This was a dream… I knew it was.
"You sure about that?"
My shuddering eyes met him as I noticed those features: gray hair, golden brown skin, that distinct mole under his right eye…
This was me. The me from the past.
Memories flashed of who I had once been in a matter of nanoseconds. Like I had forgotten and remembered these memories all in the same. And then the final moments when I had died, and Belle was there, already passed into the afterlife.
My head ached and my trembling eyes exacerbated like it was happening right now… even though I knew it wasn't.
"What's going on?"
The figure smiled and reached out to me, but I tossed its hand away.
"Explain yourself!"
"I think it's best I show you instead." It slowly positioned its hand in front of me again, like it wanted me to take it. "That headache will continue if you don't."
I reluctantly took its hand, and we were instantly transported into the sky.
"Where?"
"Question… What do you consider this land?"
"What?"
"Do you see this place as a world, or do you see it as a dimension?"
"The fuck are you talking about?"
He sighed and walked toward me like we were standing on invisible ground. He grabbed my jaw and our eyes met. My black ones to his maroons… Mine to mine.
Yeah… this was definitely me—
"From the past?" he completed my thought as if he could hear the past, present, and future all at once. "Perhaps in your eyes."
He released me, and my headache was gone.
"You are much further behind than the last one… He understood these questions last time."
I didn't understand half of what he was saying… but I knew it mattered. I was also still shocked to be standing with no ground way up high. But I supposed it shouldn't have surprised me. I stood atop Belle's Celestial Dome with her once. What difference was this?
And what did he mean by last one? Who was this 'he' he spoke of?
I couldn't even ask. It was like I was being restricted that information for now. Different than the seal under my tongue that was no more. Like a rule as definite as air and gravity.
This rule said, You are not ready.
"I wanted to see how far you've come. But you still have much more to endure. Until then, God will wait."
"You mean the Keeper?"
He chuckled and then merely stared at me. "Oh, Child of the Sins… you have so much to learn… but for now… why don't you try to make it back to reality."
As he said this, I had begun to fall. Like I had lost the privilege to stand in his presence.
The wind howled as I flailed in the sky with no control. It took me a minute to position myself in a backwards freefall, so that I may glance at him from below. But he was no longer there.
Instead, I thought I saw the sky ripple like water…
As my hair fluttered in my face, I slowly realized where I once was.
My innate state of mind returned, and my eyes appeared almost bored.
Great… I'm falling… again.
And of course, I still didn't know how to use the wings I apparently had.
Guess I'll die. I thought, knowing I wouldn't.
I flew past the tall trees and neared the ground. And just as I was about to land, everything went black.
***
When I awoke, I was laying with the side of my face pressed onto the dirt, eyes slowly flickering.
"Is he dead?" I heard a voice say.
"Don't joke like that… I guess it was a lucky hit," another sterner voice added. "Either way, I'm impressed. Usually, his guard is up more than that unless he suppresses his—uh… power I guess."
I didn't know I was waving my hand in the air as they spoke all around me. My eyes were going in and out of blurriness, finally becoming aware.
"What… the fuck…" I uttered like an awful mess.
As their silhouettes became clearer, I saw my crew: Havoc, Brand, and Code lording over me.
"Good morning, sunshine," Havoc teased.
Code lowered a hand to help me up, and I took it, rubbing my eyes, and rising to my feet.
"Someone care to explain?" I pleaded.
"Well," Havoc said as he began walking away, throwing his hands behind his head. "You were just waltzing out without a care in the world… Keeper, Cap, you looked like a zombie… so I decided to play a prank on you, and went for a slam to the head, and well… I thought you would just dodge or stay right there like the wall you are, but the strike not only contacted… you slammed into the ground!" he giddied. "Holy shit, I can't believe I actually hit you! I'm still on cloud nine!"
"What…? I was sleepwalking?"
"If you consider wide open eyes sleepwalking…" Code replied next to me.
"Captain!" Brand eagerly interjected. "Would you like me to severely punish this rugrat on your behalf?"
"Go for it."
"It's settled then."
Havoc laughed maniacally at him as he taunted, "Bring it, you fuckin' tin can!"
Code sighed, and then gave me a careful scan with his eyes. "You sure you're okay? I've never seen you so… out of it."
"I second that," Nash added, joining us from the Den.
"What time is it? Did we figure out the fuel situation?"
"Fuel situation?" Code asked.
"Yeah, we were moving and suddenly we just stopped 'cause—" I stopped talking as I looked around. Last I remembered we were passing through the Forest jurisdiction, then everyone disappeared, and I fought those three Grade 1's…
When I turned around, I saw the Valley Kingdom's walls in the distance. This was the clearing just outside the East Gate of the Valley…
We were back home. And what the hell was Nash doing here?
"What the fuck?"
That's when I felt a stab on my back from behind.
I staggered, turning around, seeing that Alice had done the deed.
"Alice…! What…" I barely got out before realizing I no longer had a mouth to speak with.
