Hello Everyone,
This go around, besides this Chapter, I'm gonna try to cut down on announcements and author's notes. I would just like to say that I have put up a new poll for this story concerning any potential love interests our nonplussed Protagonist-kun might have in the future.
The reason for this stems from a small handful of Reviews all asking for "no harem", "a flower for each arm only" or "no romance whatsoever". Although it goes against a MASSIVE rule for writing DxD FanFiction, I honestly wouldn't mind doing any of these options. Besides, I've only done one poll before, and this one is MUCH less serious in nature. So, why not just have fun with it?
Ultimately, I will have the final say-so. However, sometimes a story is funner to write when you run into challenges like this.
Anyways, please check it out, and help yourself to Chapter 2!
Guide to Reading this Story (There are changes in the normal way of talking and with thinking):
"Words." - Talking. Anything in italics is stressed and/or important. If, for some reason, I mistakenly use emboldening on a word in this fashion again, please leave a Review telling me. I'm so used to it from my last story that it might slip through, and I'm genuinely trying to proofread these damn things.
'Stuff.' - Thinking. I'll be using apostrophe marks to enclose them, and so like with the bold words whilst talking, please tell me if I mistakenly use quotation marks again.
Everything else. - Descriptions.
*sounds* - Shorthand descriptions of sound that I needlessly still explain in more detail anyways, because I'm a B-Grade author of amateur fiction.
[Terms] – DxD-related terms and titles and really just that odd shit that isn't normally used in conversation.
Chapter 2 – The Date of Change (Pt. 2)
West Vancity Baptist Church
Seeing the woman's finger come into contact with the pale skin of his forearm, Douglas nearly recoiled in shock from the sight of slim veins of golden light that pulsated within his forearm for a brief second before fading away.
"Holy-!? Wha-!? Di-...did you...do that?" Douglas stammered, his eyes darting between the woman's amused emerald irises and his forearm.
The woman merely gave off a light giggle in response.
"Heheheh, did I shock you~? Or, were you perhaps dubious to the idea that I was telling the truth about Angels and Devils when I spoke to you before?" the woman asked in a lighthearted tone, almost as if she never expected anything different from the young man standing before her.
Douglas just blinked a few times, her words registering in his mind.
'Was I? I mean, in all honesty, she never really went into detail before. However, after seeing this, I think I'd have to either be a fool or suffering a bout of insanity to say that she was just bullshitting me.' Douglas thought to himself, clenching and unclenching his hand several times before pulling it away from the woman gently.
"I was a little hesitant, sure. However, last night was a little...well, it was just a little weird all around to be honest." Douglas replied, reaching up and scratching the side of his head with an uncomfortable expression on his face.
Douglas's House
Last Night
"Well, isn't this just the strangest damn thing in the world?" Kenneth said as he, his wife and his son all sat around a dining room table eating dinner. The patriarch of the household was currently staring out of a small window just a few feet away to the looming horizon of the outside world.
Douglas, who was sitting there with darkened dull eyes and a head slumped over lazily, was only able to glance up from his seat with about as much care or curiosity as a rock. On his face was a small white bandage that had a tiny blotch of red blood that had seemingly soaked through the protective covering. On the left side of his neck, was a gauze pad taped over another wound that had a fair sized patch of red on it, though it seemed to be close to getting the wound to stop bleeding by the looks of it.
Looking outside, he saw dark gray storm clouds moving in their direction from over the top of one of the mountains the city was nestled in between.
"..." Douglas sat there, numbly chewing the pork steak in his mouth with an almost mindless passiveness.
"Those are looking mighty dark, all right. We usually don't get much rain in Autumn. Oh well, just make sure to keep anything not protected by a surge protector unplugged." Kenneth dismissed, before going back to his dinner.
A few hours after, with not very many words being said, the Roland family concluded their dinnertime as the evening sun was both setting over a part of the mountain range in the distance, whilst also being replaced by the menacing-looking storm clouds rolling in from the side.
The family had taken to watching TV together in the living room, until Douglas got up from where he sat cross-legged on the floor between his parents once the storm had finally started coming down.
And when it came down, it came down hard.
Bidding the adults farewell for the night, he went upstairs to his room. Douglas entered through the door with lethargic steps before absentmindedly pushing the door shut with his free arm.
