Galen felt reborn after showering and eating breakfast. Food always seemed twice as tasty and satisfying after a workout. It helped that Olivia’s skill as a cook could easily make some professional chefs bow down before her and beg to be trained.

  She had a history of being rather intense when picking up a new hobby. Olivia Daxton was the type of person who refused to try something new until she honed her current craft to near perfection. So he didn’t think he was being biased.

  After breakfast was done, Andros begrudgingly left to go to work, all while grumbling to Galen and Serenity how he wished he had summer vacation too. That had drawn a giggle out of Galen’s normally stoic mother, who had teased him about sounding like an old man. This naturally made Dad grumble more as he left.

  After that, Galen and Serenity had retreated to his room to hangout.

  Now, his room wasn’t anything special in his opinion. The room was of modest size, and it was a reflection of his interests and passions. A few posters of his favorite anime and video games decorated the walls. In one corner, he had cases that were all filled with books. In another corner, he had several rewards from different tournaments he had participated in over the course of his fifteen year life. The medals and trophies there were all from martial arts, track and field, and other areas.

  His grandfather certainly had kept him busy in learning new skills and honing them to perfection. Not that Galen had minded too much since he’d quite enjoyed the feeling of self improvement. He probably got that from Mom.

  Snapping back to the present, Galen and Serenity had decided to start by playing some video games. He’d been left a little annoyed by how much better his sister had become at 2D fighting games. He had gotten completely trounced in Street Fighter, and her smug grin as she won round after round let him know that she wouldn’t be letting him live this down any time soon.

  Once he got tired of losing, she was willing to have mercy on him, and they switched to watching some TV. Being a huge fan of anime, so that was naturally what he’d decided to watch. Thankfully, after being introduced to the genre by him recently, Serenity had become a fan as well. Though, she wasn’t anywhere as big a fan as he was. On the spectrum of being an anime fan, Serenity was a casual, but she was getting there.

  As another episode ended, Galen told Serenity about the parts that the anime left out from the original light novel. After he finished, Serenity gave him a blank look, “You. Are such. A nerd.”

  “Hey!”

  “No, seriously,” Serenity reiterated with a completely serious expression, “you’ll never get a girlfriend if you keep this up.”

  Galen huffed, “You don’t know that! And besides, I’m not interested in getting a girlfriend right now.”

  “Uh huh,” Serenity abruptly got up from the bed and began walking towards his desktop.

  Galen’s eyes widened, “Hey! Why are you walking over there?!”

  Serenity ignored him. She opened the drawer, and pulled out an intricate, laminated drawing.

  Galen blushed a deep red as Serenity held up the drawing, inspecting it for a moment before giving Galen a flat look.

  “Well? Care to explain this?” Serenity asked as she showed Galen the drawing and continued teasing him, “despite claiming to not be looking for a girlfriend, you drew a pretty good portrait of a rather attractive girl.”

  Serenity grinned, obviously loving how embarrassed Galen was getting, “Care to explain, big brother?”

  Galen remained silent for a moment. Then he asked, “First, can you tell me why it seemed like you knew exactly where to find that?”

  Serenity began to sweat nervously.

  Galen pressed forward. He did his best to appear menacing, which must have worked since she took an involuntary step back.

  “I know for a fact I didn’t tell you about that portrait,” Galen raised a finger, “did you sneak into my room at some point when I wasn’t here, Serenity?”

  “Uh….” she was sweating buckets now.

  Galen sighed. Her nervous reaction to his accusation all but told him the answer. So he bonked her on the top of her head with a quick karate chop.

  “OWIE!” Serenity let go of the drawing and put her hands to where he’d bonked her.

  He quickly bent down and caught the laminated drawing before it hit the ground. As he came back up, he saw Serenity giving him a tear filled glare.

  “You hit me!” she whined.

  “Duh! You know how I feel about privacy. And in spite of that, you still snuck in here!”

  Instead of responding, Serenity ran to his door and poked her head out, yelling, “Mom! Galen hit me!”

  “Oh you little-” he was cut off when he heard his mother’s stern voice speak back.

  “Galen! Why did you hit Serenity?!”

  He covered Serenity’s mouth with his hand before she could say anything, and yelled back a response, “I found out Serenity snuck into my room without my permission!”

  “You’re certain?” his mother asked.

  “Positive,” he affirmed.

  Serenity let out some muffled sounds, trying to break free from him but failing miserably.

  It was silent for a moment. Then, Olivia called out, “Galen!”

  “Yeah?” he called back nervously.

