Dreamland

I watched the immovable stars above and sighed.

I could fly about as fast as the trailer truck was guzzling the asphalt metres, but why work when I can lie and wait? It was not really pleasant but supportable. Besides, I needed to recuperate, so better to do it staying on the trailer instead of waiting in the woods or in one parking somewhere. Even with Flo's giant mana reserves, I had to stop from time to time to regenerate, as her mana regeneration was not good enough to keep me flying all the time. Trailer surfing is recommended... at least from time to time.

In addition, I was getting tired: flying is hard work. All my muscles were getting sore; it is not so trivial to keep your body under control while your wings beat the air. Especially muscles that I did not even know I had in my back were starting to ache. Not to count that it had been a long day, full of events and emotions, so it was logically that I needed some rest.

To my dismay, I saw that the trailer I chose went into a parking place. Does this guy need an urgent piss break? Oh, whatever. There were not so many trailers on the road now, so I'll stay here for a while; hopefully, he gets back on the road soon.

The driver came out of the cabin and walked towards the rear.

I curiously watched him until I understood that he was working with the plank! True, it did rattle a little in the wind, so he is securing it better. OK, that will not take long.

He climbed a couple of times on the sides and looked over the trailer spanning the plank, and I waited patiently for him to finish his work. I saw his head appearing again on the side near me, but I stayed calm. I am well hidden under Flo's mirrors; he cannot see me. And then, as I waited calmly there, I was suddenly awash with hot coffee.

“Fuck you, idiot!” - I yelled back, surprised.

Hearing my voice, his head disappeared instantly, then appeared slowly back. He was looking now straight at me with big round eyes. Oh, for fuck's sake, the coffee dripping on my face had made me visible. He hesitated to run and scream or to yell at me.

Instead, he just stood there and babbled:

"B... b.... b... but..."

We looked each other in the eyes. I sighed.

“Oh come on, man, I like coffee, but not hot served in my face! And no sugar, please! Fuck!” - I tried to put things straight.

“B... B... You speak our language?” - he finally said as if he would suddenly find the speaking module. - "But you are an alien!?"

He was not really asking. I sighed again.

“I am hungry, tired and now wet.”

Speaking about food seems to be a universal accepted language. He promptly understood that and explained:

“Ahm, there is a fast food centre several kilometres down the road, but you must pass through the control before.”

He shrugged.

“Control?” - I wondered.

His eyes lit, and he started to explain feverishly:

“They said it on the radio, the feds are controlling all passing cars in a couple of kilometres from here with some sophisticated gear. They must be looking for aliens from the crash.”

He nodded importantly.

“Crash?” - I continued to wonder.

“There was a big alien spaceship that crash-landed or an asteroid came down in the forests several tens of kilometres from here. The explosion was registered as a level 3.4 earthquake.”

Oh! OK, that was the compound's explosion... Asteroid!

“Did you hear that also on the radio?” - I asked.

He nodded eagerly:

“Yes, on our truckers' radio station, mam! Now, are you going to stay up there, or do you come down? Cause they are going to find you if you stay up there, and it disturbs my plank.”

“How did you know I was here?” - I asked, curious to understand how my camouflage failed.

“I told you." - he explained with a wise face - "The plank behaved differently. As if something would be sitting on it.”

“Oh. You got me. I did not think about that. And you decided to throw your hot coffee over the plank just like that? How far did you say is the fast food restaurant?”

He shrugged and corrected me:

“Sorry, it was instinctual. Centre. There are more shops. Just several kilometres down the road, but as I told you, they'll find you before. Maybe it would be better if you would come into my cabin. You could almost pass as a human girl if you dress something instead of that enterprise stuff.”

I rolled my eyes. OK, I did not have my jacket on as it is not optimal with the wings, but I had a pair of trousers, and Flo had spelled me something to cover my torso, but he had seen my horns and wings.

“Just go down the road; I'll meet you after the control. I want to go to that fast food centre!”

“What do you do? You cannot let him go like this?”

“He already forgot about me; I've deleted his memory. He feels a compulsion to go to that fast food centre, that's all.”

That surprised me.

“You did that?”

“Sure. Low-level spawn, I could do anything to his mind; he is unprotected.”

Low-level spawn... I tried to ignore the outrage and asked the real question:

“You are a mage mind too?”

“Not really. I can delete memories and give some low-level orders, like this compulsion to go to that shop. He may go, but he may even decide not to do that. Have I not told you before?”

“Yes, you mentioned that you can make them forget, but I was still surprised. How do you do this? That compulsion?”

"I just synchronized some spells: I put a new mirror between him and me so that he would not see me; I deleted his memory just before the last words: 'go to that fast food centre'. Deleting short-term memory is a relatively safe and easy spell. Now he has those words in his memory and nothing else from our encounter. He will probably go there."

"But he will not recognize you?"

"True. We never met. It would have been too risky to let him know I was here."

He shrugged, watched the plank with a confused face, and then went back into the cabin and engaged the engine. The truck set itself slowly in motion dragging behind the two heavy containers.

Humans. They always manage to surprise me!

I took a deep breath.

That thought put my mind into high drive. That thought was from White Flower... Huch, I know what White Flower thinks! Or maybe I get glimpses from her thoughts. Is it surprising? Our brains are even more interconnected now.

To judge this, I need to understand what White Flower is? Or maybe more directly, what am I? I can let her act and take most of the action in my name as my own action. For good or for bad, I know I did that. I changed now even my body. I have Cala's body, and Cala's mind slumbers somewhere on the other side of White Flower. How does this work? Witchcraft. Magic.

Is there any other explanation? Dreaming? Too long a dream, but maybe. They almost made me believe I dreamed all this there in the compound!

Fucking compound!

What was that black angel? A materialization of that kid's thoughts? But then, how did White Flower separate him from the boy? Did she create him and delete it from his mind? Was the physical black angel my creation based on the template from his mind? Or was it a real thing even before? Was it a creation of his mind that I carry now as baggage?

If it was his creation, it means there are more like me. Witches. It makes sense; I am not so exceptional to think I am the only one.

And then the catastrophe happened. That huge blast.

Did I cause it?

Yes, it happened because of me. Without me creating that black angel, they would have had no reason to blow that location up. Was there any other way for me to escape? Why did I have to tell them that I knew they were interrogating me in a virtual environment? But was that reason enough to kill me? When did they decide to kill me? Were they really trying to kill me? Yes, that acid was not just to polish my skin. Could they know I would be healing myself? I don't think they knew it, judging by their reaction.

I had so many questions in my head, but now the truck had slowed down. Indeed as he had said, the highway was blocked, and there was a small queue to a zone where all cars and trucks were passing one by one, between an array of tubes. That must be some kind of scanner. Army units were spread on both sides of the road. Everything was illuminated with powerful projectors, and many drones were flying above and around. The line extended on both sides of the road as far as I could see. I spread my wings and took off. I winced, seeing how the wind blew under me, shaking the truck's plank, but it was only for a moment. A blast of wind and then nothing.

Right and left, a couple of kilometres away, two blimps were stationed at several kilometres' height. I realized that normally I should not be able to see them with my former Dolores' eyes but now I saw clearly their form obscuring the stars in the skyline.