I blinked. Maybe because I was shocked? Or maybe I just hoped he would disappear if I blinked. And it actually worked. He wasn’t in front of me right now. However, what replaced him was worse.

“You look horrible.”

His voice was playful.

“What’s with that face? You look like you have seen a ghost.”

He was slightly shorter than the other one whom he replaced. His long violet hair fell to his shoulders. He wore a large smile on his face. He wore white power armor. Several drawings of flowers adorned his armor, hand-made by himself.

The sensation of a hand grabbing me wasn’t fully gone. My body also was in pain due to being thrown to the ground forcefully. This is slightly worrying. While I had countless hallucinations through the years, it was only visual and auditory. Hell, I couldn’t even call them hallucinations fully since I knew they weren’t real. But what I felt just now was different.

According to what I have been told, it was normal for dungeons to have several traps or tricks. Is this one of them? I looked carefully at being in front of me. I racked my mind to remember what Lily looked like and find if this thing had any differences. I couldn’t find anything like that. It’s been years since I saw Lily. No matter how bright my mind (it wasn’t very bright) or how good my memory(it wasn’t very good) was, I couldn’t remember everything.

“I know I am handsome but I am going to blush if you keep looking at me like that.”

His personality was the same as always. I stood up and kept on walking.

“Come on! You are not going to hug me after seeing me for this long?”

Even though I didn’t directly look at him, I could see that he opened his arms for a hug. I just moved forward.

“Hey? Hello? Come on, don’t ignore me.”

He walked beside me, his longer-than-mine legs keeping up with my exhausted ones. He was swinging his arms to get my attention at the same time. I paid no attention to him.

“Don’t you at least want to say hello to me?”

I try to move faster but it seems like it is not possible in my current condition. Maybe that was for the better since I could keep an eye on “him” so he wouldn’t grab me again. He looked innocent for now.

“Hey, do you remember the time you told me about your first crush?”

He started to talk about that embarrassing memory. I should have never told him. Shut up, shut up, shut up! That’s what my mind shouted at him. However, there was one thing I learned: Whatever this thing was, it had access to my memories or something similar. Only a handful of people knew about that back on Earth and nobody in this world. This is more than slightly worrying.

What’s worse was his personality and speech patterns were the same. For example, it took him more than 30 minutes to talk about just a single thing.

He also didn’t shut up. For a SINGLE FUCKING SECOND!

God, I miss the times when I had the rank to tell him to shut up.

“Anyways, everyone knows that Slaanesh is the best Chaos God. You just think it is Khorne because you are edgy.”

“Which one do you think is better: Big boobs but small ass or small boobs and big ass?”

“If a Smurf starts to choke, what color it will it become?”

“I think yogurt is overrated. I mean, it is just milk.”

My head slowly turned to him and I gave him a death stare. I nearly opened my mouth to shout at him but I managed to hold it in.

I don’t know which one is worse: Being wounded, anemic, dehydrated, and hungry at the same time or being stuck with my dead best friend’s rattle-pated ghost. Despite all of it, I kept moving. If I stopped I would be stuck here. My legs screamed at me to stop and rest but I knew that they didn’t have the strength to get up if I lay down.

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It was hard to talk about time here. No matter how long I walked in one direction scenery didn’t change at all. I tried to leave some kind of mark on the ground to make sure I wasn’t just drawing circles but my sword just bounced off without leaving a single scratch on the black marble. Fucking moon was huge as always and was stuck in one place no matter how much I moved. Because of those reasons, I didn’t know how long it had been or how much distance I covered.

“Aren’t coffee and alcohol the same? Both are technically poisons and have effects on people’s psyche?”

I am going to have a seizure at this very moment.

“Isn’t it hard? You are walking for some time. Don’t you want to rest?”

I ignored him.

“Then again, you were always good at moving forward, aren’t you? Even after my death you just kept going.”

I turned around to face him.

“That’s the face. But aren’t I correct?”

He took a step forward towards me. I took a step back without realizing it. I knew I should have just turned around and started to walk again. Yet, I couldn’t stop looking into his eyes. Those eyes, which were once very familiar to me now were filled with contempt. It was an emotion I have never seen in Lily’s eyes before even in combat.

Anger and mocking existed in Lily. But hatred and contempt? No.

Those emotions didn’t belong to him.

This wasn’t him.

I could have tolerated him.

Even though I knew he wasn’t real and created by this dungeon or my own warped mind, if he behaved like himself, I was more than happy to bear with him. Like an old and faded-away photo. I know what I looked at wasn’t an accurate version of my friend but I was happy I could remember him.

Even my annoyance wasn’t born out of his nonsensical talk but the fact that I couldn’t join him.

But this?

This isn’t him.

A mockery of my best friend filled me with anger.

I swung my sword. I was fast. Fast enough to cause myself pain. Yet, he managed to dodge it just by leaning forward.

“Whoho! Are you really that eager to get rid of me?”

Stopping a strike I put all of my weight into was not possible. I turned around with the momentum of my sword. Shit! My back was fully open to him. I felt him grab my chest and right thigh and pulled me closer. I couldn’t resist as I fell into his arms. He grabbed my chin and forced me to face him.

“Come on after th- Aw!”

I sunk down on my knees before launching myself up, headbutting him. Blood poured down on my face as my forehead was split open due to impact. He stumbled back, even though I knew this kind of damage was trivial for a super soldier like him. I grabbed my sword with both my hands and swung it again. He raised his arm and my sword met with his armored forearm.

The noise created by two metal objects clashing caused my headache to get worse. Also, the backlash of hitting him traveled in my entire body and literally shook my entire skeleton.

“Come on. You are too cruel. Going for my head directly.”

I jumped back.

“Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time you killed a battle brother, would be?”

He slowly pulled his swords from his sides.

“Come on, aren’t you going to say anything?”

I lifted my sword up. With his full speed, he could have cut my head off with a single strike faster than I could blink. I calmed my breath and slowed my heartbeat to the best of my ability. Just one strike. I had only one strike. Any prolonged combat would drain my already non-existent stamina to zero.

His heel didn’t touch the ground. It was normal, all fighters moved on the balls of their feet for agility. However, Lily’s stance was even more extreme. He nearly didn’t touch the ground. My body was tense.

He will lunge forward with his left sword.

I will parry it with my sword, pushing it lower.

He will go for my neck with his right sword.

I will raise my shield and meet his strike before he can gain momentum.

I will fake a strike to his neck.

He will take a step back.

I will chase him and cut his head off.

Of course, all of it was more than one strike and were going to take a lot of me but I had to. I waited and waited for more for his attack to come but no, it didn’t happen. He raised his arms and shrugged his shoulders.

“Sorry, I am not doing this. Goodbye.”

He laughed before turning to dust and disappearing.

“What the fuck?”