  “You’re free to, how do you call it, ‘bonk’ her again if you like!” Olivia said, delivering the verdict.

  Serenity finally freed herself from Galen and yelled back in protest, “Mom?!”

  “Don’t you ‘Mom’ me young lady! You know how I feel about privacy!” their mother yelled back.

  Serenity grumbled quietly, “I swear you and Galen are two peas in a pod.”

  Amazingly, Olivia somehow heard that, “He is my son!”

  Galen smiled. He could swear his mother sounded proud as she said that. Not that he doubted that his mother was proud of him. She just usually didn’t verbalize it on account of her usually stoic nature.

  Serenity audibly gulped, “How did Mom hear me?! I swear she’s downright terrifying sometimes.”

  She then nervously chuckled, “So… any chance I can convince you to refrain from your approved extra bonking?”

  He carefully put down the drawing in his hands before turning to her with crossed arms, “Depends. Tell me why you snuck into my room and if I don’t think you’re hiding anything, I’ll consider it.”

  “Alright, alright!” Serenity threw up her arms and sat down at his bed.

  She began to explain, “Well, lately I noticed something seemed off about you. When you’re not busy training, I sometimes catch you spacing out. Like you’re thinking hard about something. I’ve tried asking you about it, but you always brushed me off. I’ve asked Mom and Dad about it, but apparently you haven’t told anything to them either. So, I… I snuck into your room when you were out doing one of your parkour runs and tried to see if I could get a clue as to what’s been on your mind.”

  She gestured towards the drawing and actually had the nerve to smile, “Then I found that. And it all made sense to me.”

  He frowned. He didn’t like how she’d said that.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Serenity gave him a teasing grin, “You’re in love!”

  His jaw dropped, and he flushed deeply.

  Serenity must have taken his reaction to mean that she was right considering how her grin grew wider, “I knew it. You found a girl and fell in love! And you’re such a sap about her that you drew a portrait of her! That’s so cringe, Galen!!!”

  Serenity began to gleefully laugh.

  Galen promptly silenced her by using his allowed second bonk to chop her on the head again.

  “OW! That one HURT, you jerk!” she rubbed her head soothingly with tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

  “Well I had to knock some sense into you,” he crossed his arms, “because you were WAY off!”

  Serenity gave him a look that said she clearly didn’t believe him, much to his annoyance.

  She pouted, “Well, what’s with the drawing, then? It’s WAY more detailed than the other stuff you’ve drawn.”

  He sighed, “You’re not gonna stop bugging me about this, are you?”

  “Nope!” Serenity beamed.

  He frowned, a thought coming to his mind. He voiced it, “Is this the real reason you wanted to hang out?”

  She seemed genuinely offended by that, “Of course not! I only brought this up because I was reminded of it when I mentioned you being too nerdy to get a girlfriend.”

  He nodded, choosing to believe her.

  “Well?” she asked impatiently, pointing a finger towards the drawing.

  “Alright. Alright!” he sat down next to his little sister and began to explain.

  “I’ve been… having this dream lately. It’s been going on for a while.”

  Serenity paled, “Is this like what happened with Grandpa?”

  He quickly shook his head, “No! At least, I don’t think so?”

  “You don’t sound very certain.”

  He sighed, “I know. I’m not sure what it is. To be honest, I don’t even remember the dream. I usually forget all the details right after I wake up.”

  “Then how do you know it’s the same dream?”

  He shrugged, “I don’t know. I just do. I’ve been trying to do my best to remember the details, but all I’ve managed was… well… her.”

  He gestured to the drawing, “She’s always there with me in the dream. That’s all I can remember from it.”

  “And how long has this been going on?”

  “Two to three years? I’m not sure exactly when. Just that it started around then.”

  “That’s at least a year before Grandpa died. Did you tell him about it?”

  Galen nodded, “When I started realizing I was having the same dream from time to time, I let him know.”

  “What did he say?” Serenity asked, curiosity evident in both tone and expression.

  He chuckled and proceeded to do his best impression of his grandfather, “He said, ‘how in the world am I supposed to know what your dream means if you can’t even remember it?!’”

  She giggled at that, “Yeah, sounds about right.”

  “He did seem concerned though,” he remembered, “he got really intense with my training after that. Like, more than usual.”

  “Seems like he did think it meant something.”

  “Yeah,” Galen agreed, “what though, he never told me.”

  He turned to Serenity, who looked at him with concern.

  “What’s with that look?” he asked with a frown.

