Chapter 3: Another's Dream
Kai's eyes slowly dragged open. He groaned as he slowly stood up, yet his limbs felt strangely stiff. Stretching his arm out and covering his mouth as he yawned and smacked his lips, he looked around to see himself in a seemingly infinite maroon space. "Welp, guess I'm in hell." he joked.
"But seriously, where..." He tried to see if he could hear, smell, or feel anything... yet nothing. "Where am I?!" He started to take a step forward, yet as his foot hit the 'ground', it started to sink. Kai quickly raised his foot back up. "Why is the floor trying to eat my feet? That's really not OK!" he yelled out. He looked around to see what other options he had. Sighing, he thought 'There's no point just standing here waiting for nothing, and there's no way I could step past that...'
"Welp, looks like the ground is gonna have to eat my feet. Yayyy..." He stepped forward. His first foot started to sink into the goopy liquid floor. Some of it oozed into his boot, grossing him out. "Uhh, why?!" He put his second foot down and kept sinking. He instantly regretted doing that. The goop stuck his boots to his socks. "Oh Evenis, why did I do this why did I do this why did I do this why am I so impatient?!" he screamed out.
He couldn't get out. The goop was now up to his knees. Then his waste, then his neck. He panicked as he scolded himself for his pure stupidity and lack of patience. He inhaled as much air as he could, then held his breath as he went under the goop. He felt it stick to his hair and could no longer hold his breath. His body forced him to open his mouth. He did not appreciate his body doing that. The maroon liquid oozed into his mouth, leading to him starting to choke. Desperately trying to do anything to 'ungoop' himself, he felt his feet were free from the ooze.
He kicked around and tried to push himself down into freedom. His limbs felt even stiffer, and Kai could only assume it was due to the ooze. His hands were now free, and soon he completely fell out. Landing on his now sore back, he spat out all of the goop that got in his mouth. For some reason, it turned a dark, greyed purple. Maybe it was trying to trick something into thinking it was maroon? "No, that'd be stupid... me and my brain, always trying to theorise on stupid things..." Failing to stop the urge to mumble, "But hey, that's just a theory!" he started to actually take notice of his surroundings.
"Wait, where the hell am I now?!" He looked to his side to see a dark wooden floor, covered in a layer of dust. He looked back up to the roof and... there was a roof? 'How did I just... where did I... you know what, none of this is gonna make sense and I think I'm gonna have to accept that.' He cracked his neck, and all his other limbs, realistically, his entire body, and jumped up. Inspecting the room, he saw a desk tucked away in the corner, an average bed frame, a chair facing the corner and a window covered up by blinds. Kai sneezed as he found a door, presumably the exit to the room.
He turned the knob as the door opened to a hallway. A small drawer table under a mirror holding a pot plant and pen and paper for note writing laid opposite to just one of the closed dark wood doors with gold coated knobs. A long, simple frilly red and white rug laid sprawled out on the floor, covered in dust. The sound of something creaking shifted his view to the only open door in the hallway, as the one behind him slammed shut. It was only slightly agape, but it was inviting Kai to open it and come inside. He listened to its call.
He walked over and gripped the side of the door, then swung it open and walked through. A harsh, burning bright white light blinded him as he stepped through the doorway. His vision started to return to him, and faint orange and crimson shapes started to form. He rubbed his eyes and... "Oh, I'm ACTUALLY in hell!" Lava spat into the sky like geysers, some falling back down onto the hard, rough crimson ground scattered with fragments of pitch black stone. A great rumble echoed through the hellscape, shaking the already fractured and unsteady surface, and Kai to his core.
Suddenly Kai was blazing hot, feeling like he was stuck in the very core of Dera's Flare. Beads of sweat rolled down his face as he looked above to where the sky would normally be. Instead, it was covered entirely by the same dark stone like the fractured pieces scattered on the ground. It seemed to be the only place where the stone could've come from. 'If that sort of rock is all over the floor, something must be damaging the roof... could it be the rumbling? Maybe things trying to get out from inside... or something trying to get in...' He felt another rumble, yet this time stronger. And now, it was coming from the roof. He looked up in dumbfoundedness. "I'm going to leave hell now." he commented stiffly.
He started to wander around and look for a way out. The island of rock he stood on high above the lava had multiple paths to other areas. One was a thin strip of red that led to a much smaller island, another led up to the walls surrounding the roof, many of them intertwined into long and wavy bridges of crimson rock, and one that led straight down to an island just on the lava. He decided the way upward would be his best option. There, he could look at the area below him in hopes of finding something to help him escape.
