Gwyn angrily clawed at his bad arm as he sat hunched on a bed. Trash was littered around the room, and with all but a single light at his side turned off, it looked like rubble created by a bomb. He closed his eyes to avoid staring out into space and continued to attack an itch that would not cease. His arm felt hard in many spots, and if the lights were all on, he would have seen stone growing larger and larger. There was no telling what would happen when all the spots connected.
Maybe you should go outside and get some fresh air? Mem offered while bonded on Gwyn’s good arm. He had made clear the Needaimus was not to leave lest he risk being powerless in the face of danger. He couldn’t take that risk; with the Needaimus, he could at least defend himself.
“Shu-up em,” Gwyn grunted, his speech had begun to fail him occasionally, but he didn’t consider it a bother compared to any alternative which risked his whole skeleton being shattered once again. The earthling wasn’t even sure if every bone was broken while in Nun, but it made it easier to talk if he framed it in that manner. The pain had been short, but he still shivered when thinking about the moment. His right hand balled into a fist. Even with Nighthawk gone, he wasn’t positive he would break again. Gwyn let out a shout and punched the soft bed.
“You look pitiful,” a new voice, a surprising voice, assaulted Gwyn’s ears. His brown eyes flicked open, and his head turned with a jerk to the source—nothing.
Ferociously, his head whipped around the room until the voice spoke again: “Look harder.”
Gwyn squeezed his teeth together and glared as ‘hard’ as he could as he inspected every curve of the Aqueenian-designed room. Eventually, he saw what had spoken to him. Disgust filled every corner of his face.
King Whitlock, or a partial amount of the blue monarch, waited with his arms crossed and an annoyed expression painted across his face. The dead king had come back, is what Gwyn thought at first. He jumped back on the bed and crawled backward until his spine touched the bedframe. After a long stare-off, Gwyn realized the king wasn’t in the room as he had assumed. He was there, but not there.
The king looked solid, but something was off, even in the limited illumination. His sapphire blue face didn’t sparkle correctly, and the shadows on his body seemed opposite to the room lighting like there was another light source Gwyn could not see.
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“Great. An illus- or schiz-hren,” the earthing stammered. His thoughts turned to the possibility of a ghost, but the idea was stupid, and Gwyn had had enough of Resh’s ridiculousness to entertain it properly. He pushed the thoughts down.
“Why me?” King Whitlock moaned. Both their faces turned sour as feelings aligned.
“Go way!” Gwyn shouted. He covered his head with his hands and tightly squeezed his eyes together. Why wasn’t Nun enough? He didn’t want to deal with anything else. Going back to Earth was the only thing he could care about, but it was clear no one on the planet knew how to do that, so he retreated to be left alone. Gwyn wished everyone would honor that wish, but it seemed the Whitlock family would bother him, whether dead or alive.
The king crossed his arms and shook his head. Even though Gwyn deliberately avoided looking, he felt he could still see all the movements. He knew his eyes were shut, but it was still like he could see King Whitlock standing in the darkness as if the image had gone through his eyelids. The thought disturbed Gwyn.
“Much as I want to leave you here, I cannot. I am supposed to guide you.” King Whitlock moved—somewhere between walking and floating—to where the door should have been and “pushed” it open. In the vision of Gwyn’s shut eyes, he could see a section of blackness slide away to reveal what was on the other side. Instead of the bright Aqueenian hallway that was, in reality, on the other side of the door, the opening gave way to a rocky tunnel that descended. An orange glow of torches offered the only source of light. Cool air seemed to fill the room, and Gwyn shivered as a distant wailing echoed. Whatever the opening was, whatever King Whitlock was, he didn’t want any part of it.
“Et o. Et out. Get out!” Gwyn screamed. The earthling wanted to add ‘go to Hell’ at the end, but given that his speech was muddled and that he wasn’t sure if the sight of the descending hallway wasn’t a gate to Hell itself, he held back.
King Whitlock rolled his purple eyes and made a breath that showed obvious annoyance.
“So be it; I have wasted enough time on you already.”
The dead king entered the opening, and the ‘door’ slid shut. Gwyn was at last left with only the darkness of his closed eyes. They suddenly shot open, and the earthling took in the scene. His back was pressed to the bed frame, and his face dripped with sweat. Heavy and irregular breathing was the only thing he could focus on for a long while. Gwyn slid forward and fell to his back. The white ceiling was the only thing to look at, but he wasn’t bothered. “Just dream,” the earthling whispered before drifting to sleep.