When I woke up I was on the cold floor, I raised my head in confusion and looked around. I was in a strange empty room, its walls were covered in a faded yellowish color, the walls had cracks showing a bit of decay, it looked quite unkempt. On the ceiling, there were several fluorescent lamps with a weak, irritating and unpleasant light, which emitted a sound that was the only thing in the place. The floor had a soft brown carpet, worn and stained, I looked through one of the wall spaces and I could only see how the place extended beyond the reach of the eye, without points of reference it was easy to get lost. The atmosphere was one of uneasiness and strangeness. It was scary, the place was scary, but at the same time it was hard to describe, there was nothing out of the ordinary, but at the same time it was as if the place made sense but at the same time it did not.
[https://i.imgur.com/ojEMrcT.png]
I was starting to feel desperate when suddenly I saw someone on the floor, it was my mother, she looked like she was sleeping so I went to wake her up, she got up almost immediately.
"Maria?"
"Are you ok?"
"Where are we?"
"Is this Cesar's mind?"
"Ah, no, I don't think so"
"I don't think the mind of is so normal as to look like ...... whatever this is."
"This looks very boring"
"Well, that's because this is just the backrooms, the waiting room."
My mother and I turned to look frightened at the new voice, close to us just a couple of steps away was Momo, the angel, or so we thought, we knew it was her because of her figure that we knew by heart and her wings behind her, but her body was no longer transparent, instead she had skin this time, which was shocking in its own right.
"Momo?"
"It's you? you look different"
"Are you wearing clothes!?"
"Yes, it's me,"
"Damn, how do you guys stand to have real hair?"
"It's like I can feel each hair individually"
"Also why am I so soft? Is that normal?"
"Mrs. Adelis has rougher skin than mine."
"What did you say about me you underdeveloped half-bird?"
"!!!!"
"Sorry, I mean, where we are right now is the PASIV device waiting room."
"It's a place to wait while the others connect."
"A video game lobby basically"
"Although the device is still under development so the place is a bit ....weird."
"Well, we can still walk, but we could get lost very easily."
"It is best to be wait for all of us before we start"
"Interesting place, I always thought that Goshujin-sama's mind would have a little more moonlight in the windows."
The kitsune said by surprise as if she had always been there in the first place, dressed in her majestic goddess clothes, a kimono with celestial pattern that moved continuously to reflect the night sky of which she was the owner, with her usual beautiful radiates an ethereal and fascinating beauty for which she is known, her eyes shone with the depth of the cosmos. Ana unreachable figure, a deity that can only be admired from afar, but she came too with her warm smile and sweet gaze making her feel close and friendly, like a mother to all.
"Tamamo! You made it in!"
"Well, yes, why wouldn't I?"
"I mean, with you being a goddess and all that, I thought you'd be like, well, a goddess and you'd be the one to manipulate this whole place any way you want."
"Or something like if you just turned into a giant moon in the sky and that's it, just standing there and doing nothing."
"It's good to see that one of the ones who knows how to fight is already here, it makes me feel more confident." said my mother gratefully.
"Oh no, I think you are very wrong about me this time."
"I mean, yes I'm a Goddess and I'm the Moon and all that."
"But on this specific occasion, I'm just another one of you, no matter how amazing and adorned I look."
"This is the mind of Goshujin-sama, in this case, he is the God of this place, he is the one who can do and undo at his will."
"I don't have any power here, right now I'm just another human with fox ears and tail."
"...."
"In fact that moon over there is not me, that moon over there is as unknown to me as it is to you."
All of us were a little surprised by Tamamo's words, but when we looked around again, we noticed how the place had changed a little, it was still a place similar to the previous one, but now there was a window through which we could see the moon outside, but nothing else, the sky seemed to be outside but with no trace of the ground, as if we were in a sky so big that there was no way to see how high we were.
"That window was not there before"
"!!!!!"
"Is that a hand!"
A hand came out of the window frame, we all screamed in fear and stood behind Tamamo, then the other hand appeared, then one of the legs, it looked like it was a human trying to climb the building from the outside.
"I know you're there, damn you!"
"Stop staring and help me up!"
"The drop is so big I can't see the ground!"
"Whoever you are, help! Even the angel!"
"I'm so tired of flying all this time!"
"Lisa!"
"It's you!"
"Help me you bitches!"
Hearing that it was definitely Lisa upset, Tamamo went to her aid and helped her to finish entering the room, but the weirdness was just beginning.
"You are not Lisa" I said confused
"Eh? Of course, I am?"