He started to slowly but surely trek up the ramp. It was tiring in the absolute burning heat, lava bubbling below him, popping over and over again- Kai screamed as the floor beneath him broke and sent him falling down. Without a moment to think, he luckily found something to hold onto to stop him from falling straight into the magma. He gripped hard into the stone as pieces of rubble went falling into the lava, some smaller shards even landing in his hair. He tried to focus on getting up instead of the fact he nearly died.
He pulled himself upward onto the downward ramp, his breathing shaky and unsteady as he stood up. He was just about to take a step back up to the returning island when he slipped. The hell stone... was slippery?! "BOY DO I JUST LOVE THIS PLACE!!!" he yelled as a sadistic smirk grew on his face. The face he just landed on when the satanic slip and side ended, leaving him on the isolated island in the lava. Now sweating even worse, he sat up and rubbed the rubble of his hair and face. Fuming, a sound of cracking and breaking alerted him to look around, only to see the ramp leading him down had collapsed into thousands of pieces.
As they fell, they splashed some of the lava onto the island Kai was on, but he crawled away to safety before any could hit him. His face yet again contorted to a very salty smile. His rage burning, just as his body was, he yelled "Might as well call this place Crumble Caverns, huh?!" He stood up aggressively, yet was surprised to see that the island tilted. It seemed that it was not connected to a lower ground, but was simply floating on the lava. His eyes twitched. "I'm stuck on a tilting piece of rock in lava death soup!" He slapped his forehead. "If I see something, I think I'm going to kill it!" he chuckled like a sadist. "Wow, it didn't take me long to lose it, did it?" The lava kept popping and popping away. Kai had grown used to the sound by now. But he had not grown used to the sound of rattling bones.
A skeletal hand came rising from under the surface, lava sticking onto some of it like skin. "Well, speaking of things to kill..." Kai murmured as he prepared for whatever was arising. Long, bony fingers scratched and clawed at the floating rock until it got a good grip. Its other skeletal hand came to meet Kai. A skeleton, only definable by the lava forming areas like skin throughout its body and the 'organ-shaped' objects in the abdomen seemingly made from some sort of charcoal stood in front of Kai. Its head popped up, half of the skull filled with the magma, a small piece of charcoal flowing into the eye socket, giving it some kind of pupil, then disappearing again. Cracking sounds of displaced bones shook Kai to the core. "It seems like you're already dead..."
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A dozen more of the 'Skelava's' as Kai subconsciously titled them jumped out into the air and landed on the rock, tilting it and leaving a stumbling Kai on the side raised a bit in the air. "Uhhhh... I have the high ground?" The Skelava's let out a ghastly cry as they started to shuffle their way towards Kai, arms stretched out to claim his life. Panicking on what to do, Kai had to think fast. 'Maybe I can... OK, let's try that!'
He put his fingers together, and whistled as loud as he possibly could. A large pale red blast of Sound magic passed through the Skelava's... but all it did was rattle their bones. "...crap." As they continued to draw close, Kai stepped back until he reached the edge. The sounds of bubbling lava, rattling bones and pained groans filled his ears. Was... was this it for him? 'No, this can't be it! I can't die now! I still have so much left to do with my life! Help Levonia, learn the way of the blacksmith, discover the secrets of Sound magic... and tell Talo-'
A deep rumble yet again echoed throughout the cavern. But this time, it was something... below him? The Skelava's stopped still. Kai turned around and looked down to the lava. A large area in it bubbled up. Something was rising up. Something much larger than what had come before. He turned his head to see most of the Skelava's retreating back into the magma. He looked back. The rumbling became louder. Suddenly, a Skelava jumped out into the air, and slashed directly down onto Kai. He prepared for impact / death, yet he felt nothing. Nothing but a sudden chill crawling down his spine.
The once unbearable heat turned cold and empty. Kai slowly opened one of his eyes. Almost everything around him was a dark teal. The air was thick and heavy, filled with some sort of sadness. The ground was moist and wet, and yet again, there was no sky. It seemed he was yet again in a cavern-like area. Dread fell upon him like rain, despair gnawing at his heart such as a parasite. The ghostly green grass everywhere was decayed and worn, small stone spires sometimes erupting from below them. Kai felt a small piece of rubble hit his head, alerting him to the large semicircle rock coming from behind him.
On it were strange, abstract patterns. They were incomprehensible to Kai. But there was something on there he could understand. A symbol of a man, covering his face, crying. And a large shadow looming over him. The despair grew. It felt like it was infecting every part of him. It made his limbs stiff. Brain foggy. Soul empty. 'I'm going to die I'm going to die I'm going to die I'm going to die I'm going to-' Something dark grew behind him. "Wait... why am I thinking like this?"
