This took a long time to put out, and for a lot of reasons. I had more than a few problems in my life that made writing this a lot harder, and along with that I seemed to fall into a momentary depression that made me just... Not have the willpower to actually want to write this. I still want to continue writing this, but this happens to me sometimes. Along with that, I need to do a better job of planning out this story. This chapter seems like filler, and in retrospect, it feels like that to me as well. Along with that, you may notice that I dropped all of the honorifics in this chapter. I plan on going through the other chapters and removing them as well, since it's a pain to write them out, and on top of that, there's a reason for it coming later on in the story. More content to come!
It was evening in Gensokyo. To many of the inhabitants of Gensokyo, the night was when they were the most active. Yokai, fairies, and all manner of creatures spent most of their time awake specifically during the night, because they were nocturnal, or they simply felt more alive at night. For the humans that resided within the village or on the periphery of it, the night was something to be feared. Dangerous creatures roamed the night, and while many yokai understood that outright killing the humans of the Human Village was, in general, a bad idea which could lead to an encounter with the Hakurei Miko, many other yokai and other supernatural creatures simply lacked the intelligence to comprehend that.
It was a summer night, and a hot and humid one at that. In the outsider's dormitory, its sole inhabitant was tossing and turning fitfully in his sleep. Eventually, his eyes shot open, and he quickly sat up. A thin sheen of sweat covered him, and he breathed rapidly. With a shaky hand, he reached under his pillow and felt for his revolver, and when it was there, as it always was, he felt comforted by its presence and eventually calmed down. He looked around his room and saw that nothing had changed while he was asleep. He stood up and checked to see if his door was still locked, and it was. The lock would not stop any yokai that were determined to get in, but it would at least stop any determined human burglars from having an easy time getting into his bedroom and making off with one of the few things that he had that was worth anything. Keine had reassured him on multiple occasions that there were not any people who would do that here that were human, but he still was not going to take that risk. He had had the metalworker install the most sturdy lock that they had available, and it gave him a small peace of mind, even if it was more a symbolic gesture in Gensokyo than anything.
He went back to his futon and laid there for quite some time. Eventually, he realized that he was not going to go back to sleep without medicinal assistance. He exhaled audibly, and sat back up. He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair. If he was going to be awake, he might as well try to enjoy his time awake. Thanks to Miss Shameimaru, he did not have to work for a little while, as long as he made sure to not live above his means. He dried off any sweat that had not dried, washed his face, neck, and hair in the small wooden basin that he had bought, and walked into the room next to his. Inside, hanging from a rope that he had fastened, were three new suits, and his old one.
Alice apparently made her own clothes, and when she came by the village, she paid him a visit. She asked him if there was anything she could do to repay him for hiding her from... whatever that was that had hijacked her body. His suit was beginning to wear thin in a few places, and the dip in Misty Lake did not do it any favors. Along with that, he just never felt right in a yukata. He thought that maybe she knew if anyone around Gensokyo would know how to make a suit, and it ended in three brand new, enchanted suits that apparently "could withstand a danmaku battle with an angry Reimu and come out a little dusty at worst".
When he fastened his belt, he went back into his room, grabbed his revolver and the extra ammunition, and hid it under his suit jacket. The improvised armpit holster that he had made was not the greatest thing he had ever cobbled together, and he would have to find a leatherworker eventually, but it would suffice for now. He stepped outside into the warm night air and went straight for the edge of the village, near the Eastern Gate. When he got there, it was about as dead as most of the village at this time. The Village never really got active until about four or so in the morning, depending on the weather. It was cloudy out tonight, so he could not see the stars, but sitting out in the night and listening to the sounds of nature always helped calm him down. There was not a good place to sit down here, but he chose to lean against the edge of the gate, where the only thing he could see outside of the village was a dim light further out.
It looked like, to him, the light of an angler fish, trying its best to draw in... something. With Gensokyo, it was hard to understand. He could simply say that it was dangerous, just like many of the humans of the village did, but he always had a curiosity to him that would not be sated by just writing something off as "bad". He was going to kick himself off of the wall and head for it, but he saw another light begin to come around the other edge of the gate, and it stopped him. He stood there and watched the light, which flickered like the light of a campfire, get closer. When he finally worked up the courage to look around the corner, he raised an eyebrow in both surprise and curiosity.
