

Slain Star

I couldn't tell you were I was this time, it didn't even feel like my dream. It felt like the dream of another person that I had intruded upon. That I didn't belong in. Like the those stories about history you would hear about when they say 'imagine living like this in this time period' but you couldn't actually see yourself doing those things.

I was in some kind of grand hall, almost everything was brass and gold, from the walls to the columns to the ceiling. There was a waterfall coming out of two of the walls the pooled into the room from both sides leaving a marble walkway that led to a podium of some kind which had several doors surrounding it. There was no one on the podium but a chair kind of throne like sat in the middle of the podium almost kind of challenging. 

"I would ask if you knew about the history of Anthem but you've never seemed to be bothered with going to school have you?"

I turned around to see Zadari behind me, arms crossed looking at me dressed in all white.

"No I haven't been to school, but I know how to read and write and I also know Anthem's history isn't rainbows and unicorns so isn't that enough?"

Zardari scowled  

" Okay, okay I do know a bit. Some big thing happened, like a war exploded or something. It didn't go too well and the Exile games were created as punishment for when us citizens become very bad children and miss behave greatly. Eventually we got the message that the Court was not to be messed with and for a while we lived as normal as a life that you can live in Anthem without anyone being killed until I blew up a mentor's house and Payne decided to reinstate the use of murder all over again."

"Follow me", Zadari said and began to walk down the marble path.

I trudged behind. "Why are you in my dream?"

"Why are you dreaming?", he responded.

"I- that is totally something you would say in real life"

"Is it?"

"Most definitely, unless Im dead, and we're in the afterlife. Although I never thought the afterlife would look like this. I was thinking more...after lifey? I read some books and I definitely expected a throne but I guess the big guy that everyone mentions who usually sits on the throne is on vacation or something."

"You are not dead Jonathan."

"I hope not because you are not the first person I want to see in the after life and I'd be very upset with those people who spoke in all those books if there's not a guy sitting on a throne when I get there."

Zadari shook his head, "ANYWAY, your history of Anthem is pretty vague. Yes there was a rebellion against the the citizens and the government, yes we lost and the Exile was created as punishment for when the people get out of hand in case another rebellion was being planned and yes there hasn't been an Exile in about 15 years before this one. You still don't seem to know why this is important or why this is happening."

"Did you read books to know that?"

Zadari stared at me. "No...I actually went to school and paid attention to the obvious."

"Well I told you I never went to school, I got what I know from the other Camp kids who went to school and Im not about to read some boring ass history books on Anthem.", I said.

We had reached the podium by this point and Zadari stepped in front of the throne and faced me stern with arms still crossed. "Forget the history, you don't see why this Exile is important for you to analyze to think about why you're here? Why there even is an Exile?"

"I'm here because President Payne is a child murdering bastard and you know that too, and the only thing I see important is getting metric and Bryana out alive. Other than that I have no idea what you are talking about. I also don't think you should sit on that throne if you're planning to."

"I AM NOT GOING TO SIT ON THE STUPID THRONE."

Zadari closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Listen, don't think when you survive this and you come out alive that everything is gonna go back to the way it was and you can just play pranks on everyone snd get a slap on the wrist and all the things you used to do. Your growing up now and you're gonna see how much things have and are going to change and then you'll realize why you're in this situation in the first place."

"I don't know. I still have no idea what this is or where we even are or what your doing in my dream. Why couldn't I think about...I don't know....cats?"

Zardari's right eye twitched. "You...are an extreme pain in the ass."

"Pleasure doing business with you." I looked around at the doors surrounding the podium. "If I open one of these doors will I go back to consciousness? Like those fiction books that Juilan likes so much, where the hero dreams a crazy dream opens the hidden door and is suddenly okay?"

"No, you'll die", Zadari says with the straightest face ever.

"Well...I do believe that the amazing hero does get warned of that sometimes."

"I don't fucking know what happens behind those doors Jonathan! It's your freaking dream!"

"Then don't scare me like that if you don't know!"

"You know what", Zadari threw up his hands, "Im done trying to explain this to you, just survive and you'll see and understand what Im trying to tell you."

"I could survive all this and I bet that the real life version of you will also have no idea what you're talking about!"

"GO! PLEASE.", Zadari said.

"WHERE?"

"THROUGH ONE OF THE DOORS OR SOMETHING. WAKE YOURSELF UP"

"YOU SAID I'D DIE  IF I GO THROUGH THE DOORS"

"I WAS JOKING"

"IT WAS A TERRIBLE JOKE"

"WILL YOU PLEASE JUST GO?!"

I marched over to the water that was falling from the wall waterfall and looked in the clear pool before turning back to Zadari.

"This better not kill me and DONT SIT ON THE THRONE"

"SHUT UP ABOUT THE THRONE"

I jumped in the pool water during his sentence and everything faded to black.