"Why I wouldn't be me?"
"Stand up and make a cute gesture and smile as if you were a normal Idol and not a psycho yandere."
"How, like this?"
[https://i.imgur.com/YScvzRK.png]
"Who the fuck are you and where are you holding Lisa hostage?"
"Why so much drama with me?"
"...."
"Are these things bright colors!?"
"AHHHH! Gross! Take it away! Get it off of me!"
"Hahahahaha!"
"Lisa is dressed as a cute magical girl!"
"You'd better stop laughing, damn angel, or we'll see if you're going to bleed now that you're made of flesh too!"
"Interesting, so that's what Lisa would look like if she wasn't a bomb already detonated."
"Ok, now I'm afraid of what the others might look like."
"Look the others like what?"
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We all stopped for a moment when we heard the last voice, it came from the ground, where there was absolutely nothing a second ago, so we all looked down to see, it was Levia the mermaid, who seemed to be waking up from a dream.
"Yes, exactly like that, good example on your part Levia" I said sarcastically.
"What?"
"What did I do?"
"It's simple, you can come here"
"Try to get here as you like, don't think too much about it"
"What? What do you mean?"
"How am I going to get there if I can't move .......?"
"!!!!!!"
"You girls! there's something wrong with me! My abdomen! It's lighter!"
"I'm splitting in two again?!? Oh my God, I didn't even notice!"
"I was waiting to feel every second of my flesh tearing again with more desire than the first time!"
"Please let me know next time!"
"Wow, that went from zero to a thousand really fast."
"And you call me the degenerate one?" Said the yandere succubus.
"Levia, your problem is not that you are split in two."
"In fact, you are in one piece, which is the odd thing."
"I'm sorry but I'm not quite getting the idea"
"Look, I'll help you, it's easier" I say as I take her hand and lift her up.
"Umm"
"Ok, this is a good trick"
"How did you manage to get me up without any problems?"
"Damn, you're dumber than a goldfish."
"Can't you see you're standing upright?"
"You are standing on your own!"
"What do you think you're doing it with?"
"Wait! I have legs!"
"!!!!"
"I have feet!"
"I can walk! I can run and jump!"
"Yes, I can move on my own again!!!!"
"....."
"Wait, how do I do that?"
"...."
"Oh my God! It's like having two extra arms!"
"I feel like an octopus"
"It's rare to see Levia with legs"
"It's like seeing someone who always wears glasses one day without them."
"Interesting"
"You don't all seem to have changed radically."
"Only the .... well... weirder girls are the ones who have changed to appear more normal."
"I think, maybe"
"Is it how my dear Goshujin-sama sees us all inside?"
"Our ideal form?"
"...."
"No"
"...."
"I don't think it's that, no offense Levia, but to be honest, you look better with a fish tail."
"...."
"Maybe, it's more like a way to fulfill a part of our questions of what we would look like if...."
"Levia has legs, Momo is made of flesh and bones."
"Then what about me?"
"Why am I dressed as a clown?" Lisa said a bit angrily.
"....."
"Well, maybe it's his personal preference? Or as he really sees you, didn't he first meet you as an angel?"
"You look like one, a little bit"
"...."
"In any case, if my theory is correct, then when Tifa shows up she will probably be the same height as us."
"After all her height is a big concern for him and her."
"!!!!"
"Wow, Tamamo is really like a goddess in this."
"Just look who just arrived" I said pointing to a girl sleeping on a bench, all over the bench.
"It's as if she has grown up and yet she hasn't"
"Tifa always looked like a little girl."
"But now she looks the same only bigger and it's like she's a teenager." said my mother, a little worried.
"Hey, how about waking her up with a fright?" said the angel.
"Why? seeing your face without makeup is already enough." replied the demon .
"Tifa, my love, my baby"
"It's already noon, get up"
"No one has watered the plants today."
"Five minutes more Mom"
"Today is not watering day, I had left everything ready yesterday."
"Besides, we are on a trip to another country"
"....."
"No wait, weren't we in space?"
"....."
"No, there was something else"
"!!!!!!"
"Right! It says that I would travel to the world of Caesar's head."
"?????"
"Why is everybody's smaller?"
"Well, no one is smaller"
"You're the one who grew"
"About a meter and sixty centimeters taller to be exact."
"Wait what?"
"!!!!!"
"It's true!"
"Look, look! I'm taking up the whole chair as if I were you!"
"Why do I feel like you're saying it that way but for a different purpose?"
