Clean streets and faceless people trudging on them. Indistinct and fading forms, barely holding together into an amorphous blob. Drained off their uniqueness, shades paling and dwindling into the backdrop. A dark grey world with miniscule splotches of color.
A young man and a young girl followed an unguided route, laughing and giggling as they pointed at simpler shops and other people. Where ever they looked, whoever they looked at, color came back as it saturated them and details slowly bled into them.
A rectangle slowly morphing into a colorful red and white striped flag, swirling slowly into each other and people standing in line next to it right out of the shop.
They stood in line and whispered to each other, talking as the blob in front of them morphed into a humanesque being, a huge blonde afro covering its head. They gossiped about the odd choice of clothes as a leather jacket drudged with spikes hugged their body with black leather boots reaching up to their thighs.
Time raced faster as they indulged in their fun activities. They entered the shop as wispy silhouettes formed into tables full of nondescript figures, hushed whispers and chatters filling the atmosphere.
"I'd like the carrot flavor special in a cup." The teen said with a slight smirk, sending provocative glances toward his partner.
"Well, putting this moment down as another proof for your bad taste, I'd like strawberry in a waffle."
Getting their cold treat, they went off further on their walk. A peaceful silence fell between them as they walked along, interspersed with curious licks at their dessert.
Out of the corners of his eyes he peeked at stone arches, possibly made out of marble, distributed across every other street film. A colorful film spanned across the doorway slowly undulating in a hypnotizing rhythm as if alive.
Their fingers clung to each other as they wrapped their free hand around the others, prodding and nudging in a silent game. Walking into an alley their point of view widened as the grey cold steel buildings gave way to nature. Resplendent green leaves reflected the gentle evening sun as they walked further to be basked in the shadows of the trees. An idyllic peaceful park surrounded them as they finished their treat, heartbeats slowly rising.
He felt off, it felt familiar. A sense of déjà vu surrounded the whole scene as he fearfully looked towards his partners face.
It wasn't enough.
He felt his heart throb in his ears and tried to speak, mouth dry and sweat pooling all over his body. He couldn't see her face.
His features twisted into a pained grimace as he tried to shout, something blocking his throat. He started walking, running toward her as she slowly faded away. Pumping his legs he chased after her, his steps faltering as he pushed through an invisible quagmire, slowing down more and more. He pushed and tried, punishing his body to move forward, to shout out to her. He felt his throat get hoarse as not a single sound was able to leave it.
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Dave woke up shouting, sweat soaked his clothes and bed. His arms outstretched and heart racing a hundred miles an hour. 'It was a dream?'
He lowered his hands and took deep breaths. His throat stung, reminding him of the nightmare he had. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes as his breathing and pulse evened out. 'A memory. Not a dream. I remember going on that.. date? Possibly date.'
A light blue screen popped into his vision.
Congratulations for beating your second survival game.
For more details use 'game status'.
He tried lifting his arm to swipe at it, wincing as he felt it sore all over. He pushed away the screen as memories came rushing back.
He looked around the room gathering his bearings. A simple nightstand next to the bed with a glass of water on top. A wide window next to the bed he was lying on and a simple wooden table and chair set. He stretched towards the glass of the water, trying and failing to put less strain on his body. Finally reaching it, he took small sips, flinching as the cool water passed by his aching throat.
'I have no recollection of getting here. The last thing I remember was.. was giving it my all to beat that thing. Me being alive means we somehow won? Rubies? The last thing I saw were beautiful rubies, before the soft embrace of sleep took me in.'
Finishing the glass of water, he realized the pain slowly ebbing away. He tried to get up to belch at the pain. His whole body felt like he was beaten up by a professional boxer, then forced to run a marathon, and then thrown into a meat grinder for good measure. A hiss escaped his lips as he finally balanced his body in a slouch.
'It should take a while for the pain to disappear. Painkillers in the water? Where is everyone? Where am I? What happened while I was out and how long was I out? Right, maybe the sap might help.'
He lifted his pouch to his lips, lapping at the magic sap coming out of it. More relief joined the feeling from before, as a crisp feeling slowly spread through his form.
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Rubbing the bridge of his nose an adorable squeak made him turn back to the bed. Had someone else been in bed with him? Gulping, he slowly lifted the cover to be greeted by beautiful black eyes.
Beautiful beady black eyes stared into his, before their owner sashayed towards him with an adorable wiggle. "Good morning cutie." Dave chuckled as he scritched below Ropeys chin. "Slept well?" Another soft squeak answered him as Ropey climbed up his arm and nudged his cheek.
"You can't possibly tell me what happened after I've been abducted by the monster known as eternal sleep?"
