Once again, sorry for the long update! I've been busy taking the recent games and lore videos and throwing them into my AU Blender to create an appetizing Story Smoothie!

Okay, but seriously though, really been working hard on the storyline and the characters (even after losing my only set of notes for the 10th time... Whoops..). But I want this story to be written well so I've been taking my time and thank you all for allowing me to do so. I promise it'll hopefully be worth it!


Chapter 3

Dreams often signify an escape from reality. A place where everything has potential to break expectations and provide a sense of real wonder and accomplishment.

Sometimes it's a place to visit loved ones long passed, or if you're special, you may see people you'll encounter in the near future.

Sometimes it's a place where goals are met with little to no effort. Where you can see a glimpse of fruit yielded if you work hard enough in life.

And sometimes it's just a place where imagination runs rampant and you forget the boundaries of reality and its physics.

But sometimes...

Dreams are darkness.

Hatred and fear manifested into visions.

They swallow you whole before you realize it and it leaves you-

-blind.

That's the best to describe how I feel right now, like a bright flash of light appeared and took all the remaining light with it leaving me in utter darkness.

I reach out a hand and feel around, grimacing at the sound of a mysterious soggy something squelching underfoot, until my palm comes into contact with a wall. I can feel the dry wallpaper cracking under my fingertips.

Where am I?

"Hello?"

No answer except for the sound of what I think to be dripping water in the distance.

I really hope this is just a dream.

"Hello?"

No answer again.

I feel awkward just standing here and groping the wall. Maybe I can find a lightswitch.

I head onwards, following wherever the wall leads me in this light-forsaken abyss with the various sounds of disgusting wetness as my only companions. The farther I go though, the drips don't sound any closer and the floor starts to feel sticky. It's not that sugary sticky either. It feels more like when you touch paint before it's completely dry, sticky.

And that smell...

It smells worse than the time Mike's mom tried making kimchi at home. Yuck.

I swallow hard and keep moving. Maybe if I keep going, the smell will eventually fade, right? I just need to count my steps to focus on something else.

One. Two. One Two.

The wall underneath my hands crumbles where I trace my fingers along it.

One. Two. One. Two.

What even is this place?

One. Two. One. Two.

And that smell...

One. Two. One. Two. Three.

It keeps getting worse.

One. Two. One. Two. Thr-

Wait.

I stop and listen.

One. Two.

"Hello?"

~Help... Please...~

That voice, sounding so young, wheezes from behind me and I stiffen, breathing as quietly as possible.

I can't turn around. My feet feel like they've been cemented into the floor. It wouldn't do much good to try and look around anyway with it still being so dark.

~Help... Please...~

"H-how?" I swallow and try to take a deep breath against the foul odor of the room. "How do I help? Where are we?"

Footsteps splash away from me, a steady step and then the dragging of a limp.

"Wait! How do I help?"

~Save... Them...~

"Save 'who'?"

There in the darkness I see it. Two small pinpricks of light that stare back at me. They don't reveal anything else in the room, they're just there. Floating.

~Save... Them...~

Growing frustrated I ask again. "Who?"

~Save them.~

I slam my fist against the wall, huffing at the voice, but before I can even begin to voice my aggravation, I feel it.

The wall shifts underneath my knuckles and little by little I feel it collapse, revealing light from behind its now visible purple grey walls. I shield my eyes as best I can but the light seems to pour in past my fingers and eyelids.

~SAVE THEM~

I throw my head to face whoever's speaking.

No one is there.

But I realize, in one horrible second, where the stickiness of the floor had been coming from.

My hands cover my nose and mouth as I retch.

Bodies.

Dozens of them. Heaped in various sizes of piles.

Blood continuously pooling out around them and soaking, coating the floor and lower walls.

The blood of dead children.

"Oh God..."

A hand, ice cold, touches my shoulder.

~Save us...~

But as I turn around and face the stranger, all I'm met with is a skull. A purple skull with its sickly yellow eyes stares back at me as a deep voice emerges from its closed toothy grin and says two words.

FOUND YOU


Remember that no matter how tough life seems to be right now, you're going to make it through the rough patch. It may seem like it's taking forever, but take a deep breath and keep that knowledge in mind. The bad never stays permanent. There's good coming your way.

Bless,

-Alpha