A cold air passed by my back, so I turned to look at my reflection, but an unsettling sense of intrigue invaded me at the same time when, suddenly, well inside the long and labyrinthine oppressive corridors., the twins appeared. Two pale and ethereal figures, with serene expressions and expressionless faces, eyes that gave off an orange color that seemed to penetrate my soul, their gazes met mine, and a shiver ran down my back. They stared at me as they remained motionless, without a single word on their lips, until they broke their silence with a chilling chord in their voice.
"Come play with us."
"Forever and ever and ever" said both in perfect synchrony.
9LpQCw9.png [https://i.imgur.com/9LpQCw9.png]
"Oh, it's you two"
"What a scare you gave me, for a moment I thought we were in a horror movie."
"Why of all possible things did you have to say exactly that?"
"We apologize for the inconvenience caused by our previous action."
"We just thought that with this environment it would be what you would expect us to do."
"We thought that if we tried to make the environment more bearable it would help us to look a little more human"
"Human?"
"But you chose the worst option!"
"Interesting, even the twins look slightly different."
"I don't know, their face looks weirder, maybe they move more?"
"No lie, they look more like boring, rather than the usual terrifying, cold, and expressionless hive-mind androids"
"Yes you are right, even Kazumi and Charlotte look a bit more human than robots."
"...."
"What are you guys doing here by the way?"
"I thought having dreams or real sleep was a requirement to get in here?"
"The PASIV device is a device to enter a person's dreams."
"At the same time it acts as a connection point between the different minds of the users."
"Its interaction is similar to that of a normal router."
"....."
"It also has a Wi-Fi network"
"So even you came as a stowaway."
"What was your reason for coming here?" asked Levia worried.
"In reality, we are still awake."
"We are just dedicating a part of ourselves to be here."
"And we have already practiced enough what the human sleep state is like!" Said Kazumi.
"We want to help Dad to recover too!"
"We want to help too!"Charlotte followed.
"Besides this is a valuable opportunity to experience what real dreams of living beings are like first hand!" Kazumi spoke again without pause
We all gathered around the strange room, each one of us was looking at the others for a while, checking the differences in our appearances. While some were very obvious like Momo or Levia, but others had not changed at all like Tamamo, my mother or me. But after checking that we were all ok, and a little bit of teaching the mermaid how to walk, it was time to continue our journey.
"So, that's all of us, isn't it?" My mother asked.
"Well, I think so."
"Okay, so what do we do now?"
"I mean, it's obvious that we have to keep walking."
"The question is where to, the whole place looks the same." Said Levia putting her hand on her face thinking.
"At least I think it won't be through the window." said Lisa
"Which window?" asked the big fairy.
"????"
"Well, that one over there, isn't it?"
"......"
"......"
"And it's gone....."
"...."
"Easy come, easy go I guess" Lisa answered again a little confused about herself.
"The machine should by now have created the entrance to go into Cesar's mind somewhere nearby."
"Look for anything other than a generic room." Said momo with confidence.
"Like that subway tunnel?"Levia pointed out
In one of the rooms near us there was a subway tunnel entrance, including the railroad tracks. Inside the tunnel it was impossible to see what was beyond the faint light of the flower lights. As we got a little closer we could notice how a strong cold wind was coming from the tunnel, it was so cold that we could even see snowflakes coming out and melting on the ground next to us.
"Hey, wait, is it possible that tunnel is....."
"Well, it is the mind of our dear Goshujin-sama, and that was certainly an event that marked him."
"So I imagine it's logical that it's the same one."
"....."
"Remember, this place is created from Cesar's subconscious, it's his experiences."
"Maybe what appears there is not real and never happened, but he could believe it did."
"And if this is the tunnel we know, well, what may be lurking in there, we also know."
"Please do not get separated from the group for any circumstances."
"Lisa you are one with the darkness aren't you? protect the rear please."
"Ok."
We all entered the cold tunnel at the same time. To protect us from the cold and light the way, Tamamo walked first, with a strong blue fire around her, it was the same of her ability as a Goddess and as a Kitsune. The fire was quite powerful, so much so that it even began to melt the ice that the light began to touch. My mother was walking next to me, holding my hand and Tifa's, who was on the other side of her. Our speed was quite slow because Levia had a lot of difficulty walking, even so, the twins were by her side helping her to walk every step, the mermaid was doing her best to learn as fast as possible, so little by little we could go faster and gaining a little speed.
But still, shortly after walking in there, the sound of heavy footsteps began to sound, it seemed that something was running in our direction really quickly.