Two girls walked along the edge of the wall that surrounded the village. One of them looked pretty normal by modern standards, albeit her choice of attire seemed out of place. She had a hat with a wide brim and what he considered to be a rather gaudy cape with some sort of glowing pattern on the interior of it. Aside from that, she looked like your average teenage girl in Summer, albeit with what looked like a homemade handgun, which he guessed was some sort of 3D-printed gun from the blueish plastic it was made out of, within a homemade holster. Her partner was of a completely different sort.
She dressed very differently from every girl he had seen so far in Gensokyo. She, for one, wore actual pants instead of a dress. Along with that, she had these stickers all over her clothes, and he noticed that the edges of her pants were singed black and tattered. What stuck out more than anything was her knee-length shock-white hair. The girl held a ball of fire in her right hand, and it was what had been illuminating their path. They looked at him, and he looked at the two of them, and then the girl with the cape gasped and covered her mouth. She hurried over and stared at him, wide-eyed for a moment before he spoke up.
"What, do I have something on my face?"
"You're not who I think you are, right?" She asked him.
"Who do you think I am? I'm Ray Dobbs."
Her eyes lit up and she backed away, right into her white-haired and singed friend.
"You alright, Sumireko?" The white-haired girl asked. Sumireko looked back at her, and then looked back at Ray. She took a moment to compose herself and then spoke again.
"I'm fine Mokou. T-this man right here is the one I-I-I was telling you about." Sumireko stuttered out.
"What? How do you know who I am?" Ray asked her.
"I'm uh, I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of your w-work, Mister Dobbs." Sumireko answered.
"What work?"
"Your work with the occult! I've taken tons of your recommendations when it comes to getting a hold of grimoires!"
Sumireko puffed out her cheeks and placed her hands on her hips as her gaze drilled into Ray, who, if he were not sure that this girl was friendly, judging from the fact that she knew of his side projects. That, and the fact she had not pointed that handgun at him. She shook her head and smiled once more.
"It's good to see that you're okay, though. You haven't posted a YouTube video in a while, so I wondered about you a bit."
"Yeah, I kind of ended up here. I got uhh," Ray scratched the back of his head and looked away. "Spirited away, by Yukari. I think that's what Reimu called it."
Sumireko's friend stepped up to the two of them, her hands still in her pockets as she sized Ray up. Sumireko turned to look at her, a look of confusion on her face.
"So you're the new outsider that they've been talkin' about, eh?" She asked him.
"Yeah. I'm the new outsider," Ray held out his hand for Mokou to shake. "Ray Dobbs. I'm sure you've already heard of me, if this girl's telling the truth."
"She's not just 'this girl', she's Sumireko Usami, outsider," She gripped Ray's hand, and he felt it begin to get a little warmer. She shook his hand normally, though. "Mokou of Fujiwara's my name. Don't forget it."
"I'll try not to." He replied. He wiped the sweat off his hand and looked back at Sumireko. "So... Sumireko, what brings you to Gensokyo, especially at night? I got it hammered into my head that night in this place isn't exactly a good time for us."
"Oh, it's definitely not. My first time at night here scared me straight. Now, if I ever show up, I make a beeline for Mokou. She'll protect me, she swore to!" Sumireko said. Mokou's face turned about as red as the fire that she had been holding earlier, and she looked away from both of them and stared at the road.
"Y... Yeah. I swore to." Mokou agreed.
Ray smirked at her sudden change in demeanor. The two of them seemed to be pretty good friends to him, and he thought that was a good thing. He still had one thing that bothered him about them being out here at this time of night, though.
"So why are the two of you out here? It's kinda dangerous, from what I've been told. That's why you're packing, right?" He asked. He pointed to the plastic gun on her hip, and her eyes widened. She drew it and cradled it in her hands.
"Trigger discipline." Ray said.
"What?" Sumiroked asked.
He reached over and removed her index finger from the trigger of the liberator. "Keep your finger off the trigger if you want to make sure you don't fire off the gun."
"O-oh. Thank you."
