Sunlight warmed her skin. The lovely touch of the sun's embrace made her drowsy. There was no better feeling than lying on a soft surface whilst at the mercy of the life-giving heavens. She knew she had to wake up, but it was so comfortable…
"Wake up, silly goose." A charming voice caressed her ears, but she chose to ignore it. "I see… so that is how you want to play?" Then she was softly booped on the nose.
What made Aloe open her eyelids wasn't the soft touch, but the giggles that ensued.
"Finally. You took your time." The enticing female voice told her, though she couldn't still see her as the sun blinded her after having her eyes closed for so much time.
"Whuh?" Aloe mumbled and tried to continue talking, but something pressed against her lips.
Someone else's.
The kiss didn't end there as the intruder forced her tongue into Aloe's mouth, and as much as she wanted to push her again, she found herself accepting the tongue and meeting it with her own. The invading mouth was sweet as if it had just eaten a dozen desserts and also an expert with its movements.
As soon as she was running out of air, the assaulter removed herself.
She separated her lips slowly from hers, and a silvery bridge formed between the two sets, though it inevitably snapped and collapsed on Aloe. She couldn't help but feel excited at the touch of intertwined saliva on her cheeks.
Finally, her eyes acclimated to the sun and she was able to see the perpetrator.
"You slept for a long time." Rani caressed her clean cheek with the back of her hand and wiped the wet one with the other with a finger, which she proceeded to lick clean. "You are a bold one to leave me waiting."
"Huh?" Aloe jolted into wakefulness and pushed herself away from Rani, almost falling from the sofa she was resting on in the process. "Why are you here?" Then she looked around her. "Where am I?"
"You truly are still asleep," the amethyst-eyed sultanzade giggled. "We are in our palace, where if not?"
"Our palace?" Aloe frowned, still backpedaling in her prone position. But try as she might, she wasn't able to unlatch herself from the gemstone eyes of the woman.
Beautiful as always.
"Yes, our palace~" Rani pranced forward, placing herself on top of Aloe. Her breasts swayed deliciously with the motion and her perfectly curved thighs locked her in place. "Where else, my love?"
"My… love?" A powerful nausea assaulted the petite woman.
"You surely are absentminded today." The bronze-skinned woman caressed her cheek again. "Maybe this will help you awaken your brain…"
Rani grabbed Aloe's hand and placed her under her purple top. The sultanzade's breasts were perfect as always. Not too big, not too soft. Just perfect in every possible category.
"What are you doi-" Aloe tried to protest, but suddenly found out where Rani's other hand had gone. "Ah~" The petite woman moaned as the beautiful princess caressed her folds.
"Do you remember now, my love?" Rani's words were melting her mind, and her caresses were melting her body.
"Y-yes," Aloe responded with difficulty as she held her moans. "I remember, my lo… my lo-lo…"
She felt her mind split into two and bile gather in her throat.
"No!" She shrieked. "I won't fall to your charms again!"
Rani smiled at her, and the sun turned black.
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Sunlight woke her up. Aloe shook around against the blankets until the light finally became too oppressive to remain in the world of dreams.
"Eh?" She mumbled as she noticed where she was. "The shack?"
The petite woman stood up from the bed, but she was still very drowsy and when she did so, she met with the ground as she fell. Her reflexes were good, but her body wasn't. She managed to wield toughness in time, but she blocked the fall with the side of her face.
"Ugh…" The stance numbed her from the damage, and she simply stood up as she groaned. "Why am I here?" She caressed her head as she walked to the main room of her shack.
Everything was as always. There were parchments and ink on top of the desk, scattered Aloe Veritas leaves on the ground, and many amphoras filled with water on the corner. But one thing was different, and that was the pot slowly cooking over the hearth.
Aloe walked toward it and sniffed the brewing cream-colored concoction. "Stew? But who has made it?"
It smelled too good to be hers.
Seeking more sunlight, the cultivator opened the door out of the shack, and the sight surprised her. The oasis and the desert stood eternal, but a silhouette waited on the horizon.
"You certainly took your time to wake up today, heh." The person said.
Even if the person was backlit, she instantly recognized the voice.
Stolen story; please report.
"K-Karaim?" Aloe expressed with copious amount of doubt.
"Karaim?" The old man chuckled. "Would it kill you to call me 'grandpa' for once?"
"How are you here?" She ignored him.
"How am I in my own house?" Karaim blew and closed on her. "Wake up, kid, we gotta keep trying to find new plants today too before they come this week's goods."
"Who is 'they'?"
"Umar and company, of course. Wake up," he slapped her on the back of her head. "You wouldn't like to keep the assassins waiting, would you?"
"N-no. Not at all." Aloe caressed where the old man had hit her. "But shouldn't you be… gone?"
"Gone? I'm too youthful to die!" Karaim put his hands on his hips and let out the loudest cackle ever. "We stand eternal. We are perennial."
"Perennial?" The word sounded all too familiar in such a context.
"Yup. Though you better wake up before she gets here."
"She? Who?"
Before the old man could answer, the sun turned black.
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Sunlight caressed her body. Every single corner of it. Aloe woke up to find herself naked lying on a white silk.
"Ah!" She yelped and covered her body even if there was no one around. Nothing around. "W-where am I?"
She could only see three things: the sun, the light-blue heavens, and the endless dunes of the desert. No matter where she looked, she couldn't find anything else. Not wanting to die in the desert, she stood up and tied the white silk around her torso. It was then that she noticed how hot was the sand under her feet.