  “Well, to be honest, I’m worried about you. Dad says Grandpa started acting strange and forced both him and you to do weird stuff because of his dreams…”

  “It’s not like that. It’s been a few years since I had mine. And if I recall correctly, Grandpa remembered his dreams clearly, right?”

  Serenity nodded, but said nothing for a moment. Finally, she said, “She’s pretty. Beautiful, even.”

  “Who?”

  Serenity gestured towards the drawing again. Galen nodded in agreement, “Yeah. She is…”

  She grinned. He saw a mischievous glint in her eyes that he didn’t like.

  “So that’s your type, eh?” she teased.

  “Oh shut up!” he flushed.

  ***

  The rest of the siblings’ time together went by normally. They’d continued watching a few more episodes of various shows, played some more video games, during which Galen had managed to score a few wins, and had lunch. After this, Serenity claimed to have had enough of Galen to last a week, and she left to her own room.

  He spent the remainder of the day getting a weight lifting workout in, working on some drawings, then reading one of his history/culture books, a subject he quite liked, until it was time for dinner, then bed shortly after.

  Yet, he found he couldn’t fall asleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about Nolan considering the conversation he’d had with Serenity earlier.

  His thoughts turned back to when the tension around Nolan’s treatment of him had reached a crescendo. It had been about a year or so before his grandfather’s passing, and not long after Galen had asked Nolan about his own recurring dream.

  Galen had been fourteen when he had nearly stumbled into an argument between his father and grandfather. His father was usually a jovial, easygoing man, so seeing him so angry had scared Galen at the time into remaining hidden as he had eavesdropped on the argument.

  “Stop trying to turn my son into a soldier!!!” Andros had yelled at Nolan, “just because Galen is willing to indulge your little training sessions doesn’t mean he believes in your delusions. And just because Olivia and I have allowed it so far doesn’t mean I’ll let you do to him what you did to me!”

  Nolan had been likewise angry, but he also looked incredibly tired as well. He’d shaken his head sadly, “Son, you don’t know what’s coming. If you did, then you’d understand why I saw fit to train you and Galen as I have. I’ve tried warning you many times now, yet you-”

  “This again?!” Andros had yelled, “I thought you’d gotten over this stupid delusion of yours! There is no apocalypse to prepare for, Dad! How long is it going to take to get that through your thick skull?! How many more years will we have to put up with this nonsense?!”

  The argument had grown so intense that Galen had gotten too scared to remain.

  Finally, he remembered the last conversation he’d had with his grandfather.

  “Galen,” Nolan had said to him, “come here for a moment.”

  “Grandpa?” Galen had asked as he approached.

  The old man had brought him into a hug, and simply held him for a while. That had made him uneasy. His grandfather had never been the kind of man to be so sentimental.

  After several long moments, Grandpa said, “You will go through so much hardship in your future. Far more than ever I had. I can only hope that the training I gave you, all the skills I taught you, will provide a good enough foundation for you to survive through the blasphemer’s storm. That was my God given mission. I have faith that the Lord will see you through it. And I have faith in you my grandson. As a Daxton, I KNOW you have what it takes to fulfill your purpose. To unify that which had been fractured.”

  “Grandpa, what the heck are you talking about?”

  Nolan had merely smiled at him and uttered the phrase every young person hates to hear from an adult,“You’ll know when you’re older.”

  He’d frowned at that, “Are you sure you aren’t going senile?”

  That had gotten him a good smack on the head by the old man, “My mind is still as sharp as a tack you little whippersnapper! I simply know.”

  “Know what?” he’d asked as he nursed the top of his head, his grandfather’s tone giving him a bad feeling.

  “That my time to rest has come,” Nolan had answered.

  And, true to the old man’s word, he passed away in his sleep that very night.

  Galen had been so confused by that final conversation. To this day he didn’t understand most of what Nolan had said. Blasphemer’s storm? Unifying that which had been fractured? It made no sense.

  His grandfather hadn’t had an easy life, and he’d seemed so certain that Galen would face far worse trials in his future. Part of him wanted to believe as his father had, and simply dismiss Nolan’s actions and words as someone losing their wits.

  But he couldn’t.

  More than the words, Galen couldn’t forget the look of steely certainty he’d seen in Nolan’s eyes. No, his grandfather had been far too sharp, far too clear and brimming with certainty in his last day for him to have been mad.

  That, combined with his own lingering worries, were why Galen kept up his training, despite not knowing what his future held. He could only hope that he was being as paranoid as Andros believed Nolan had been.