Pieces of My Mind

During a quiet night on the Chancer V Tal struggles with some of his deepest inner issues.

''They were fighting. There were three of them, each grappling with each other for supremacy. One was The Warrior, a sangheili minor in a burnished combat harness. He fought with the precision grace of a soldier born, his each move carefully placed. Both a tactical move and a rigorously practiced drill. The other was The Fighter. A muscled sangheili brawler in battered metal and leather armor who's attacks echoed a life time of training mixed with a desperate need to survive. And finally there was The Animal. A hulking beast barely distinguishable as a sangheili, his body split and torn by ceaseless wounds and scars. He wore the remains of the pairs armors, barely clinging to his muscled flesh.

The three fought on. It wasn't a sleek and smooth battle but instead played out in bursts like a malfunctioning hologram. One second the Fighter would have the upper hand. Then the Animal would be on top. Then the Warrior would have preparing to strike him down. On they rolled, each image growing in size as if the trio were approaching. Suddenly the images jumped forward. It was blood red and bold. The Animal standing above his two opponents, screaming an impossible cry into the sky....''

Tal awoke with a start, banging his head loudly on the bulkhead above his sleeping area. A dull sound reverberated around the empty cargo hold as Tal let his head return to normal. The dream was still rolling around his head as if the images of the three figures fighting were imprinted on his mind. Figures? No, Tal was smart enough to know who they were. They were him, the different versions that always fought for strength in his mind. The warrior the covenant forged, the fighter that had survived all the pain of the gladiatorial pits and the animal he had ultimately become.