Walking across the plainly furnished room that had a few dressers for clothes against one wall, a twin-sized bed against another wall, and a massive 54-inch TV mounted to the wall opposite the bed. The television was hooked up to various different gaming consoles and a gaming computer stacked neatly on glass shelves underneath the television with black wooden shelves chock-full of games sitting beside them. Getting onto his bed, he pulled out his smartphone and opened up the web browser application in order to get onto one of the many...
...*ahem* adult weaboo websites, to pass the time until he needed to go to sleep to prepare for school the next day.
*ring* *ring* *ring*
However, just before he was finished typing in the shady-seeming URL for the website, his phone alerted him to somebody calling him. His dull eyes didn't even blink as he righted the phone in order to look at the 'Caller ID'.
"...A friend?" he murmured to himself, slowly pressing the 'accept call' button that appeared. Putting the phone up to his ear whilst laying on the bed, he answered politely.
"Moshi Moshi, Douglas-des." he spoke, his voice monotone.
Instead of getting an answer, Douglas received something very different.
*sssskkkkkkkrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeee*
West Vancity Baptist Church
Present Day
"...yep, it still kind of rings." Douglas complained, rubbing his right ear like it had received a still-tender wound and gently caressing it would somehow make it feel better.
The woman looked at him with a mildly apologetic expression.
"Yes, that is the unfortunate side-effect of what needed to be done to you." the woman spoke, her tone belying a sense of guilt. Douglas just looked at her in an almost cross-like manner before sighing.
"Yeah, about that. I'll be honest, my head was super fuzzy that day, and I barely even remember a lot of what you said. The only real things that stuck out to me in that conversation were your instructions to not use any more electronics, to hack into the school security system and a seemingly insane phrase..." Douglas replied, to which the woman raised an eyebrow. Crossing his arms, Douglas stared at her with a deathly serious expression.
"This world isn't real." Douglas remembered, his tone implying he had taken such a statement far more seriously than any sane person would normally take it.
The woman's expression hardened as she nodded in affirmation of what he said.
"Yes. I am glad that that part reached you, at the very least. Douglas, I must admit...all of the strange and unfortunate occurrences that have happened to you in the last 24 hours have been orchestrated to make you believe that one irrefutable truth. That this world is not real." the woman confirmed, Douglas watching as her thin feminine lips turned upwards into a smile.
Turning around, she walked up to the podium and hopped onto it, kicking her feet back and forth playfully.
"Shall I...explain all of this to you?" the woman offered, to which Douglas nodded. The woman then closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before releasing it as a sigh.
"What I said to you last night about Angels and Devils was absolutely true, Douglas. They exist, as do Humans who study the ways of Magic, otherwise known as Magicians. I suggest we focus on the concept of Magicians, as it is topical to your situation in this fake world. Now, large groups of Magicians have formed what are called [Magician Organizations]. These 'organizations' create and enforce rules that Magicians have to follow, as well as provide an adequate amount of safety for Magicians to conduct their research and work in peace. If a Magician fails to follow these rules, they are cast out of the 'organization', and are given a label that puts them on the same level as a common criminal in the eyes of the Supernatural World. A Stray Magician." the woman explained. Douglas, partway through, decided that this was going to be a long night and therefore took a seat in one of the front-row pews.
Nodding along with her explanation, Douglas made an effort to simply accept the information coming at him with an open mind. He could sift through it later and weed out the lies with a fine-tooth comb. However, too many strange occurrences were happening around him to simply dismiss all of the fantastical things she was saying outright.
"Go on." he urged her to continue, his attention focused upon her and her alone.
"As you wish. There was a Magician who was not the most outstanding when compared to his peers. He had gotten looped into an unfair contract with a particularly nasty Devil who started treating him as their personal slave. This Magician decided to start his own research into harnessing a different, more potent power source that wouldn't rely strictly on his own capabilities. He believed that doing so might enable him to break free of this unfair contract through brute force. However, his research started delving into topics that are widely considered taboo. Specifically, he started looking into using Human spirits as the fuel for his power, similar to the ways of the [Old Satan Faction]. Since such practices often result in permanent side-effects or even death for the Humans in question, he was exiled and labeled as a Stray Magician." the woman recounted elegantly, beginning to run her hands through her silky-smooth hair.
Douglas found himself somewhat enraptured by the story being woven by the woman whose voice seemed to exude both calmness and sympathy.
However, that was before he remembered that she was telling this story for a reason.
