I was back in dreamworld. The semi-familiar decaying room lay before me. The lamps had long burnt out. The two celestial beings hanging above the room shone a haunting light. Nothing in this strange world could escape from their sight.

Everything else was the same. The door, which I was definitely not going through this time, lay in the same position, as did the side table. I stood up, my bare feet feeling the perforated concrete floor beneath me. The innumerable holes dotted into the concrete made me feel an intense sense of trypophobia.

I diverted my eyes back to the peeling walls. I would throw up if I kept looking at the horrifying floor. I walked in circles around the room, keeping my bare feet away from the crevices bored in the concrete.

I had to admit… I was stuck. There was no way out of this room apart from the door, which according to previous experiences, was also not a way out of the room—at least not to the actual ‘outside’. The breathing still haunted my ears, echoing whenever I recalled the hole. Ugh.

I was not opening the door.

Wracking my brain in search of a way to leave the crumbling room, I scrutinised the bed and side table pair. What if…

I moved the side table towards the door, allowing enough space to modify the position and bearing of the hospital bed. Exerting all the strength I had available in my meagre body and letting out a grunt of force, I laid the back of the bed vertically against the wall. The tip of the bed, from where the pillows had now fallen off, was fairly close to the tip of the wall.

After shifting the side table close to the makeshift ladder, I climbed both pieces of furniture until my hand grasped the edge of the wall, hanging on for dear life. Barely lifting myself, my abdomen was now firmly on the top of the wall, with no remaining chance of falling back down to the awful concrete below.

I panted, my quota of physical exercise completed for the year. I’m extremely unfit, aren’t I? Ignoring my growing sense of meagre sadness, I looked up towards the land outside the lone room.

What… where am I?

An eternal expanse of darkness lay in every direction I surveyed, an immeasurable amount of twinkling stars providing the only light in this breathtaking realm. The stars littered the darkness, appearing not only in the sky but scattered across the tranquil surface of this extraterrestrial plane.

The two sinister suns were nowhere to be seen, the dejected crimson atmosphere gone as if it was an illusion, morphing into this canvas of black dotted with white. It was beautiful. But also incredibly distressing.

I moved my foot around, trying to find some balance on the thin walls, but to my horror, there was nothing underneath my feet. The wall, along with the entire room itself, had disappeared, leaving me stranded in this… place? What was I supposed to call it?

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Fortunately, I was still upright without the support of the ground. I dunno how this worked, but I wasn’t complaining. There was no way to tell exactly where the ground was, due to the encompassing darkness. If there was nothing underneath my feet, who knows how long I would have spent falling. I already had enough of that.

I tiptoed around the invisible platform I was standing on. After careful observations, the area I could walk in was barely a square metre, allowing me to at least stand comfortably. I sat down, my head in my hands.

Ever since I had woken up, things kept turning more and more bizarre. What was happening? The worst part was that I couldn’t even tell who I was. I had no memories, no recollections of anything. I still had knowledge and understanding, but no sense of self.

Tears threatened to drip down my scrunched-up face, the darkness choking me as the stars glimmered and sparkled. I focused my eyes on them. The individual stars danced in the sky, fireworks lighting up my pupils as the stars frolicked around my vision. One star turned into two, two turned into four, and this cycle repeated until the rest of the dark turned into stabbing brightness.

A sudden splash of water tore me from my reverie, the light reversing back to the twinkling stars scattered throughout the obscure world around me.

I looked towards the sound of the splash. It was around ten metres away from me, the ground rippled with an abrupt splash shattering the silent perpetuity of this tranquil void. The stars covering the ground slightly shook as the ripple moved outward, eventually settling back to their previous positions.

Ah, the floor was water.

Numerous more splashes diverted my attention from this discovery, turning increasingly more rushed. I could glean a sense of worry from the repeated splashes.

After a small period of peace, an obsidian breastplate floated up, bouncing on the still surface of the water. The brass trimming and detailed faceting of the armour looked familiar.

After the surfacing of the breastplate, a person rapidly sprung up from the depths, their panting audible from ten metres away. The stars allowed me to get a glimpse of their features, their figure almost blending in with the darkness. Light reflected on the pitch-black hair and the amulet they were wearing around their neck gave off its own ruby glow.

Somehow, the person had already stopped gasping for breath and their attention was now solely on me. That’s not good. How the hell do you drive this square?!

The water parted with every stroke of the large figure’s arms, the sound of the ripples and splashes echoing in this quiet and empty vacuum. I had gained an inkling of who this was by now…

The one who poisoned me! She’s the reason I’m in this strange place!

I got on my knees, trying to push the water apart with my bare hands. In some faint part of my heart, I was hoping that I could paddle the illusionary floor away from the slowly catching up Miss Interrogator, though I never seemed to be getting further away from the furiously swimming woman. I don’t know if it was because the magic rectangular square wasn’t actually moving or if the speed of the interrogator was that much greater than the strength of my paddling. Hopefully, it was the first option. My nonexistent pride wouldn’t be able to stomach the second one.

Bleh, there was no point to these thoughts. Especially now that the interrogator had reached the edge of the square. I stood on the opposite edge of the floor, obviously not in fear, but to leave enough room for the interrogator to graciously get on if she so desired.

I was not scared. She was scared. Let’s see who would be laughing if I taped her eyes open and stared down at her menacingly!

Sadly, trying to distract myself didn’t work. Callis, the interrogator easily pulled herself up from the water with her tree trunk arms, minute drops of water hitting me as she stood up slowly. She looked down at me, her eyes scrutinising my appearance. I felt a tad bit scared.

Wait a second, wasn’t she supposed to be scared looking at me?!