It was dark and cold. He wasn't sure what had happened after he was pulled into the darkness by his supposed partner back in the mysterious building they encountered.
It doesn't matter anyway, he thought with a sigh. I deserve a restart after all. Still, it would be nice to know what makes her to do so.
His inner monologue ended when he faintly heard a concerned voice, calling his name over and over again.
"Max? Maxy! Open your eyes!" it said urgently.
Frowning at the word 'Maxy', he could not ignore the voice anymore. With a suppressed groan, he opened his eyes, blinking them a few times to adjust his sight.
In front of him was a bleary image of a person he thought he know from memory. Rubbing his eyes to get a better view, his jaw then dropped at the person before him.
It was her.
Charlie.
"I thought you won't be awake!" she said cheerfully and hugged him. Paralysed with shock, he only let her brush his thinning hair with her delicate fingers as she continued, "You make me so worried back there; I almost thought it was too good to be true!!"
"Wh...what is it?" he managed to croak out.
"You know, meeting you again!!" Charlie's answer surprised him. So she wasn't mad at me? But she have the right to do so!!
"I know what you're thinking, Maxy," said the woman and released him from her bear hug, giving him a chance to look upon her.
She was the Charlie he had always remembered before everything went downhill on their last performance; her bright eyes that were full of joy and curiosity, her short hair with the rose tucked above her right ear and the angelic smile that crossed her face...
"'How can we meet again?' is the question you have in mind, right?" Charlie asked, which brought him back to reality.
"I...yes," he spoke, still in disbelief that his assistant was there in human form, not the terrifying monster that attacked during the night.
"Well, you've got to thank the King for this!"
The sentence that came out of her mouth made his eyes bulge in utter surprise.
"Th-the King?!" he gasped out.
"Indeed!" she continued, a bit too cheery in his opinion. "And, uh...I'm sorry for what happened back in the building; it was his idea after all!"
"Wait, so...you were Willow that was with me?" he queried.
"Yes; he insisted I am to dress up as your camp partner, making it easier to convince you to enter the beautiful structure he had built. And I'm also the bleeding Willow, so again, I apologize."
"No, it's alright, dear Charlie," he hastily said. "What was that building for?"
"It was the Dreamcatcher, as the King called it. And like its namesake, you will have good dreams when you enter it, especially regarding those you really want it to happen. Too bad it's only on full moon, though."
"What happened to Willow?"
"I'm afraid I can't answer that, Maxy; for we are in your dream. Surely you know that, right?"
There was a long silence with both of them fixed their eyes onto each other. Then, he broke it by averting her gaze, "Charlie?"
"Yes, Maxwell?"
He gulped uneasily before continuing, "I...I'm sorry. Forgive me for not being able to help you back when I was the King." Tears began to pool around his eyes and he hung his head down in shame.
"I am sorry for everything I've done to you, to us. If it wasn't because of me, we would still be in the real world, and you will not suffer as you are now. Everything that happened...is my fault.
"I hope you can forgive me, Charlie."
The woman in front of him watched sympathetically as he broke into tears, covering his face with his hands. Reaching out her hand to comfort him, she then stopped midway. She knew his apology was sincere, but she didn't feel like she will accept it well.
"I know you mean it, Maxy," she started, pulling her hand away. "But I can't accept your apology right now. Perhaps another time, maybe?"
"Of course. I don't expect you to forgive me right away; you have the right to not doing so. It is your decision, after all." Hearing his muffled voice, her mouth curled into a weak smile and she pulled out a white handkerchief from her dress before lowering Maxwell's hands.
The man was puffy-eyed, mainly caused by the sobbing of his misfortune.
"Enough talking about the past, Max," she said kindly, dabbing away the tears that stained his face with the cloth. "Let's talk about the present, shall we?"
"S-sure," he replied.
"How are you? Does the wilderness treat you well?"
"I'm doing fairly well, along with the help from Willow. She's quite a gal, if you ask me!" He guffawed heartily. "The one that tames fire, she will make a good performance back at home!" He spread out his arms and said with a wide grin, "Willow, the girl on fire!"