"Ow…" She moaned as she switched to toughness. "What am I going to do now?"
There was only one answer to that question: walking.
Aloe could smell as the hot sand burned her soles like hot coals as she walked. Burnt meat. A smell so powerful that even through toughness she could appreciate it. But she was unable to feel pain.
So she continued walking.
For minutes. For hours. For days…
"No, it can't have been days," she muttered with a dry mouth. "The sun has yet to set… actually, has it moved?"
It hadn't.
"What is happening?" Aloe shouted to the heavens.
Answer they did not.
But change was made.
Over the horizon, Aloe saw some greenery.
"An oasis?" She jolted into wakefulness. Into life.
The cultivator started rushing to the greenery and the vibrant colors became bigger and bigger as she ran.
"Something is wrong. It's approaching too fast," she stopped dead in her tracks. "How's still approaching if I'm standing still?"
She hadn't been moving towards it, the greenery had been the one approaching.
Impending doom filled her heart.
Total desolation.
You better wake up before she gets up. Karaim's words resonated in her mind.
"She's approaching!" Aloe let out a blood-curdling scream and started running in the opposite direction, but her legs failed her as soon as she did so, and she collapsed on the burning sand. "No!" She wailed like a tormented soul.
But as she started crawling, the sand under her became lush grass.
It was too late.
She was here.
"Where are you running?" The voice was too captivating and alluring. Aloe couldn't help herself but turn over and look at its source. A mountain claded in muscles, a natural disaster wearing bronze skin, a monster bolstering amethyst eyes peered directly into her soul. "Was it once not enough?"
"No! Get away from me!" Aloe thrashed her arms around as she pushed her butt backward, but when she did so, she felt unbearable pain. She looked down to find her legs twisted in unnatural angles and blood oozing freely underneath her cloth. "Ah…"
No words left her lips anymore, only weakened whimpers.
"You will never escape me," Aaliyah announced as she grabbed Aloe's forearms and pushed her into the ground.
Not again. Not again! NOT AGAIN! The petite woman thrashed and howled both in mind and body. As she opened her eyes to watch her inevitable suffering, her eyes met the darkened heavens.
The sun had turned black.
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Sunlight was… pale and dim. Reality seemed… off. Aloe… cried.
The petite girl was hugging her legs in a fetal position, trying to fight against herself but losing regardless of how hard she tried. Only whimpers escaped her mouth.
Did anything matter anymore?
Then a sound.
It was a curious harmony of perfect rhythm. It was a sound that no ordinary instrument or living being could produce. It had a metallic undertone, and even if it wasn't getting louder, it certainly felt like it.
Unable to focus on her suffering any longer, Aloe raised her head.
The world no longer looked natural. The colors were desaturated, as if everything had turned grey, except the fading horizon had a slight cyan tinge alongside the edge of every object and surface. She was in a city during the day, but there weren't people walking around the street.
Something was walking, but definitely not people.
Silhouettes made out of fog, forming and vanishing every other moment. It was like a painting that was even erased and redrawn every so often. Weirdly enough, even if the inhabitants of the city were ethereal, the buildings around had impossible detail. They felt even more real than reality itself, they were as if an artist had spent their whole lifetime drawing a single wall, their every crevice and nook.
And that was repeated for every other object.
The world seemed as if millions of artists had spent all their strength – their last breath – until they finished the utmost definition of every detail. Each work wasn't the work of a single draftsman, but countless of them.
Aloe stood up, and that was when she saw another person. Or what it looked like it.
"What are you doing here?" They asked with a masculine and ragged voice.
"Where is 'here'?" Aloe asked back.
"We are in the… world of ideas. Where the thoughts and dreams lay." The man answered, and with each word, he became more and more defined. "But you shouldn't be here, Aloe Ayad."
"How do you know me?" The cultivator jolted into wakefulness at the mention of her name and switched to toughness, yet her body refused to obey.
She looked down and realized the problem.
She had no body.
Much like the fog beings walking around, she was ephemeral. Unsubstantial.
"What's happening to me?" She cried in distress.
"I already told you; we are in the world of thoughts. And you are… well, your own mind. Your cognition, if you will."
"That makes…" sense. She kept the word to herself. It didn't really make any sense, but she could somehow understand it. "Answer my other question."
The old man chuckled. "Hustle your memory a bit."
He spoke enough words now that his visage finally stopped being ephemeral and became a well-defined portrait.
"Umar?" Aloe responded.
"Yes and no," she frowned at his noncommittal answer. "I am Umar's… cognitive imprint. He's long gone, and I'll be too myself not long from now. Maybe another year if I manage to fight cognitive decay."
"What's happening?" She asked to the… spirit of the deceased assassin.
"You should tell me that," the ghost shrugged. "I am the lasting remnant of a powerful mind, and you are… quite the pathetic girl."
"Hey!" Aloe protested and stomped on the floor. The impossibly detailed road refused to acknowledge her existence.
"You don't look nor feel like an imprint, you feel… alive," Umar's apparition mused.
"I am alive!" The cultivator protested. "I was… dunes…"
"It seems you have your answer, whatever it is. See you never again, I guess."
"Wait!" She stopped the vanishing man. "You need to explain to me a lot of things. Too many in fact."
"I can't waste my limited computational power answering your questions. The world of thoughts has been quite the enlightening experience, pun intended," he chuckled, "but I need all the strength I can muster if I still want to reach Apotheosis, even if I'm dead."
"Apotheosis? What are you talking about?" Aloe stepped toward him.
"Too late," Umar announced. "Wake up."
And the world turned black.