"Don't mention it. So what, is that like a liberator? Looks like the design that got released a few years back."
"Yeah! I, uhh, know an otaku who's really into firearms, and he helped me get ahold of the blueprint."
"Cool. Ever fired it?"
"I, uhh, haven't had to yet, thankfully. It's kind of a last resort more than anything. If I fired it anywhere but here, I'd probably get in a lot of trouble with the police."
"Yeah, you probably would. So... Why were you out walking around?"
"Oh! Mokou told me about this yokai-owned food stand that was open at night, and I recently aced the first test of my first semester at university, so I thought I'd reward myself."
Ray raised an eyebrow at the mention of a "yokai-owned food stand". Whatever that entailed seemed like a good enough reason to be out and about at this hour.
"W-would you like to come with us? To see it, I mean?" Sumireko asked him.
"Sure. I mean, if I'm not imposing on you and Mokou. It seems like something that'd be pretty cool to see." Ray answered. Sumireko looked at Mokou, who simply shook her head, which prompted a smile from her friend. Sumireko took Ray by the arm and pulled him along down the road toward that light in the darkness.
Mystia Lorelei hummed to herself as she wiped down the counter to her stall. So far, tonight had been a good night for her in terms of sales. Her night had more-or-less been made by a drunk (and rather hungry) Suika, who always seemed to have more money than you would expect someone of her... mannerisms to actually have. She listened to the sounds of the night, and it helped ease her mind about setting up her stand this close to the village. The humans there were not usually as nice as Keine when she had to deal with them. She looked underneath her counter to check how she was doing on sake, and saw that one of the bottles had been knocked over by Suika in her revelry, and had rolled to the very back of the shelf, where she had a bit of trouble reaching.
She leaned in and attempted to reach the bottle, but just was not having much luck. She was beginning to regret cutting her nails to play her guitar without snapping the strings. If she still had them, she would have gotten hold of the bottle by now. The tips of her fingers just barely brushed the bottle when she heard the bell that she had fastened to the curtain rang, which meant that she had customers. She, in her haste, had temporarily forgotten that she was under the counter farther than she normally would be, and bumped her head on the bottom of it on her way up.
"Ow! Ow ow ow..." She said as she rubbed her head.
"Be a little more careful, why don'tcha?" Mokou said as she sat down. Mystia grumbled under her breath, which drew a chuckle out of Mokou. She was used to Mokou, who ran a competing food stall that sold yakitori, making her the butt of the joke. Mystia wondered why Mokou even operated that stand. Mokou, being truly immortal as she was, did not really need money or anything like that. Maybe she ran the stand out of boredom? Mystia did not know. After Mokou stepped in, Ray and Sumireko followed shortly. Mystia's eyes widened as she realized that these were not her normal customers.
When Ray and Sumireko had gotten themselves situated on the bench as well, Mystia took a breath. With her wings spread out and a smile on her face, she spoke to them warmly.
"Welcome to Mystia Lorelei's yokai food stall!" She bowed slightly. "We offer fresh-caught lamprey, a nutritious and delicious alternative to poultry, grilled to perfection, with edamame as a side, and for drinks, we offer sake and water. What can I get the three of you tonight?"
"Nothin' for me tonight. I'm treatin' my friend here, since she's curious about 'yokai food' and all that stuff." Mokou said. She reached into her pocket and placed some money on the counter, which Mystia took right away. She held it up to the light of one of her lamps, and then bit down on the coin to check the authenticity of it. Sumireko, through all of this, quickly tapped away at a smartphone that she had pulled out of her skirt pocket. Ray was so encapsulated in watching the scene in front of him that he did not notice when Mystia turned her attention to him.
"And what'll you be having tonight, Ray?" She asked him cheerfully. He looked away as he thought about it.
"Lamprey with some sake, I guess? How much does it cost?"
"Just one-hundred yen!"
He fished out some coins and counted out one-hundred yen, which Mystia took and inspected like when Mokou paid her. When she got to the second coin, she raised an eyebrow and held it up to the lantern light a second time.
"Where'd ya get tengu coin?" Mystia asked him as she began preparing the lamprey to go on the grill.
