A/N - I revised this chapter on 01-10-2016

Dreams are the gateway to forgotten memories

The window to the future

The door to connect distant universes

The travel in the Long Pass is a quiet one. The oxkeys climb slowly but steadily the continuously steep road. The landscape is fortunately not as boring as Scarlet Plain, by the contrary. The tall mountains are carved with impressive patterns in their rocky structure, like if a giant sculptured them long ago. The vegetation continues to be made mostly made out small plants and bushes.

Sometimes we spot animals that quickly run away when they see or hear us, not used to the presence of humans in these parts. There are different kinds of birds than in the valley and I entertain myself in watching the differences in size, colors and patterns. Sayu pointed once at a fox. The orange doglike animal was paralyzed from fright and stared at us for moments in shock, before it disappeared swiftly between some rocks. One time, Aizawa had an encounter with snake while we were eating lunch. It was quite a laugh, because he was panicked. He shouted and gesticulated wildly, while the snake moved unhurriedly away, like if it felt insulted. I swear the merchant turned into all kind of colors. Even after we told him the snake was harmless, he kept looking around suspiciously, probably afraid it would return.

We keep climbing and climbing and in the fourth evening we finally reach the highest point of our journey in the Long Pass. We camp for the night and everybody is happy with the prospect of starting tomorrow the descend. We are half way our journey to the other side of the Straight Shaft's shore. We camp and prepare ourselves for a cold night. There is an unusual peacefulness here at the top of the mountains. We stand higher than the clouds and sometimes we can see the eagles fly down below. The air is chilly but it's freshness feels pleasant. The air smells clean and pure, but we notice that if we walk a while, we are short of it. Aizawa explains there is less air here above than below in the valley. After the sun sets, we sit around the fire and watch the sky. It looks darker from here and we can see the stars better, like if they were closer. This night we barely speak. I think everybody is impressed and conquered by the beauty and the peacefulness of this place.

We all go to bed early. Misa and I wrap ourselves in warm blankets inside our tent and sleep close to each other to keep the warmth of our bodies. I fall asleep rather quickly. I am forced to dream the dream that is so well known to me. The dream that insists in chasing me, haunting me each and every night. Only this time it happens differently. The images I have grown used to see appear to me backwards.

It starts with a scream. A horrible chilling scream. It's the child's scream that always wakens me up! Then suddenly I'm pulled off the closet. I can see the surroundings better, the room with its colorful draperies and a small round table with a bowl of fruit. I leave a house. This time I can see everything more clearly. The house's façade and the streets. It's so strange because I feel like I'm being pulled backwards. And meanwhile, I see the black dressed men violently attack everybody around them. I keep being pulled backwards until I'm leaving the village. I enter a small path made of little stones, almost hidden between large rocks. It goes down and down, on the edge of a tall mountain. I cannot see it's depths because it's pitch black down below. On the way I see a cactus with three branches. A mouse runs in front of my feet. I look up and see the starry sky. I'm descending and descending until I reach an open clearing. I see four tents. I recognize them!

I recognize the tents!

I open my eyes suddenly in a silent gasp. My heart is racing madly. Not of distress but of adrenaline. I feel ecstatic! I'm elicited! It's an extraordinary feeling, like a kind of foreshadowing of an amazing revelation. I know I'm about to discover something extremely important. Something decisive!

I quickly get up and carefully take one of the blankets without waking up Misa, so I can protect myself from the cold. I step outside and smile drunken from this crazy feeling. I look up at the starry sky. The moon has meanwhile travelled high. Despite it's still in its First Quarter, its light is just enough to discern my surroundings. I look around and recognize the open clearing with the tents where my dream ended. It's was like something revealed me a secret. A hidden path to place long forgotten. I walk in the direction of some rocks I saw in my dream.

I can't stop thinking what Ryuzaki told me about the dream. That is was a message. I can't help but agree with him. All this time I kept having this recurrent dream and this night, the path to the attacked village was indicated to me. I climb the small path panting from the adrenaline and the little air. My heart is beating from anticipation. Ryuzaki had told me the dream had not been about the future. If he is right, that means I cannot help the villagers and warn them about imminent danger. I follow the almost invisible path in the moon's pale light and I can't stop wondering. Is this dream about the past? Something major that happened in these mountains? Did I dream about the Wise One's genocide? Are the legends and myths true after all? If so, why me? Why did I dream this dream continuously and not somebody else? And what does Ryuzaki know that he didn't tell me? So many questions with no answers.