"Indeed she will, Max," Charlie unconsciously smiled as he continued his survival story with such energy. She however, couldn't ignore the envy that grew inside her the more he talked and realized, maybe he wasn't for her after all.
The face of the current King swam into her thoughts and she silently sighed; for the gentleman had captured her attention from the time he was ascended to replace the old King.
Who happened to be the man before her.
"So..how about you, Charlie? Is...your life alright?" The question from him woke her up and she stared into the man's black eyes.
"Apart from being the Grue, yes, I'm perfectly well, Maxy," she answered.
"But how come you're -"
"Human?" She finished his query. "The King...he somehow managed to coax Them to allow me being myself again. Just like the Dreamcatcher though; it's only on full moon.
"I'm afraid our time is up," she suddenly said.
"What?"
"The night's almost over, Max. Don't worry, you will be fine," she added when he began to panic. "Although you may come out not as sane as you were before entering."
"Does this take a chunk out of my sanity?"
"More than that."
"I thought you said this is a dream."
"Then again, not everything here is what it seems like, Maxwell. Surely you've learnt that lesson, didn't you?"
He could only watch in horror as her human figure slowly distorted into shadows and screamed when it swallowed him into the darkness.
(line break)
Wendy glanced upward as her muscular partner, Wolfgang carried the unconscious survivor they encountered after the hound wave. He had a grim look in his usual jolly face.
She then turned to her deceased twin sister, Abigail, who followed them from behind. The ghost noticed her and glided closer, letting out a soft whimper as if to say, "What's wrong, Wendy? Is there something bothering you?"
"Nothing, Abigail," the blonde girl said, lifting her gaze. "I was just thinking, that's all."
Her mind was playing the scene where her- their parents took Abigail to the hospital after she got injured gravely. She remembered the time they spent in the waiting room for the news and their grief-stricken faces when the doctor told them she could not be saved...
"Miss Wendy!" Wolfgang's booming voice brought her back to reality and she gazed up. "Yes, Wolfgang?" she asked.
"Do you think this is fire lady's camp?"
She looked ahead and indeed, they had arrived at a rather modest camp. Chests littered the place and two tents were nearby the fire pit, in which she pulled some logs to start it up.
"Put her here, Wolfgang," she said instead, pointing at a position not too far from the fire pit. She then crafted a straw roll and lay it there before the strongman placed the survivor on it.
"Will fire lady be alright, Miss Wendy?" he asked.
"Don't worry, I still have some salve left. She will be fine by tomorrow. Get some sleep, dear friend." She made another straw roll and gave it to him.
"You're not going to sleep?"
"I'm afraid I will not at the moment."
As Wolfgang rolled in his straw roll, Wendy applied another round of salve onto the survivor's wounds before wrapping them using spider silks.
Just then, the light from the moon faded away and once again, the Constant was plunged into darkness.
She took notice of it and put the remaining grasses she had into the fire pit. Sighing, she stared absent-mindedly at the dancing flames that entranced her with Abigail joined her later on.
Then she heard a rustle from the berry bush she spotted earlier just before the moon set. Readying her axe, she almost swung it when the source finally showed up.
An elderly-looking man stumbled into the camp, looking shriveled and was muttering nonsense. She was rather surprised to see such a sharply-dressed man was also a survivor in this maddening world.
And he was insane, from what she could decipher from his actions.
"Too bad I used the last of my grasses as fuel," she said nonchalantly, placing her axe aside before rummaging one of the nearby chests and found said material. "I hope you won't mind," she went on as she did the third straw roll.
She was just finished when the man suddenly fell onto the ground with a heavy thud near the fire pit. Rolling her eyes, she set the straw roll next to the man and pulled his sleeves so that he was on it.
Satisfied, Wendy went back to the fire pit and threw the grasses into it to keep the fire going. She then mumbled something not even Abigail could hear as her eyes fell onto the strange man:
"So close to death, yet so far."