"This Magician, you're saying he's the reason I'm here?" Douglas asked. The woman simply nodded, her smile morphing into a frown.
"Yes. However, he ended up targeting you. Honestly, even one such as I can understand the primal fear he must feel of this Devil. But, who would ever think it acceptable to target an innocent little boy who was only 10 years old and asleep in his bed as the subject for such a dangerous little project?" the woman asked in turn, to which Douglas immediately shook his head, before he realized that she was talking about him.
"Wait, you mean he kidnapped me!?" Douglas asked, shocked that something like that had happened to him and he had no idea about it. The woman solemnly nodded.
"After discovering that your spirit was considerably powerful for a 10 year old's, he decided to target you as there was very little risk that you would be able to fend him off at that point, considering you weren't prepared in the first place. Once he saw his chance to get a hold of you, he whisked you away and inserted himself into your mindscape, which is what this place truly is. The act of doing so has caused your body to enter into a coma, in which you have been for the past five years. Now, if you wish for a simplistic explanation on the nature of this place, this entire city and mountain range is a dream world created by your subconscious that he manipulated through magical means as a way to keep your conscious mind distracted whilst he siphons away your [Spiritual Energy]." the woman spoke, her tone unmistakably serious.
Douglas felt floored for a moment as he leaned back in his seat, his stomach and all of his limbs feeling one hundred pounds heavier all of a sudden.
"The ways he did this were various in nature. First, all of those video games, anime, and...those other things that you are so fond of partaking in were laced through and through with hypnotic spells designed to heavily numb your conscious mind's sensory and logic capabilities. Long-term exposure to those spells is known to induce mild forms of dependence and addiction similar to those who use illegal drugs. Second, was through the mental constructs you refer to as your parents. They kept a close eye on you and made sure you were kept underneath the hypnosis every second of every day. Third, was your school..." the woman spoke, her words drifting into silence in the ears of Douglas as his mind was almost forced to remember what he had seen when he hacked into the surveillance systems for his school...
The teacher's eyes never left him, even as they wrote on the board. All of the other students stared at him the entire time.
Whenever he walked somewhere, he'd always have numerous eyes on his each and every move.
And, no matter what, whenever he was bullied, which was every single day, the teachers never showed up to help. He couldn't even remember half of the beatings he usually received.
Strangely, every single time after being bullied, he vaguely remembered feeling a powerful urge to go home and play video games. They had a calming effect on him, and almost seemed to make the pain stop existing.
However, what had shocked him even more after he saw it on screen, was how astounded he was that he had never noticed before.
*snap*
Jolting upwards in his seat once he heard a sharp sound echo through the church interior, Douglas's slightly dulled eyes shot wide open as glints of light appeared in them, signaling intelligent thought was occurring inside of his head.
"...Douglas? Are you still with me?" the woman asked, holding her right hand up in a way that looked like she had just snapped her fingers.
Douglas just looked up at her with raised eyebrows, still feeling slightly startled.
"H-Huh!? Oh! Uh, yeah! I...uh, I'm still here. I just got...a little lost in thought for a moment." Douglas responded somewhat sheepishly, his cheeks feeling like they were burning even though their true color was closer to being stark white. The woman looked at him with a concerned expression.
"Douglas, I understand that this is a lot to take in, but do not hesitate to stop me if you require a reprieve. Granted, we are pressed for time. However, as my host, your well-being is the most important thing in the world to me." the woman kindly spoke, the attention she showed to Douglas not being something he was used to, which caused him to once again feel the discomforting sensation of butterflies in his stomach.
Douglas, taking a moment to take a few deep breaths, just let out a huge sigh.
"What do you mean, 'pressed for time'? Is something gonna happen soon?" Douglas asked worriedly. The woman nodded, her expression serious once more.
"Yes. I, myself, do not have much experience with the ways of Magic, nor with a large majority of the creatures that are spoken of in legends and myths. However, I have been informed that the Magician who has trapped you in here has sent your fake father to come and collect you in order to bring you to him so that he can come into contact with you personally and use more powerful spells to subjugate your mind and make you as you were before. That would not bode well for the plan that has been created to free you from this mental prison." the woman replied. Douglas's worried expression told her that he could sense the distress in her voice, and was willing to respond to it out of pure faith.
"How long until my Dad gets here?" Douglas asked. The woman simply closed her eyes for a moment before opening them.