"Aya. I got her some info for the latest uhh... Incident. That's what she called it. It surprised me that it's legal tender in the village." Ray answered.
"You were involved with that? Apparently that Margatroid girl found a cursed book or something." Mokou added.
"I wouldn't have called it 'cursed'. I think there was something in the book. Like, someone's soul or something was put in it. Either way, I prefer this Alice over that one. This one doesn't creep me out and doesn't want to kill me."
Mystia sat a glass of sake down in front of him. When he picked it up, he sloshed the alcohol around inside the glass and did his best to see how clear it was. He took a small sip and then sharply inhaled. That was some pretty strong stuff. A moment later, a plate was set in front of him. Upon the plate sat two wooden skewers with chunks of some sort of meat, cut into cubes and then grilled. The aroma of it made him realize just how hungry he was right now. Apparently, these were in fact lamprey. He had already come this far, and it would be rude to back out now, so he picked up one of the skewers and took a bite. His eyes went wide as he chewed. When he was finished, his mouth was agape slightly.
"This tastes like beef." He said.
"It does..." Sumireko added. Her expression mimicked Ray's.
"How... does this taste like beef?" Ray asked.
"I don't know! One day I was fishing, and the only thing I caught was lamprey, so I cut it up and grilled it just like this, and it tasted like beef!" Mystia answered cheerfully. Ray stared at her for a moment, his eyes conveying his confusion, until he shook his head and returned his attention to his meal. He could hear the tap-tap-tapping of Sumireko's phone as she attentively chronicled everything about her current situation. Aside from Mystia's cheerful humming, Sumireko's phone's noises, and the sounds of Gensokyo at night, it was quiet. No one was talking and he was more or less alone with his thoughts again.
He hated it. He hated every bit of it. He racked his brain and tried to think of something, anything to at least get people talking, but he just could not think of anything. He kept at it while he ate, even when he heard the clattering of plates and glasses as Sumireko finished hers. Eventually, a question finally materialized inside his head. He did not hesitate to ask it.
"So, Sumireko how did you g-"
"Misty! Mistymistymistymisty!" The last 'Misty' was very long and drawn out. The sheer volume of the voice drew him toward its source. Next to him was a girl with green hair, but the most striking part of her appearance were her ears. They were wide and furry, like the ears of a dog. The appearance of this dog-eared girl did not seem to shock Mystia, or anyone else for that matter. The girl did not hesitate as she stepped behind the bar and tackled Mystia into a hug.
"Hey Kyouko! What's got you all worked up tonight?" Mystia asked the dog-eared girl.
"Misty! I think I got over my writer's block! I even made a new song!" Kyouko answered her. Her tail wagged happily under her dress.
"'New song'?" Sumireko asked. She had leaned over the counter to get a better view of the two of them. She had a slight smirk on her face and a gleam in her eyes that told Ray that she was curious.
"Yeah! Misty and I are in a band!"
Kyouko struck what she believed must have been a cool pose, with her index and pinkie fingers, along with her thumbs outstretched, imitating horns. If it had been anyone other than Kyouko it might have looked "cool", but it was more adorable with her than it was cool. Mokou could not help but chuckle a little bit, while Sumireko snapped a photo of Kyouko. Mystia, on the other hand, had begun to blush in embarrassment. Ray leaned forward a bit, visibly intrigued.
"We're called A Dance of Bird and Beast! We're the best punk rockers in Gensokyo!" Kyouko stated.
"We're the only punk rockers in Gensokyo." Mystia added matter-of-factly.
"Yeah! And that means we're the best!" Kyouko said. She looked at Sumireko and Ray with a bright smile on her face. "You two should come to our next show! We'll be having it in a couple of days! We might be in a bit of a slump but I'm sure we're gonna rock people's socks off this time!"
"I'm sure you are! May I take a photo of the two of you for my blog?" Sumireko asked her, as she motioned to her phone.
"What's a blog?" Kyouko asked her.
"Well, a lot of people will see the two of you, and I'll write about your band, and then more people will know about it!"
"Really?!" The Bird and Beast excitedly asked in unison. The Beast was much louder than the Bird, and the Tinnitus in Ray's right ear began to act up because of it. He visibly tensed up due to the loud outburst, his eyes closed and his mouth pursed.
