"Dddaaannngggg iiittt tttthhhiisss iiisss ttthhheee cccaaarrrnnniivvaaalll aaaallll ooovvveeerrr aaagggaaaiiinnn."

"Bones won't be too upset with our tag-along, will he?' Lulu asked as she pointed back at the hollow king who was hobbling, but still keeping up with the rest of them.

Nugget's eyes shifted to her right. She leaped up into the air and just barely avoided a fist from the smiling man as he appeared from the mist for a brief second before he was gone.

"We'll worry about that when we make it there." Sentenza said coldly. "We've already lost Trizel, and unless we all get our butts together, we'll all be joining him long before we meet with Death." Sentenza's eyes popped open, and he turned to his left and fired a shot.

BANG!

"Hahahahahahahahaha..." the smiling man's dismissive laugh echoed around them.

"I was right." choked Sid as he was draped over Lulu's shoulders like a sack of potatoes and was treated about as gently as one. "The mist does not seem to deter him at all."

"Hhhooowww'ddd yyyoouuu ggeeettt tthhhrrrooouuuggghhh iiittt?" Bakade croaked as she jumped back to avoid a heel slashing down from the mist. "Yyyooouuu dddiiidddnnn'ttt ssseeeemmmm bbboottthhheeerreeedd wwwhhheeennn yyyoouuu wwweeeerrreee aaatttttaaccckkkiiinnggg uussss."

"That's different." Lulu shrugged, which caused Sid to groan slightly. "Of course I know my way around a carnival, and where all the sucke...I mean guests are. Ha ha." She forced a laugh at the end.

"This mist makes it a little hard to sense...him...and I'm struggling even more because that monster is sending up a lot of extra interference." Narissa opened up a pouch on her hip. She looked inside at fine grains of blue sand. She pinched a chunk of grains between her finger and her thumb. "I guess there's no point playing pretend if it means I'll die." Then she slid the sand into her mouth and swished them around inside as she pulled her fingers out and closed the bag again.

Narissa's body jerked forward and then all around, like some perverse puppet master was just yanking on her various strings randomly. Her hair flowed around her like it was suspended in water. Its color shifted to a blinding white. Her fingernails turned a rainbow of colors and looked almost like each one had become a different colored gemstone. The black of her pupil got bigger and bigger until it completely consumed her eyes and they looked like pitch-black pits that sucked in all light around them. Her feet slowly lifted off of the ground as she was suspended in the air a few inches off of the ground.

Narissa slowly pointed her finger into the distance. "There he is." her voice sounded like a cacophony of women from young to old. A strange chorus of what sounded like hundreds of voices mashed together. Narissa picked up her pace as she floated ahead even quicker than she had been running.

The others were behind her, but it was clear Lulu was starting to struggle to keep up. The weight of Sid on her shoulders seemed to be weighing on her more and more.

----------------------------------------

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Ted groaned as he lifted his body up. It was strange. He didn't hurt anymore. In fact, he felt better than he had in years. He stood up and looked around. But it was just a white void with square platforms floating all around, almost like they were spinning in defiance of gravity itself.

Ted wondered where he was, and how he got here. Then he remembered the weird thing that latched onto his arm. He looked down at it and was surprised as he saw what looked like a handprint burned into his forearm, as if someone had grabbed his arm. He looked back up and was surprised again as he saw three doors in front of him.

In the middle was a massive stone door that had to be over fifty feet tall and almost as wide. It was rough, almost like someone had just cut the doorway directly out of a mountain. It was intimidating and gave Ted an uneasy feeling in his stomach. To the left of it was a pristine crystal door that was shorter than he was tall but looked so intricately crafter he couldn't help but be impressed. The final door, to the right of the stone door, was a broken-down wooden door. It was a simple door with a half-smashed handle, a few various dents and chipped white paint on it.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

A hand settled on his shoulder and caused Ted to almost jump out of his skin. He quickly turned around as he let out a feminine shriek.

"Pockets, you nearly gave me a heart attack." Ted let out a deep sigh.

"Hahaha," Pockets laughed as she put her hands on her stomach. "What, was your mom a rabbit or something?"

"Huh?"

"You know, because you're so jumpy!"

Ted let out a sigh as he put his hand over his chest. "Yeah, maybe work on that one a bit."

"Darn! I thought that was a solid one." Pockets shrugged. "But what are you doing here anyway? This isn't exactly prime real estate."

"Well, I'd tell you if I knew where here was." Ted said as he looked back at the three doors that had sprung up from nothing. "I kind of just fell in here from the dark."

"Really?" Pockets mused. "Interesting..."

"Right..." Ted said. "Hey, how did you get here? Or better yet, where even is here?"

Pockets giggled as she shrugged. "It's somewhere of course."

Ted rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Okay, and what about these doors?"

For a brief instant, just a fraction of a second, Pockets face turned deadly serious, and almost angry. But immediately it went back to her normal, happy-go-lucky attitude. "Did you hit your head or something? There are no doors in here. It's just a big, happy garden!"