"25 Minutes, maybe less. However, there is something very important that I must do to you before then, and that will eat up a significant portion of that time." the woman said, to which Douglas raised an eyebrow.
"What's that?" he asked. The woman shook her head.
"I am getting there. Now, your real body is currently inside an isolated infirmary room inside one of the headquarters of one of the [Magician Organizations]. It is being monitored by a team of expert Magicians, who have drafted a four-phase plan in order to free you." the woman continued her explanation. Douglas went back into focusing on her every word, committing it to memory.
"The first phase is simple. Get you to recognize that you are inside of a fake world. Phase Two, is what I need to do to you." the woman said, Douglas's attention grabbed firmly by this talk of a plan.
"See, this Magician that has entered your mindscape, he has blocked off most of the channels inside of you that connect your brain with the rest of your body. This makes it harder for the Magicians to use their Magic to assist you. That, is where I come in. I am a fairly-wide channel myself, being your [Sacred Gear], and I can allow them to use their Magic on you directly so long as I act as the medium. The night I spoke to you, that screeching sound you heard was a mild counter-spell designed to lessen the immediate effects of the hypnosis you have been under for the past five years. However, it wasn't entirely effective. It allowed you to get to the point to where you can understand you are in a fake world, but it is incapable of truly freeing your mind from the constraints you have been placed under for so many years by the work of this Magician." the woman explained. Douglas just nodded along, showing he was paying attention, even though his mind was slowly, yet surely, being further and further astounded by the fantastical circumstances happening to him at this very moment.
"And so, the Magicians on our side have designed an even more potent counter-spell that will nullify everything this Magician has ever done to you. The problem, though, lies in the fact that you have already experienced a great degree of suffering inside this dream world, which was numbed and made to be forgotten through the use of the hypnosis spells that were constantly barraging your mind. This will...nullify all of that numbing and memory alteration as well." the woman finished explaining, her tone trailing off on a somber note.
Douglas felt like he understood the implication of her words immediately, considering she didn't sound at all happy or relieved about it.
'If I do this, I will experience everything I had buried through the use of the hypnosis in full.' Douglas affirmed to himself, understanding that if he went through with it, that it would hurt.
A lot.
The woman then got off of the podium and walked forward until she stood in front of him before kneeling down and getting onto her knees in a submissive position with her hands clasped over her heart in a sympathetic notion. Looking at him with kind and apologetic green eyes, she spoke up to him once more.
"It will take time for the alteration of your memories to be undone and for the hypnosis to be completely dispelled. Your conscious mind will be preoccupied whilst this is happening. Douglas...I know this is asking for a lot but, do you trust me with this?" the woman asked for permission, as she unclasped her hands and held them out for Douglas to place his own in.
Douglas stared at her quietly for a moment, before reaching a conclusion.
"What's your name?" Douglas asked, to which the woman's smile became friendlier.
"...you may call me Ellen. All of my friends refer to me as such." Ellen spoke kindly. Douglas simply raised an eyebrow before looking her up and down.
Nodding, seemingly satisfied with that, he uncrossed his arms and placed his hands in hers...
...and immediately fell head first into Ellen's chest, his mind no longer able to support his body as it started racing through memory after memory...
Real World
Inside of the now bustling white room, a team of individuals dressed in lab coats gathered around and discussed the series of graphs and tables that were appearing on a giant monitoring screen whilst several glowing magic circles of various colors were set up in front of each of them detailing numerous calculations.
In the middle of the room, however, was a dividing transparent emerald-green wall that partitioned the room into two halves.
In the other half of the room, were two individuals. One of them laying on a hospital bed sat up against the wall opposite of the monitor, and the other standing beside the bed.
The one on the bed was an unconscious teenage male with severely unkempt blond hair and a body physique that looked almost malnourished. His skin, only covered from the waist to the knee by a small white blanket, was incredibly pale with various markings all over his body. On his stomach, chest and forehead were intricately drawn circles with various markings that looked to be runes and inscriptions laced inside each of them, which were providing real-time information to the Magicians on the opposing side of the room. Sticking out from the side of his head, almost like a dagger, was a jagged asymmetrical spike of blue crystal about a foot-long that seemed to be filled with glowing golden energy.