Something behind him growled. Taking a sharp breath, he turned around to see what was trying to ruin his already bad day now. "Who's there?!" There was nothing. Nobody, no movement, nothing. "Come on, let me play your life's closing requiem!" A guitar made of deep crimson wood and a yellow pick were summoned into his hands by his command. He was ready to play a deathly chord at a moment's notice. But, nothing. Nothing, until he looked down.
His shadow was expanding, becoming monstrous, staring into its caster's soul with its newly appeared teal, 'scribbled' eyes. A concerned frown shifted onto his face, not understanding what he was looking at. "What is that thing?!"He staggered back, but being his own shadow, it followed his movement exactly. His shadows hand seemed to be reaching out for something. "How is my-" Kai gasped, and looked back at the rock, more specifically, the only symbol he understood. The man in despair. His own shadow looming over him.
Something cracked behind him. He looked back over, and saw the- his shadow's hand breaking over into the third dimension. "How are you doing that?!" he questioned the... shadow? Soon, the thing would be out of the ground, truly dangerous. "No... no no... no no no!!! I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna... no! I have to stop thinking like that, I need to calm down!" He whimpered. He focused on his breathing. He started to take long, deep breaths, even if they were still shaky. He slowed his mind down. He untensed his muscles. The growling of the shadow silenced, and it eventually returned to its natural state. Kai was at peace... well, as much as he could be. "Well... that worked?" he questioned. "...there's something about this place. I never act like that, if anything, Talo's more likely to have that sorta thing happen. Maybe it's..." He sighed. "Pointless trying to give reason to something so nonsensical."
He swiftly spun around and began looking for a way out. Giving his shadow a quick but hateful death glare, he began trodding forwards towards- well, he'd technically would have to be walking to something, even if he didn't know what. Though he attempted to not to, his mind was racing with thoughts and possibilities. 'What is this place? What was that other cave? The house, the big maroon void thing? What was my shadow doing? Why was I so scared? Why am I here?' After repeating it in his mind so many times, the word 'why' began to lose all meaning. 'Why is why said the same as y? Why is I spelled I but why is why, not Y? Not to mention you...'
"Wow, I really do get sidetracked easily..." He felt something begin to coil around his leg, breaking his train of thought. Looking down, he saw a tentacle-like beast, its form entirely covered in mud, gripping onto his leg. It kept going up. Kai began shaking his leg vigorously, attempting to keep calm. It was clear if he didn't in this place, things would get much worse. Both grossed out and disturbed by the thing, he failed to get it to latch off. It kept rising up his leg, before starting to squeeze. Unbelievably hard.
Kai cried out in pain as his skin burned and tensed. A sharp point formed at the tip of the monster, and started to prod and poke at Kai. He could only manage to get out a weak, unsteady whistle to try and deter the thing away. Wavy, faulty lines of red energy were summoned and passed through the creature. It stopped for a moment, before writhing and convulsing erratically, then stabbing into Kai's leg, deeply puncturing the skin. He yelled out in agony as his mind gave into the despair. Scattered thoughts, horrific images and possibilities playing in his mind, blood trickling down his leg as the pain continued, shadows growing, fear striking all as everything started to fade away.
Before Kai could think of what happened, he realised he was back in the maroon space. His skin and mind ached. Fear remained, and confusion peaked. Blood still trickled down his trousers, but there was no growl alerting Kai to his own shadow. He struggled to stand up, but he fought through the pain and stood weakly. "....what's going on?" His voice broke and murmured, a tinge of fear and despair thrown onto it. The maroon space remained silent and still. "Why-" A sharp, stabbing pain erupted in his chest, bringing him to his knees. He put his hand on where it hurt the most, as tears rolled down his cheeks.
He nearly fell, yet caught himself with his other hand. Something rumbled underneath him when he put his hand down on the surface of the void. The maroon space shook, then shifted. Now instead of maroon, everything was the same dark, greyed purple he saw the maroon he spat out shift to. Confused, Kai forced himself to stand. The rumbling became worse.
The floor began to shake and ripple like water. Trembling, Kai's foot began to sink into the ooze even without him even needing to take a step. It was thick and chilling to the bone. Kai, panicking, tried to pull his foot out, but the goop gripped and pulled it further down. Stumbling, his other foot sunk as well. Waist deep, he yelled for help, hoping something or someone would hear him. Instead, the purple just pulled him in deeper. His chest was burning in pain, feeling like a great tear began to form. Soon, he was gasping for air, as he was pulled under the surface.
It felt like it was writhing... alive.
And it was trying to get in.
He couldn't help but scream. The purple oozed into his mouth, into his chest. It was overwhelming. Now, he could no longer scream. He could no longer try to become free. All he could do was watch.