"Really! You're not just going to be popular here, you'll be popular in the Outside World!" Sumireko answered with a wink.
The excited squealing of the two youkai could be heard into the night as the flash on Sumireko's phone lit up the gap in the curtain that led back into Gensokyo.
Ray laid on his futon, splayed out over the covers. It was too hot to sleep with it, but he would rather not have slept on the hard wooden floor by itself, no matter how cool it was in comparison to the futon. The antics of those girls (aside from Mokou) had definitely tired him out, and with a full stomach he was more than a bit drowsy. As he stared up at the wooden ceiling, he felt his eyelids get heavy again, and eventually they closed.
He was jolted awake by the honking of a horn. He was in the back of an Armored Personnel Carrier, and it was hot. It did not help that he was in the back of an un-air conditioned vehicle, he was in the middle of the war-torn hellhole that was The Middle East, and he and his unit were headed out on an operation into the nearby city of whatever, he couldn't pronounce the name. He felt a hand clap down on his left shoulder.
"Took you long enough to wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Now stay frosty, we're almost to the Ay-oh-oh." The gruff voice of Sergeant Mendoza said to him in the dim lighting of the APC.
The Sergeant was older than most of them by a decade, and while he should not have been outside of the wire, he was not the kind of person to "sit back and command from a desk", according to him. To a lot of the men in his unit, he was more than just a commanding officer. He was a father figure to many of them and a metaphorical candle in the darkness to many more who had been beaten down by both military life and their newly-extended deployment.
"Alright, Marines! We're gonna be conducting a sweep of the houses in this area! The civvies should have evacuated, so anyone who's still around here should be treated with caution! Remember the Arr-Oh-Eee, watch each other's backs and we'll be alright! Can I get an oorah?!"
"Oorah!"
The whole MRAP responded in unison, including Ray. He checked his M4 and made sure that there were not any problems with it. He racked the charging handle and the carbine worked as intended. His holographic sight was working as intended. He was green and ready to rock and roll. The APC stopped, and he tensed up. This was normal to him. He had been on operations like this more than once, but it never got any easier. That little voice in the back of his head would chime in and whisper to him.
You might die today. You may never go back home. Mom and Dad might have to bury you, just because you wanted to be like Granddad.
He shook the thoughts out of his mind. The only thing that mattered right now was the mission. He had buddies to keep alive, and they had to keep him alive. He breathed in deeply, and even if the air in this APC smelt of sweat and oil, the breathing helped steady his nerves. He heard the bolts to the APC's personnel door unlock. He clutched the foregrip and the pistol grip of his M4, but he made sure to avoid putting his finger on the trigger. The other guys in the APC were just as ready as he was.
The large metal door on the back of the APC swung down and impacted the dirt road. It kicked up clouds as it did so. Ray was one of the ones closest to the door, along with the Sarge. Sarge was the first to go out , and Ray followed him, his M4 at the ready. He crouched and peeked around the side of the APC, and as expected, no one was on the street aside from his comrades. When he felt someone tap him on the shoulder, and so he hustled over and joined his unit as they stacked up on the first building that they were to clear. Sarge positioned himself on the opposite end of the door, and he pointed to Ray.
"Dobbs! You're on point!" He stated.
"Yes Sir." Ray replied. He moved past his buddies and took his rightful spot at the front of the stack. He usually scored the highest in his unit when they would practice room clearing, so it made sense that Sarge would make him pointman. Sarge tossed him a breaching charge, and he adhered it to where it needed to go on the door, and then he lit the fuse. A few seconds later, there was a loud bang and the door was blown inward and off of its hinges.
Ray did not hesitate as he entered the room. Instinctively, he quickly scanned the room and took note of the inhabitants and layout. He was in what he guessed would have been a living room back home, albeit a lot less modern, with a cathode ray television instead of a flat screen. There were two passages, with one of them opening up to what he guessed, from the staircase that was built into the wall, was access to the second floor of the home, and the other one leading god knows where, probably to a kitchen or something. Inside the living room were two people, a man that he guessed was probably in his forties and a kid that he guessed was about ten or so. He quickly moved forward, but not too much and pointed his carbine at the man.