The other individual, staring down somberly at the unconscious teenager, was a woman with healthy white skin who appeared to be in her thirties and who stood at approximately 5'8''. Her hair, shiny and black in color, was done up in a mixed braid bun. Her eyes were the color of the purest sapphires and were covered by a pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses. Her slim body, possessing respectable curves, was hidden underneath silky black robes that clung to her body with white straps around the waist, elbows and knees to keep it from sliding around and obstructing her movements. On her feet, were a pair of low-heeled dress shoes. Beside her head, was a yellow-colored magic circle.
Once the woman saw golden veins of light pulse throughout the young man's left forearm, she allowed a relieved smile to come across her face.
'What do you know? I suppose being his [Sacred Gear], he feels an innate desire to place an inordinate amount of trust in her.' the woman thought to herself, as she brought forth the knowledge from inside her mind she required for what she was about to do.
Holding her palm over the teenage male's head, a dark purple magic circle approximately a foot in diameter appeared below it. Then, with a soft violet glow, streams of energy seemed to slither out from the magic circle into the boy's temples.
"We have contact! Beginning Phase 2!" the woman spoke into the magic circle floating beside her head, her voice being transmitted to the other half of the room. The Magicians seemed to be hard at work on monitoring the progress of whatever the woman was doing to the young man, whilst also seemingly trying to keep a constant eye on the movements of the Magician inside of the boy's head.
'Do not fear, Douglas. I will never abandon you to that mongrel.' the woman thought, a surge of righteous anger coursing through her veins which made her focus even harder on performing the counter-spell.
Douglas's Mindscape
Douglas, for all he was worth, had his doubts when he grabbed Ellen's hands.
However, when he was immediately assaulted by a long string of memories that all seemed to have something incredibly strange and out of place inside of them that he felt like he was suddenly noticing for the first time, he couldn't deny it anymore.
This world couldn't possibly be real.
1 Year Ago
*thwack*
As Douglas's head snapped to the side from the force of the punch, his legs finally gave out from underneath him. At that point, the only thing supporting him were the two males on either side of him holding him up by the arms.
Standing in front of him, was a ginger-haired male with green eyes wearing a black t-shirt and brown cargo shorts, with fists caked in blood from his repeated punching of the blond.
Turning his head back to the ginger, Douglas's dull expression never changed. However, neither did the bully's.
Throwing another bloody fist forward, the bully continued the beat-down on the defenseless blond...
2 Years Ago
Laying on his bed, a newly-minted teenage Douglas with bruises and cuts all over his body was surfing the web on his brand new smartphone and had accidentally discovered a veritable treasure trove of adult anime content on an obscure website. It didn't even register with him what he was doing, nor how many hours he had locked himself away from the outside world.
One thing he knew, was that his new hobby was almost as fun as video games and anime.
Then, he had a fleeting thought. He should thank that old man on the side of the road for the hint on how to search for said treasure...
3 Years Ago
Sitting on the bed in his room, a pre-teen Douglas with fresh bruises all over his white t-shirt and blue denim jean clad body was lethargically playing video games, his mind not really registering the small but intense flashes of white light that periodically pulsated from the screen which would normally drive anyone else insane.
However, every time the light flashed, his dull expression that seemed to contain a hint of recognizing the pain he was in became even duller as the pain ebbed away into blissful nothingness.
4 Years Ago
Douglas, in his first year of middle school, was sitting quietly at a wooden desk inside of a classroom at school, taking notes down mindlessly whilst watching the teacher write on the chalkboard. He didn't register that the female teacher was staring at him in an incredibly unnerving way as she continued to write, nor did he seem to recognize that there were two large intricately drawn portraits of what looked like magic circles on either side of the board.
All that registered in his mind, was the content on the board, which was describing the construction and layout of skyscrapers, as well as what it would appear to look like to an average person of his size.
Without even contemplating on the fact that he currently lived in a small village nestled between two mountains, he glanced out of the window. Seeing high-rise buildings now existing where he had only ever seen small houses before, he simply concluded with his numb mind...
...that he had simply never noticed them before, and that they must have been there the entire time.
However, a brief thought seemingly came to him, to which he felt a smile etch itself onto his face.
'Skyscrapers mean expansion. Expansion means more games and anime...' he thought, a fleeting feeling of happiness being born inside of his chest.
Douglas's House
In the Present
Walking up to the front door of the quaint two-story house, was a man.
