My time in the dreamland was running out. This time my sleep wasn’t interrupted.

“It seems like you are finally up. Good Morning,” I heard Kaili’s voice.

I glanced at her. She was still leaning on the counter like before I fell to sleep.

“You stood there for the entire time?” I asked the girl or whatever was standing next to the counter.

“Patience is a good virtue,” Kaili smiled.

“You mentioned a challenge before. So, I wanted to ask, when will it begin?”

Kaili laughed, a dimple appearing on her cheek, and took the lock off the door. “You already passed. You slept your way to victory.”

Is that it? Was I free to go? I went to the door, looking at Kaili again before exiting the room. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” she became solemn for a moment. “But remember, no matter what happens, no matter what you see or hear, don’t let the challenge, or whatever is to come, to break you. I’ll cheer for you, so by all means keep trying. Don’t repeat my mistakes.”

I nodded, preparing to leave, and a smile blossomed again on her face, as she lifted her hand to wave. Two passageways lay before me. One of them ending with a door on which the name ‘Melissa’ was inscribed.

Did they mean Melissa who became a ghost, the very classmate of mine? I didn’t think there were that many Melissas out there. Still, it was strange, Melissa wasn’t supposed to be on the island, so why is her door here?

As I opened the door, the darkness engulfed me, but just in a moment I found myself standing on a familiar tiny sandy island with a palm tree. This time, however, I didn’t wait and immediately jumped into the blue depths.

I saw myself. In the world I was from. I wasn’t alone though. Rita and I were walking together, in the school direction. Human me stopped near an utility pole, watching it intently. Apparently, a poster attached to it caught attention of my copy. I came closer to see clearly. It was a request to provide help in finding a missing person. Image on the poster was uncannily similar to Melissa.

“It’s not your fault,” I heard human Rita say.

This was wrong. I don’t remember anything similar to this scene happening in reality. Was there more than one of me? I frowned as the world broke into thousands of small shards. I was back. A dimly lit tunnel awaited me, luring me with promises of long-desired truth.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

After some time I came upon another cave. Even without entering I could feel a bit of warmth wafting from the inside. Was it a resort in there? After meeting Kaili I could possibly believe in that.

If a building on fire could be considered a resort, and the hotter the better, then I undoubtedly ended up in a high class. Tongues of fire were dancing on the ground and on the sides, waiting for me to misstep.

This building seemed to have a weird form, it was too labyrinthine for people to live in it in their right mind. It was hard to maneuver among ubiquitous flames but not impossible. I continued to walk, step by step, doing my best not to lose focus. The interesting part was that those flames made no smoke, they seemed to be more of living beings than an elemental power.

I entered a particularly big room. Apparently, a classmate of mine had the luxury of enjoying this fiery paradise together with me. Clown Otto was surrounded by flames, his gait clumsy though that didn’t make the clown look funny. If anything, it made me worry that he might be unable to overcome this ordeal. What was he even thinking when coming inside the caves with that body of his?

A particularly big flame tongue swayed towards Otto’s face and the poor clown pressed his back against the railing, already eaten through by flames. It couldn’t support the old man’s weight and came crashing down. The Otto was about to follow but he caught the edge with his hand. Tongues of flame approached him wave by wave, preparing to devour their prey.

I ran towards the clown, helping him up, “It seems like this hot place isn’t much to your liking, is it?”

“It appears to me this place isn’t suitable for me to perform in,” he shook his head as I was already observing which path to take.

To Otto’s merit, he didn’t make a major misstep again, a bitter experience making him as careful as elderly should be. Where youth wins with vigor, there elder gains on experience.

After we cleared a few more winding halls, I saw an exit door. To my relief, it didn’t have a lock on it. Finding a key could be a rather tricky task in our current circumstances. As I reached for the handle, darkness covered me once again.

Me and Otto were standing on two different sides of a branching tunnel, separated by a barrier. “It seems like we’ll need to act on our own. Thanks for helping with those nasty flames,” Otto said raspily after which he went down his tunnel without waiting for my reply.

It was a relief that we separated. I wouldn’t want someone to prevent me from opening the doors again. On the other side I was genuinely worried for the old man. Headless Hugh was dead set on Otto being the second traitor but I wanted to give the old man a chance. Sometimes a bit of faith is all a person needs.

Finally, I reached another door. This one was called ‘Otto’. I received the clown’s door. Did he perchance get mine? Or was it simply a coincidence?

As I jumped into the raging waters once again, I felt a slight shiver. This moment should be crucial in deciding: is Otto the traitor after all or was he a falsely accused classmate of mine.

A building was burning in the distance. A youth I had no recollection of was watching it, terror evident on his face. I heard someone’s steps. A painfully familiar girl sidled up to the boy and hugged him from behind. I was confident that I had seen that girl somewhere. Who was she?

And then she spoke, “All the worries burdening you, let me take them off you.”

A realization pierced through my mind as the world started to crumble. I indeed had seen her before. She was the girl whose companion’s body I took as mine during my stay in mosaics’ town. She wore the same kind of clothes and spoke with the same voice. A kind of voice that burns into your memory like scorching flames and even though it doesn’t have anything outstanding on the first glance, is deeply unhuman somewhere within.

As I came to my senses after darkness retreated, I was already outside of the caves. The people I saw in Otto’s door, neither of them was a classmate I knew. After all my hesitation Hugh appeared to be right. Otto was the traitor.

I strode towards the village, fast enough to be called running. There I saw President and a few other classmates of mine. It was good that I saw them, it simplified the task of finding them one by one and explaining what I saw to each of them separately.

President however talked before I could when he saw me coming. “Don’t even think about running away. We know who you are, traitor.”