I breathe heavily and my lungs seem to want to burn. I am short of air, but I don't want to stop. The path is leading to the mountain's very top peak. Aizawa's voice echoes in my head - these mountains were the homes from the children of the gods. Suddenly I stop. A little mouse crosses my way. Just like in my dream! I look up and see the cactus with three branches. Just like in my dream! I realize, I very close to the village and run upwards. The anticipation is so great, I ignore the burning in my chest and the heaviness in my legs. I have no idea how long I've been climbing and I don't care. Time does not matter anymore. Time is nonexistent. I climb and climb and climb. Panting and sweating, I finally stop. And I drop to my knees.

There! Right in front of my eyes, under the pale moon light, lies the village that's been haunting my dreams! I am shocked and unprepared. My dream, everything in it was real. Tears cascade uncontrolled down my face. It has nothing to do with the horrible aching of all my muscles. It's has nothing to do with me finding out my dream was about a real place. I cry because the village is ruined. Because what I saw in my dreams were indeed images of the past. Defenseless people were mercilessly massacred. Man, women, elderly, children. I let out a cry of agony as the scream of the child whose face I do not know rings in my ears. Such horrors! Such suffering! Why?

After regaining some self-control, I stumble down the road, my feet feel floppy, my legs numb. I recognize this road as the one I keep seeing in my dreams. The street the child kept running to escape the murderers. Despite the darkness of the night, it is clear the houses were burnt and abandoned for quite a while, for bushes grow on the walls and roofs. I stop at a house on my left and push its wooden door. It falls, making a loud racket and I shiver. I feel like I'm disturbing a sepulchral silence that has inhabited here for a long time. The noise feels uncomfortably unwelcome. I take a nervous breath and peek inside the dark room. The moon's light allows me to discern a chair and a table fallen on the ground. I think there's a bed at the end of the room, but I'm not sure. I enter and step on something. I pick it up and it's a small wooden plate. I force my eyes and notice there are objects lying scattered around. A memory of a struggle, of resistance, of murder. It gives me the chills.

I walk back to the street. I've just started walking and again, I step on something. I look down to where my feet are. I can't really make out what it is so I bend over and my fingers become my eyes. My hand touches whatever is on the ground, so I can visualize the shapes and forms. Suddenly I lift my hand it like if it was burned. I gasp shocked. It's a corpse! A skeleton still with hair and clothes! I stand up in a jolt and frantically clean my hand on my clothing. Sobs escape my throat in the form of hiccups. My eyes follow the game of lights and shadows in the street and I can discern under the dim moonlight more corpses, laying around forgotten and abandoned. The bastards! They couldn't even give these people a proper burial!

I sob miserably at the realization this village is frozen in time. It remained untouched since its attack. I'm probably the first person to ever come here after the massacre. I clean my eyes with trembling fingers and force myself to breathe in and out. I have no idea who these people were. It doesn't matter if they were truly the mythical Wise Ones or not. They were people, men and women, human beings with precious lives and they were brutally slaughtered! They were caught out of guard and never had the chance to defend themselves against their assassins. It's so revolting! It makes me feel sick! It makes me want to scream! So I scream. Loud and angry. And again, I disturb the silence of this dead village. I feel a bit relieved now so I decide to continue to walk. I know where the child's house is. I need to go there. I need to find it. And mourn before the faceless child's corpse.

The sky is becoming a shade lighter of blue. How long have I been here? Soon a new day will rise. But not for these people. Never for these people. Slowly, the ruined and burned houses become clearer, the skeletal bodies too. It's a ghost town. Yet, I feel like I am the real ghost here, wandering like a lost soul in a memory that is not mine.

I freeze in my steps. The house I always enter in my dream is right at the end of the street. I come closer, my heart beating fast and hard. The door is gone and I walk into the first division while the day finally is born. A warm pleasant golden light illuminates the charcoaled walls, the broken table on the floor, a bowl lying next to it. There is a corpse lying on the right side and I can feel all my blood go down my face. I can see by the clothing it was a woman. The woman that spoke to the child. The woman that hid the child in the closet. I can only conclude she was the child's mother. I lift my eyes a bit. The woman died right next to the closet. Chills race down my back and I can feel the goosebumps in my skin.