Standing at 6' even, with a very slim build, he didn't seem to exude any sort of special presence at all. His black hair that was long enough to reach his shoulder-blades was tied in a low-hanging ponytail. His skin, peeking out from underneath a dark suit, white dress shirt and black leather gloves, was pale white. His eyes were a deep scarlet color that seemed extraordinarily dark in the dim lighting, making them almost appear to be completely black.
As the man got up to the front door, he began reaching for the doorknob when all of a sudden, he sensed a disturbance of sorts emanate through the air around him from the direction of the western-most side of the city.
His scarlet eyes going wide, he snapped his head in the direction of the strange pulse. It was also at that moment, that his eyes began to glow, giving off a blood-red light as they narrowed significantly.
"They've gotten to him. I must hurry." the man spoke to himself, his German accent deepening in worry. Turning forward once more, he reached for the doorknob and opened up the door.
A little help, he pondered, would not be unwarranted...
5 Years Ago
Douglas was made to see all of these memories fly by in a hurry as his much more alert mind was able to make out the strange inconsistencies in all of them, even as he firmly remembered just how numb his mind felt at the time.
However, he felt almost as if he was completely stopped in order to view this memory in its entirety.
'This...this is the day we moved here...' Douglas thought to himself as he was thrust into the exact same spot he was in on that day...
...sitting in front of the television in the living room, his legs crossed and his eyes wide with wonder and happiness as he saw one of the most epic anime scenes in all of existence, at least in his opinion.
'MASTERED ULTRA INSTINCT GOKU VS. JIREN!?'
Even now, his excitement still managed to surge forth for the first time in five years from some forgotten depths of his heart as the badass music clip started playing as Goku proceeded to open a can of literal whoop-ass on Jiren the Gray.
However, unlike how he used to remember it, in the background he could hear his father talking with a man who had a smooth German accent.
"Yes, we will keep an eye on him and make sure he's regularly conditioned." Kenneth spoke in an almost drone-like voice.
Douglas couldn't turn his head to see who he was speaking with, but he did feel a dagger of hurt run through his heart when he felt that his somewhat latent suspicions were confirmed.
'Ellen was really telling the truth. Mom, Dad, everyone...they're all just spies and cohorts for whoever this guy is. Everything was a lie from the beginning.' Douglas thought, almost feeling the near foreign sensation of water running down his cheeks, even though he imagined it would be impossible to influence his memories like that.
"Notify me if he starts acting out. If you terrorize him or hurt him in an attempt to punish him, he should attempt to turn to the hypnosis once again in order to relieve the pain. That will keep him under control until I can get to him. However, it is truly unfortunate. I really don't wish for him to suffer, but his [Spiritual Energy] will be able to more easily slip past the barrier they've set up if I can trick his brain into thinking he's in genuine distress. In exchange for his help, I will ensure he gets a tailored education and is allowed to live a life of luxury whenever I do not need him to be in distress. He will want for nothing, and will not have to deal with any responsibilities." the man with the German accent spoke softly, his tone sounding truly apologetic yet also determined, for some reason.
Douglas wished to give voice to his thoughts so as to tell the Magician responsible for his fake life that he wanted to be set free, but he was not able to.
"Also, whenever you call me, refer to me as Garth." the man then said, his German accent slowly fading away into silence as the sounds of footsteps carried him out the front door.
'Garth...of course. Dad would always call and talk to Garth about me. That bastard told me Garth was a child psychologist that they were seeking advice from!' Douglas thought to himself, memories of several conversations flashing through his head before his mind was brought back to the memory at hand.
When the door shut, Douglas, who was forced to watch the television, immediately started seeing a series of flashing white lights as glowing magic circles appeared in front of the screen. He suspected that this was one of the first times a massive amount of hypnosis was used on him, since before he accepted Ellen's help, he could barely remember the rest of this particular day.
However, unlike his other memories, he didn't feel even remotely numb or lethargic as he was subjected to the hypnosis spell once again.
In fact, his mind instantly became completely and utterly alert.
Douglas then felt, for the first time he can ever recall, a dark surge of anger that seemed to well up from the deepest recesses of his mind.
Feeling a deep breath of air fill his lungs, Douglas's vision seemed to shift from staring at his living room television to staring into the very close face of a smiling white-haired woman with gentle green eyes.
At that point, from the depths of his heart, he screamed at the top of his lungs...
West Vancity Baptist Church
Pulling up outside of the run-down church, the edge of the full-moon peeking over the mountain range in the opposite direction of the now no longer visible sun, Kenneth parked his truck in the dirt just outside of the front of the church.