I then felt stabs from all around me—this time from Havoc, Brand, Nash, and Code, stabbing me multiple times, over and over again.
What the hell is going on?
When I blinked, everything turned red… and I heard the voice of the mysterious me from behind, "Now this is a dream."
I swung a backfist in his direction when I heard him, but missed.
A dream, huh?
When I blinked again, my entire crew was around me, all holding knives as they stabbed from all angles; each one of their eyes was like endless, white voids.
"Nice try," I said to no one in particular. "But my crew doesn't need knives to kill!"
I shrouded myself in vantablack, and the space distorted all around me.
As I thought… a spell.
I reached out, beginning to pry open the distorted space with my bare hands, and it screeched from my doing so.
I tore through the blanket of time, and I saw the real world beyond it.
It snapped sharply… and suddenly—
***
I stepped out onto the dirt before me. The air was cold, and I saw traces of frost on tips of the grass patches scattered all around.
That cold feeling was undeniable.
Feeling. That's what had been missing all this time.
I was truly awake now.
Above me was a cyclops-like monster with a gaping mouth, and Ophelia in its grasp about to devour her whole. She held a blank look upon her face as she nearly entered it.
But the monster stopped midway, slowly realizing where I had exited from… the tear through space I had come through—the dream space—had torn open its stomach entirely.
It attempted a gasp for air, but its lungs were shattered, and its organs spilled out, slapping the ground.
Blood rushed out from its mouth and waterfalled silently as it released her, and I was quick to snatch her from her fall.
It crumbled to the ground as shaves of ice powdered the air upon its landing. The portal from its stomach had become nothing but a heaping slop of guts and insides.
"Lovely…" I remarked as I rose from my crouch, Ophelia still zoned out in my arms. "Oculus Fiends."
I then began to sense more across the shadowed trees, weary of my presence now that I had just ripped open their friend.
They shied back, hiding their hideous bodies in the shadows. Each one, I could tell, was trying to hypnotize me just as this one on the ground had somehow successfully achieved.
I gotta hand it to them, though, I thought as the beasts prowled. They were able to get the jump on me—even if it was only for a little bit. And what happened to the Den? My crew?
I reached for Ophelia's cheek, patting it twice gently, and she relaxed her taut face; she then closed her eyes to sleep. That simple gesture alone was enough to dispel the illusion on her.
"Give… back… our captain… you fuckin'… prick…" she muttered.
Whatever had happened, I was now in the middle of it.
I scanned the ground, and the shaves of ice frosted there were probably from Jo. All I had to do was follow the denser—more frozen areas to find her. And hopefully the rest of my crew while I was at it.
I heard growls from behind me as nocturnal eyes flickered one after another in the distance.
Then I heard one dash in a homed path directly toward me; its one large, yellow eye swirled as it attempted to hypnotize again. But as I turned, I stared directly at it—unaffected.
When it was feet away, I met it with a powerful side kick into its eye, and my leg shot through it—too harsh to even blow back, making piercing the only option.
Yellow blood drenched my knee down as it still occupied the inside of its head, protruding out the other side.
"Fuckin' disgusting."
Leaping in the air, I placed my other boot on its body, and forced it off with another kick. The sound of scrunching echoed as my leg left its head, and its mangled body clapped the ground, skipping until it met the trunk of a tree about thirty yards away.
I noticed its friends hesitate after that, but then three more shot out of the trees in an attempt to flank from behind; those yellow swirling eyes combined as if that would make a difference.
I shot a glare at them; my eyes glowed from my shadow as the tip of my insole met the first one on the side of the head, disintegrating it to chunks, then met the next one, doing the same. And then when it met with the third, it was right at the neck.
The momentum of the kick thrust was like a blade, amputating it and shooting it across into the shadows where more of them were. I heard a whimper from one as the Fiend's head crashed into something unseen.
I looked down, and Ophelia was still 'sleeping'. Her arms now wrapped around my neck as she buried her face into my chest.
"Mmm… Keep it down, Greedy…" she mumbled.
I stood there for a moment to see if any more would come out to test their luck, but the group of Oculus Fiends remained where they were. No more failed flanks were attempted for now.
I began walking in the direction of a more frozen part of this dark forest. Hopefully I would reach Jo and the others to regroup, and then we could find out what the fuck happened.
It felt as though the air froze when I reached a denser part. A strike of cool so fierce I knew it was from a spell Jo had cast. Though… I could also tell I was still quite far away.
Even the forest looked different as I observed a dead-looking tree, and they all looked the same.
Had this really been the same place?
"I hope I really fought those three Grade 1's though," I spoke to myself. "I felt like I leveled up back there…"
"You did… I saw you… Snooze…"
I looked at Ophelia blandly when she 'fell back asleep'.
"Who the hell says 'snooze' if they're really sleeping?"
She didn't reply.
There in the distance, a pillar of spiked ice shot out from the ground about eight-thousand or so meters away.
"That way it is."