The closet is surprisingly intact. It escaped the fire that destroyed wall next to it. It's closed. I slowly walk closer to it. My hand reaches to its door, white and shaking. I almost expect to see a child sitting quietly inside of it, waiting patiently years and years for somebody to find him or her. I reach the door. I hesitate for a second. I close my eyes and in a swift movement I open the door. I open my eyes again. I expect to see a small skeleton in it. Instead there's nothing. The closet is empty. No child is waiting for me. There's no corpse lying forgotten. I still don't know what happened to the child.

I take a few steps back and I let myself fall on the floor, on a sitting position. I'm overwhelmed. I feel dizzy. A thousand questions fill my mind. The dream was a memory of the dead. Is it possible that when these people died they became lost souls? Is it possible lost souls have access to people during their dreams? Is it possible they knew I was travelling to this region and this is why I kept dreaming about the village? Is it possible they wanted me to find the village so they weren't forgotten anymore? So they could have a proper and dignifying burial? Is this what Ryuzaki meant when he told me the dream was a message and that soon I would understand it? How did he know? How could he possibly know about this village and that I was going to find it? Who the Hell is Ryuzaki?! I need to find him! I need to talk to him! He is hiding stuff. Important stuff. I need to know why me! I need to understand how he knew this was going to happen! Just like how he always knows what is going on around him!

I remain sitting down and I watch the shadows quickly dissipate until the warm sun light illuminates the world completely. The house looks even more eerie and desolate in the light than in the dark. I look at closet. It's made of dark wood and is not very big. An adult would never fit in it. I look up. There's a hole on the roof, it too was burned by the fire. I can see the blue sky through it. My family is already awake and must be worried with my disappearance. I can just imagine them looking for me everywhere, calling out my name. Somehow, I don't really care. I found the village from my dream. Once the home of innocent people. Once the home of a child. A village hidden at the highest peak of one of the Sacred Mountains. A village from the Wise Ones. Possibly the last village destroyed by the barbarous Truth Holders. The stories were true after all. I wonder if the child is a past life of mine.

I have enough of the disturbing thoughts that haunt me. I'm exhausted and want to return to my family, where there is life and love. I get up and look a one last time at the woman's corpse. The hair on her skull is black as coal. I look at her face and stare at the two empty holes where her eyes once were, long ago. I morn for her. I morn for this dead mother and her dead child. I morn for all these poor villagers. Victims of one stupid conviction, of human cruelty and senseless violence. I morn for the all the people who live in this world shaped by destruction. I morn for my unborn child. I realize that nobody should live in such a cruel and mad world. I wish people would have been more sensible in the past and used their brains instead of their weapons. I wish that the Wise Ones were still alive. I wish the world was a good, warm and safe place. There is so much I wish for.

I leave the ghost village behind me and start my descend.

…

"Light! Oh gods, Light! Where have you been?" My mother yells furiously at me. I know her anger is actually relieve, the voice of her unconditional love for me. The image of the murdered mother returns to my mind. "We were worried sick!"

"I'm sorry." I politely apologize. My mother sees something in my face that makes her expression turn to the one of anxious concern. She cups her hands on my face. It feels so comforting that I allow myself to melt into the feeling.

"Light, my son. What happened?" She asks and before I can answer her, I hear a horrible high pitched scream.

"LIGHT-KUN!" Misa runs to me with tears in her eyes and hugs me very tightly. How is it possible that such a small woman has such a strength?! She's suffocating me! All at the sudden, she releases me to hit my chest with her fists. "Why Light-kun run off like that? Misa-Misa and his family were so worried!"

She yells in rage. Then her anger subsides as suddenly as it came. She stops and stares at me with her watery eyes, her under lip trembling. "Misa-Misa was so scared." She confesses in a small voice and rests her head quietly on my chest. Gods, it must be horrible to be a hormonal pregnant woman and shift from one emotion to the next one so quickly! It must be exhausting! "Misa-Misa is happy Light-kun is back, safe and sound." She finally says with a gentle voice while she rubs her head lovingly against my chest like a cat. I can feel my cheeks burn up when I realize everybody is staring at me, question marks all over their faces.

My mother switches a worried glance with my father, who looks somewhere between upset and relieved. Sayu looks happy. She's pale and her eyes are puffed. Aizawa, on the other hand, looks reprovingly at me with his arms crossed. The man is actually scary when he looks angry. I can understand why everybody acting this way. The sun is already high and it's close to noon. I've been away for most of the night and the morning. No wonder I feel so tired. I gently push Misa away so I have more space. I bow in humility before my family and the merchant.

"I apologize greatly for my behavior and disappearing like this." I say after I straighten my back. I look into their eyes and I can read anticipation in them. "But something extraordinary happened."