Getting out of the still running vehicle, he walked around it and up the steps to the front doors.
However, he was completely unprepared for what he saw when he opened them.
There, laying in the comforting embrace of a white-haired woman, was his son. However, the stream of tears running down his face indicated to him that something was extremely wrong.
And when Douglas opened his mouth, the most soul-rending scream of anguish erupted from the boy's lips.
All of a sudden, a visible shockwave exploded outwards from where he and the woman were sat, blasting all of the pews into the walls before blowing the rotten walls and the deteriorated roof of the church to kingdom come, opening the interior up completely to the elements of the night sky.
When the shockwave reached Kenneth, he didn't even have time to react before his body was flung out of the instantly demolished doorway, sailing over his truck and landing unceremoniously on the dirt road leading up to the church.
Back inside the church, after releasing such a hellish scream for naught but a few seconds, Douglas quieted down as the massive influx of pain and rememberance he had been subjected to abated.
Opening his eyes, which were drowning in the first tears he'd cried in over five years, he saw Ellen looking down upon him with a kind smile as she held him in her warm embrace.
"All done, Douglas...your mind is now free from his influence." Ellen spoke kindly, to which Douglas just blinked a few times before he realized that the pain was done and over with.
Reaching up, he pried Ellen's arms away from himself and pushed his body off of hers with a slightly red face. Not taking any offence to this, and almost seemingly amused by it, Ellen allows him to create some space between them.
Taking a few moments to breathe deeply, Douglas relished in the feeling of his freed mind. And then, he turned to Ellen and spoke, his sapphire-blue eyes meeting her emerald-green ones...
"Thank you, Ellen." he said simply, though Ellen could easily detect the gratitude within his voice. She smiled even wider at him.
"Of course." she replied.
*stomp*
At the sudden noise, the two of them looked over to see Kenneth, his clothing torn up and dirty from having been blown away by the mysterious shockwave Douglas had created, standing there with a furious expression on his face.
'No. No. NO! He shouldn't have been able to break the spell! God Damn It! I shouldn't have ever let him out of my sight!' Kenneth thought, seeing his son and the woman he was near stand up and look at him.
Douglas, once he saw his fake father standing there, felt that swelling of anger inside of him flare up even stronger for a brief moment. Then, he saw the construct's lips open up to speak to him once more.
"Douglas! Get the hell away from that girl this second! I ain't fucking around no more!" Kenneth shouted at his son, a torrent of worry and fear washing over him as he saw the tears stop trickling down from his son's narrowed eyes.
Douglas reached up with his arm and, with a single brush, rubbed the tears out of his eyes and cleaned off most of the marks left behind. He then turned to look to Ellen, who was staring at the man across from them with a neutral expression.
"Remember what I said about this being your mindscape, Douglas? Well, the same principles as those that apply during lucid dreams apply here." she muttered simply to him, to which he gave a resolute nod, understanding what she was implying.
Turning back towards his fake father, he glared harshly at the older man. Extending one of his hands towards him, he simply blinked once before taking a large breath.
"Goodbye, Liar." Douglas spoke, his tone filled with a sense of both finality and disdain.
Kenneth's body, which had been largely undamaged from the impact of the shockwave, started to shine as every cell of his being began glowing with a strange golden light. Rapidly, the light became stronger as Kenneth looked to himself and cursed.
"Wha-!? Doug! What the-...what the hell!? STOP THI-!" Kenneth began to shout, before his shining body exploded into various particles of light, that then slowly dispersed throughout the air like fireflies in the night...
...which then caused one more tear drop from Douglas's eyes as he watched the only man he knew as his father disappear from existence.
CHAPTER END
Author's Note:
I hope you all enjoyed this newest Chapter. The main point of this one was to explain our dear Protagonist-kun's situation, give more insight into a few of the memories he's gained in his dream world, and to show him being ready to stand up and fight for his freedom from Garth, the German Magician who needs more screen time.
This Chapter was also slightly short compared to the ones from my other story. However, I don't want to start mashing multiple Chapters together, and I really don't want to start dragging things out too long to where it becomes like some of the more dialogue-heavy chapters in my previous story, with all the rambling and repeating of things and whatnot. I got everything done that I wanted to get done in this Chapter, and that's that.
Again, same drill as last time, just below this is the Review section, so if you really want to tell me your thoughts on the story, feel free.