He felt Ropey frown, or at least imagined it to be a frown. "Don't worry, I showed him who's boss and here I am, fit as a fiddle." He flexed his arm and grit his teeth to bite back a whimper.
'Why can't it work faster? I didn't expect the exhaustion to be this awful.'
Ropey left it's position as it crawled back onto the bed, wiggling an enticing tale and adventure for Dave who watched on with amusement. "I'm thankful that you tried your best, even if I'm not sure what you were trying to tell me. Big feathered clawed thing smashed by a metallic hairy giant?" He shook his head as he filled in Ropeys charade with his own imagination. "Uh, uh, sure then someone was abducted and everyone dispersed slowly and before you knew it I was dropped off at some super secret magical witch coven? You are such a good storyteller!" He cooed as he pet Ropeys head.
Their bonding time was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come down now, sonny. Food is ready."
Startled by the voice Dave realized it should have been the host of this room. He moved an arm towards the bed for Ropey to climb as he thought things through.
"Well, I should check the rewards first before we go into our next adventure, right?" He whispered to his partner, booping its snoot.
'Game status.'
Calculating..
Error. Calculating..
Error. Calculating..
'Well that doesn't sound ominous at all.' He thought as Ropey squeaked at his boop.
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"And that's when I realized I can't let her down. You see, she seemed to be really into it but just one person against a giant eldritch monster? Everyone knows you need a balanced team of four at least." Dave said in-between spoonfuls of stew. Ropey gave a supporting squeal, adding flavour to Dave's storytelling, before burying its head into its own stew bowl.
"That's nice, sonny.."
"And I also couldn't let her take all the credit right? So I put my heart and soul into the song, supporting her from the sidelines." He said after having chewed a fresh piece of bread and swallowing it.
"That's nice, sonny.."
"I could have just watched her slowly wear the thing down, but you know.. giant shuffling horror of malleable flesh with lots of teeth? It probably has a recovery move, like snap up one of us or two, eat them and get back to full health. It looked like it was ready to do all that so I pushed further." He raised his arm dramatically before poking a few holes into the loaf of bread.
The wizened lady continued moving a long branch clockwise in the cauldron in front of her, not looking in Dave's direction even once after having called him for food. "That's nice, sonny.." She said in the same gentle and soft tone of voice as before.
"So I thought about it and decided it's time to finish it once and for all. The backlash couldn't be that bad right? And I could save everyone from their fate of becoming part of.. thinking about it, does it completely absorb the people it ate? Or does it just combine with them.. sort of like an amalgam of thousands of pained souls?" Dave tried to finish his story before going off on another tangent like multiple times throughout his storytelling.
"That's nice, son-"
"Enough! I've had enough! You are the worst story teller I've ever had the misfortune of meeting!" An exasperated voice interrupted their back and forth.
"I've been waiting for hours for you to finish your damn story to start talking to you.. it didn't go like this last time.. But you just went on and on and on! And you?" She pointed angrily at the old lady in witch attire. "How are you able to handle this.." she motioned her hand in a circle. "His ranting! Don't indulge him by answering with the same sentence over and over again!" She raised her voice as she took deep breaths, having finally voiced all her grievances. Ropey let out a soft squeak in the background at having been ignored. "You.. You continue, you did nothing wrong." She capitulated.
Dave looked over to the table next to him, where a brunette girl stood, one arm on her hip, the other pointing between him and the old lady. Her light brown hair was bundled into a ponytail and her eyebrows were scrunched showing her slight annoyance. During her tirade her glasses slipped towards the tip of her nose.
Dave realized on second glance that the glasses she was wearing were a simple piece of decoration lacking lenses, distracting people from her deep bottle green eyes.
Dave continued scrutinizing the new arrival, not having noticed her being in the room before at all. 'Ninja?' He thought absentmindedly.
"I've been here even before you!"
Surprised at her outburst another thought flashed by. 'Mindreader!'
"I'm not a mindreader either. Ugh, I really shouldn't.." She said as she moved her hand to massage her temples to ease her growing headache.
"That's a beginner's mistake. I would never let thoughts slip out like that." Dave said confidently looking at his companion. "Right? That would be the first time something so silly would happen."
Ropey looked up from it's stew, the thick sauce covering most of its face, before frantically nodding, supporting Dave's statement.
"I know you wouldn't. Anyway, putting the whole story aside, you need to follow me."
She looked up at him, wincing a little while holding her head. "You don't have to trust me, I know that there is nothing I can do to gain your trust in a short time. But you have to follow me." Turning towards the table, she looked at Ropey and the half eaten stew before adding quietly, as if in passing. "After having finished your meal of course."