"What? There aren't..."

Pockets put her hands on either side of Ted's face. Her white gloves blocked his vision as she brought her face up close to his. In an almost sultry tone, she whispered. "So much life, all around us. It's beautiful seeing it. The struggle, how they all reach out towards the light. Doing everything they can to survive without even knowing why. The impulse, the drive to live. So interesting to see even in something like a plant, wouldn't you agree?"

Ted blushed a little but was more confused than anything else. "Pockets, what are you..."

She quickly withdrew her hands and then slapped Ted's shoulder playfully. "I'm just joking with you bud! No need to overthink things, hahaha."

"But..." Ted stopped himself as he looked around. He was in a massive indoor garden. Plants of all kinds surrounded him with strange flowers and leaves he had never seen anything like before. All of a sudden, the smell hit him. It was a mix of raw pollen and the light floral aroma of thousands of different flowers all letting their smells waft through the air. Then, the heat hit him. It was incredibly warm and humid in here. Though strangely it was also completely silent except for the noises coming from the two of them.

"What's the matter Ted? You seem off today? Do you need to get some rest?" Pockets asked as she bounced up next to him. She wrapped her hands around his arm and leaned up against his side.

It was her skin. That's what did it. This whole thing had been strange from the start, but whatever was touching his body, it wasn't Pockets. It definitely wasn't alive, at least not in any way he understood the word. He turned to look at her, and a wave of relief washed over him. Almost like she was pushing that feeling directly into him.

"How did you get here anyway?" Ted asked her.

Pockets smiled. "You must be delirious or something. I already told you that, remember?"

Ted winced as he felt a large amount of pressure right between his eyes. He could see it, Pockets saying she always loved visiting the garden down here. How it helped her relax, but she wanted to keep it a secret. How the others would spoil it if they knew. He even saw himself agreeing to keep her secret. Except he knew it wasn't real. He only just saw this place as a garden. It wasn't when he first arrived. Still, as his worry increased, her grip on his arm seemed to tighten.

"Right, I remember." He lied. "You came down here to relax, right?"

She smiled sweetly at him. "That's right! Good to know you're not losing your memory, haha!"

She didn't even act like Pockets right. Ted looked down at her and faked a smile. She was acting way more like a girl in some dating sim. Then he remembered why he was alone. He had abandoned everyone to face the smiling man without him. He had finally found the strength to move in a frightening situation, and he used it to run away.

"What's the matter? You look sad all of a sudden."

"It's the others," Ted said before he remembered his current situation. "They're fighting that guy." He turned to her as the gears in his head started to turn. "How did you get away anyway? Lulu was up there ready to fight him."

"Well, I had to take control of course!" She said as she leaned her head on his shoulder. "Someone had to make sure you were okay, and no one else seemed to even be thinking about you. They were too busy thinking of themselves, and what they wanted. Without a single thought to whether you were okay or not."

There was a surge of gratefulness that seemed to emanate from Ted's chest. But he knew it was fake. It was something outside trying to play with him. Still, he was not a great actor, and tried to use that feeling to his advantage. He turned towards her, and pushed his arm free of her grasp as he grabbed onto her shoulders. She let him slip away as he moved into position and stared down at her eyes. "Pockets I..."

Slowly, Ted leaned closer, and more and more gratefulness pulsed through him as she closed her eyes and puckered her lips. As soon as her eyes closed, Ted threw her to the side and ran past her as fast as his legs would take him.

"Ted, help me, please!" Pockets cried out in pain. A pulse of worry and regret flew into Ted, but he was able to keep them separate from his true feeling of raw fear that started to make him sweat.

"Ted..."

He didn't look back as Pocket's voice grew more ominous and threatening as a variety of emotions tried to force their way into him. Her voice sounded so strange, like broken glass that had haphazardly been placed back together. Fearing whatever was behind him, Ted looked around in a panic.

"Way out. There's got to be a way out." as he mumbled those words, he bumped into that beaten up wooden door he had seen earlier.

Without hesitation, he reached down and grasped the broken handle. As it touched his skin, a flurry of memories bubbled up to the surface of his mind. All the terrible things he had ever done. Everyone he had ever hurt. Every last mistake flashed before him. He let go of the door handle in shock as he backed up, and his head pounded with one of the worst headaches he had ever felt.

"Come back to me Ted! We have so much to discuss. So much lost time to make up for. Don't reject me now!"

As a shiver went down his spine, Ted made a choice. He would go forward into the unknown. Press on instead of facing whatever was behind him. He put his hand back against the door handle, and as the memories flooded into the forefront of his mind again, he winced. He tried to turn the handle, but it was stuck. He could hear the sound of something scraping on the ground behind him. The hair stood up on the back of his neck and he slammed his shoulder into the door. That seemed to do it, and the door flung open. He rushed through and let out a yelp as he stepped out into nothing but air.

As he fell, he looked back up and saw Pocket's white glove hanging limply with something like rope wrapped around her wrist. Then, the door slammed shut and seemed to disappear as he continued to fall.