"Hands up! Hands up! Hands! Show me your hands!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, over the screaming of the little boy to his right. In front of him, behind the man, he heard what sounded like a door slam, from the area with the staircase. Behind him, the loud, reverberating footsteps of his comrades gave him a bit of relief amongst all of this craziness. A pair of hands grabbed the boy and another grabbed the man, whose stuttering was stopped by the butt of a rifle as he was knocked to the floor. Sarge came up to his side as the door to his left opened and a woman, tears streaming down her face, was shouting in their language.
"Why are you here?! You know you're supposed to have evacuated, you know that?!" Sarge asked the man. He looked back at the woman. "Someone deal with her!"
"No no! No no no no! He come! He kill us!" The man stuttered out.
"Sarge, I heard something near the stairs!" Ray shouted.
"Check it out then! Vasquez, watch his ass!"
Ray moved up to the entranceway and peered around the corner, and he was right in his guess. There was someone up there. What he had failed to get correct, however, was that the person in question was armed and the barrel of the gun was pointed toward him. He pulled back and bumped into Vasquez just when the entranceway, where his head had been, exploded into dust and shards of plaster.
"Contact contact, second floor!" Ray shouted. He pointed his M4 around the corner and blindly fired where he guessed the person had been. His ears ringing, he felt footsteps behind him as Vasquez threw something over his head.
"Grenade out!" Vasquez shouted into his ear. Ray did like Vasquez and crouched, turning his head away from the inevitable blast zone. He covered his ears, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth. Then he felt the whole building shake as the grenade did its job. Dust and debris filled the air as he peeked around the corner again, and there was a gaping hole where the door to the second floor had been. He grabbed his M4 and began to ascend the stairs. The staircase creaked and rocked under his weight, but there were OPFOR up there, and they had to be dealt with. When he reached the door, he waited until Vasquez was on the opposite side of him, and then he kicked the door in.
The room was a bedroom, and there was indeed a man with a gun on the other side of it, near a balcony. He had some sort of AK derivative in his hands, and Ray did not even think as he leveled his M4 with the man and squeezed the trigger. Another staccato of bangs came from his rifle, and the man fell backward. He advanced on the man's corpse, but when he blinked, it was gone. He looked around, and Vasquez was gone too.
"Vasquez?!" He shouted. He kept his M4 at a high ready as he exited the bedroom. In just that split second, the place had gone from chaotic and cacophonous to deathly quiet, save for the muffled blustering of a fierce wind outside of the building. He descended the stairs and indeed, it looked to him like he was the only one in the house now. The house looked a lot worse for wear as well, like no one had lived in it for quite some time. The couch was torn in many places and the wood was beginning to rot. The screen of the television was shattered, as if someone had thrown a brick through it. The plant in the corner of the room was dead and wilted. For the first time in a long time, Ray felt uneasy as he crossed the threshold where the door that he had blown off had been.
The first thing he noticed was that the air smelled of sulfur, among other things. The sky was a deep red, and the other buildings were in just as bad of shape as the house he had left. The APC's were rusted out wrecks on the street, and so were the few cars that had not been cleared off of the road. He looked toward the area he and his unit had come from and he saw something. It was a light. It shot up into the sky as if it were a beacon to lost souls like himself. He did not know why, but he was determined to get there. He walked along the ruined streets toward the light, and the city seemed to disappear into the wasteland. Eventually, he was walking among sand and rocks, but he felt uneasy, like he was being watched. He readied his M4 and scanned the area, until he thought he saw some movement behind a rock. He was right.
The barrel of a rifle emerged from behind the rock, followed by... Something. He did not have any time to look before he dove behind a rock himself. The bullets whizzed over his head, but he scrambled to his knees and fired blindly over the rock himself. The two exchanged fire for a few more seconds before the bullets stopped impacting the rock that Ray had chosen for cover. He quickly aimed over the rock, his eyes just barely high enough to see over it, and by that point, the creature was charging toward him. He squeezed the trigger of his M4, but he was rewarded with the telltale click of an empty magazine.