…

"T-That's amazing!" Aizawa exclaims after I finish my recount. "It has to be one of the Wise One's villages! It matches the stories I grew up with! Please, you must show me this place." I nod in agreement and I turn my head when I feel the touch of my father's hand on my shoulder.

"I'll will go too." My father speaks. "Those poor people deserve a proper burial." Again I nod. Despite regaining some energy after resting and eating some food, I'm still quite tired. I do not really feel like returning to that cursed place, but I know I must. My father is of course right. And so is Aizawa. We need to confirm the identity of the villagers.

"Can I come too?" Sayu asks in a begging tone.

"No, you stay here with Misa and your mother." My father says in a voice that leaves no space for discussion.

"But dad!"

"Sayu, it's not a pretty sight." I come in between. My sister looks at me upset. "Really, it's not something you would like to see."

Father, Aizawa and I leave the three women behind, Sayu sulking offended. I lead the road and when we are close to the top, the three of us turn around suddenly. We heard a sound and I am not in the least surprised when my baby-sister's head pops up from behind a rock, her cheeks red from both the arduous climbing and embarrassment.

"Sayu! I told you to stay behind!" Father scolds and she bows apologetically. "Go back to your mother and sister-in-law!"

"We are here." I say and my father turns to look at me.

Sayu immediately takes the chance to run up and meet me. Being the youngest and the smallest has its advantages sometimes. My father is unable to stop her and she meets me shortly after Aizawa. We are standing at the end of the road, at the top of the hill, where I can look down at the village. I wonder if this is the path the Truth Holder took to ambush the innocent villagers.

"Good grace." Father whispers when he finally reaches us.

He is panting more than the rest of us and rests his hand on Sayu's shoulder. She's covering her mouth from the shock. The destruction of the village is so clear right now. The houses are still standing up, but they are broken and stained black from the fires. Walls and rooftops are ruined and collapsed by the destruction and by time. Plants have been devouring the houses and streets, reclaiming the cursed village to nature. We climb down to the main street in a reverent silence. Sayu demonstrates to be stronger than me when I first came here, as she holds her tears back while her eyes rest on the first body she finds. Aizawa comes closer and examines the skeleton closer. Reaches for the next one and repeats the process several times more.

"They all had dark hair." Aizawa declares while he's crouched next to a corpse. I look around and confirm the man's statement. Every single person in this village had charcoal black hair. "There were several clans and each one had recognizable racial features. These were tall people with dark hair. As for your hunch of this being the last village destroyed, I think you are right, Light. The clothing models and colors match the fashion from about 20 years ago. And the fabrics degradation stage is typical for this period of time too." There is a deep silence after his words. The merchant stands up and faces me looking grave. "Your discovery – it's the tangible evidence of the Truth Holders' massacre. I need to tell my village's elders. The tales are no tales any longer. They are history."

I swallow dry. Ryuzaki had told me the dream had an important message. Never in my life I would except the message to be this important, this decisive. It's going to change so many things. It's going to shape and rewrite history as we know it. Myths are no myths any longer. Legends are no legends any longer. It's all real. I wish it wasn't because it's so horrible. Genocide. Humankind is indeed capable of the worse imaginable atrocities!

"We should burry these people. They have been exposed to the elements long enough." Father says after a mournful silence and we all agree with him.

It's quite a heavy work as the ground is hard. We dig a large and common grave to place the remains of these people. It seems fit, since they were one community, one great family, that they may rest together. We place them in the common grave one by one with great respect. My father speaks the words that are repeated in every funeral, every burial. Nobody knows the origin of this text, but we all know it by heart. Unfortunately, death is a common thing in our lives.

"We tenderly commit these people's bodies to their final resting place. We return them to the Mother of All, Mother of Earth, Mother of Life and Death. May you all become one with earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. May your souls rise to the skies, sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection unto eternal life, where all that is, is Peace and Love."

We look back at the abandoned village one last time before we head back to our camp. The skies are already changing and by the time we are back, it's already night. Mother scolds Sayu for her disobedience, by father tells her to leave my sister in peace. Sayu looks exhausted. We all are in fact exhausted. From the physical labor, but most of all, from the heaviness of the villagers' doomed destiny. My sister seeks solitude in her tent and it's quite evident during dinner that she's been weeping. Nobody says a word. We eat in a silence and go to bed early. We lost a day's journey. Our bodies and minds need a good rest. I sleep, the first night of many, a dreamless sleep.