Settling down into his bed for the night, Karl turned off the small light set at his bedside table, turning his covers appropriately and laying himself down for a good nights rest. The Workday was done, and he had his plans in regards to lessons written and made for the next week, so he had ample time to prepare for further endeavors at the University. The only thing that was unusual, granted out of sight as he fell into slumber, was that collectors piece he got from a friend in the Historical Society, that Hammer. A slight, gold aura forming ‘round its shape.
As the night reached its apex, whatever dream he had the pleasure of having was quickly replaced, replaced with the portrait of a city, an old city. Buildings ablaze, made a ruin of, and craters from explosions littering the land. Swordsmen, Knights, and a menagerie of other medieval troopers, displayed in the most grotesque of ways. Either killed in battle, left unidentifiable due to unknown means, or burnt to a crisp. They lay motionless, but their screams resounding in his head, as though something inside his own skull was trying to break out.
The only relief, being the darkness that soon followed, it brought upon by one, familiar set of fluorescent blue eyes, a shriek shattering his resolve, before it fell to a deep, dark, silence.
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As that alarm sounded, Karl would jump up from his laying state, face and hair slick with his own sweat as he was thrust from his torturous slumber. His hands rapidly feeling about him to make sure the dream had ended, that he was truly there, and thankfully he was. His breath rapid, his head pulsing in pain as his phone vibrated on his bedside table. Reaching for it, he’d swing his legs over the side of his bed, reading through the attached message, slowly, face contorting into one of pure disbelief as he continued on.
“What in...Sigmar’s name...?”
It was clear whatever pleasant times he had, were abruptly brought to an end. The drums were sounding, and it was time to march to their beat.
Taking his two favorite jackets, unfortunately due to need and their ingredient, he’d grab a kitchen knife and scissors from the shared kitchen in the home. Sleeves removed from them, cut in half, and then cut into fours. Two layers of ‘fashion’ leather, four sets, one each on the top of his forearms, and the same on his upper arms. Bound down with string from a sowing needle. The vests, one covered in adhesive, and then covered in rolled up sheets and pillowcases, before placing the second vest around that. A cheap, but effective, gambeson replica.
Hand, wrapping around the hilt of his favored hammer, its weight familiar, its texture, familiar. This was not a collectors item, it never was and was never meant to even be considered as something so lowly. This, was the last remaining piece from his home, and it was the piece that would begin the puzzle of putting it back together, whenever that may be,
Bursting out that front door, he’d squint at the early morning light, looking off in the direction, that ‘He’ had gone.