The creature was upon him now. He caught the gleam of a blade headed toward him, so he brought up his M4 to intercept it. The two were locked in a stalemate now, and Ray could finally make out what the creature looked like.
To describe it as a corpse would have been an understatement. The thing that had once been a man was decomposed and rotten. Here and there, pieces of flesh still clung to his bones, along with the tattered remains of a traditional Afghan outfit that he had grown all too well seeing. What unsettled him the most was that the revenant did not have any eyes. Instead of eyes, he had two empty sockets with two small, red pinpoints of light that told him it could see out of them. The zombie pushed forward with a surprising amount of strength. The blade of the kukri inched closer and closer to his face, and Ray shut his eyes because he knew what was coming.
Suddenly, the pressure stopped.
Ray opened his eyes to examine his surroundings. Even though he should have felt terrified, he did not. The sky no longer was a deep blood red, but the blue-orange of dusk. Here and there, he could see stars slowly making themselves visible to the East. He sat up and checked himself for injuries and his jaw dropped when he realized that he was not wearing any of his combat gear anymore, in fact, he had been stripped down to his MCCUU. His carbine was missing, and he looked positively immaculate, like he had just gotten ready for the day and had not been fighting for his life just a few seconds ago.
"That was quite the intense nightmare that you were having. I bet you're glad to be out of it." A feminine voice said behind him. He turned around to face the owner of said voice, and saw a woman sitting on some sort of bulbous raised platform... sort of. It was more akin to a hill with a landing built into it. On the landing there was a large and plush chair, or maybe it was a throne. Ray had some trouble deciding what it was. The girl who sat on the chair-throne, on the other hand was another story.
To him, she looked... fluffy. Her clothes were plush around the edges, like something that you would see Santa Claus wearing. She even had a similar hat, albeit hers was much longer on top. He could not decide on how old she was, as she looked ambitiously young, but at the same time she had an old, wizened air about her.
"Where am I?" He asked her. He stood up and began to walk up the stairs towards her. The stairs, which he expected to be as soft as the strange hill that they were built into, were in fact rather solid.
"Well, you're in the Dream World, Mister Dobbs. Didn't you know that you recently fell back asleep?" The girl asked him. He blinked in surprise. She was right. He had fallen asleep, and he was having a nightmare. He ran a hand through his hair and looked away from her toward the sunset. On the horizon, he could make out some strangely shaped buildings off in the distance, their windows illuminated by a warm orange glow, similar to the sunset behind them.
"Well, I guess I gotta thank you for getting me out of that awful nightmare, Miss..." He looked back at her. She had a wry, almost smug, smile on her face.
"Doremy. My name's Doremy Sweet, the Ruler of Dreams, the Dream-Bestowing Yokai, the Eater of Dreams and the Destroyer of Nightmares, at your service, Mister Dobbs." She said to him.
"Ruler of Dreams... Does that mean you're the ruler of all of this?" He motioned to the world around the two of them. She nodded in response, her eyes closed. Suddenly, the throne-chair-thing grew wider and wider, until it was long enough for the two of them to sit more than comfortably on it. She patted the seat next to her, and he sat down.
"Mister Dobbs, it's normally supposed to be rather hard to have a nightmare so bad, that I step in and stop it, especially at an age such as yours. What you were experiencing was more akin to a night terror than a nightmare, in terms of vividness. So, I shall be putting you back into a restful sleep." She patted her lap and then looked at him. "Head down here, right now."
Ray did not object to her demand and did as she commanded. When his head met her lap, the wave of comfort that washed over him was almost instantaneous. Her dress was soft and the plush brushed against his skin softly, and the perfume that she was wearing had a rather soothing effect on him. She patted the side of his head.
"A nightmare like that... You've been through a lot, haven't you?" Doremy asked him. Her voice was soft and rather pleasant to listen to. He felt tears beginning to form on the edges of his vision. He closed his eyes, because they began to get heavy.
"Yeah... I have..." He answered.
"If you remember anything from this encounter, Ray Dobbs, remember that Eirin Yagokoro should be able to help you." She whispered into his ear.
Ray fell asleep, and for the first time in a long time, it was a restful one, without a dream to plague him.