You heaved a sigh as you gazed out your bedroom window onto the patchwork landscape of memories below. It was your third time visiting the dream bubbles, but you still hadn't left the confines of a memory of your room. You weren't sure if it was your memory, or one of the other players in your session, but it was still your room, so you took ownership of it and barricaded yourself in the only familiar place in the bubbles.
You had seen other people out of your window below, other dreamers and dead alike, but you just hadn't felt up to meeting anyone new yet.
You were freaked out by the she-troll who had attempted to help you by pretending to be one of your friends and guiding you through a memory, trying to get you to say things originally left unsaid and find some sort of peace, but instead gave you a fright when she morphed into her true form after you realised it was only a memory. You were already going through a particularly rough stage of the game that left you constantly exhausted, both physically and mentally, and when you couldn't even escape from bizarre and daunting situations in your sleep, you broke down.
The troll who had introduced herself as Aranea had tried to calm you down, but only succeeded in making things worse. You never liked other people to be around you when you melted down like that, and you just wanted to be left alone. Aranea did eventually leave, but not before confusing you with an overload of information forcing you to seclude yourself in your not-room.
And so, you shuffled about your room when you slept, mulling over your thoughts, and watching the landscape occasionally languidly shift below. Sometimes others would wander by your room and look up, or mess about with another person before moving on. Sometimes you thought it might be nice to explore the dream bubbles and just talk with a friend yourself.
Now that you had calmed down and had time to think, you thought it might be time to go outside.
You went to captchalogue a few things you might need, but realised it was rather pointless, being in a dream bubble and all. Instead, you willed your clothes to change into something less slobbishly comfy (a trick you had learnt on your last trip), and walked to the door you had turned your uncertain gaze towards numerous times.
One of your hands gripped the hem of your shirt while the other hovered above the handle. You gulped, telling yourself that it at least couldn't be as bad as the first trip. You clenched your jaw decisively and gripped the handle, turning it and pushing the door open.
As the door swung open, you were surprised to be hit with a cool, welcoming breeze that smelled of coastal plants and ocean spray. Looking back out your window behind you, you seemed to be high up, looking down on glowing blue and black in one spot, and crystalline formations in another, while white cubes dotted the distance.
You turned back to the door and stepped out, closing your door behind you, and you began to walk down a sandy path, taking in the new landscape. You shifted your attire, now barefoot with a light sun dress and hat as you emerged on a beach, the sun shining pleasantly down, glinting off the peacefully sweeping waves.
You padded slowly along the wet sand, letting the cool ocean water glide over your feet, enjoying this rare moment of tranquillity.
"OI!" a voice yelled from behind you, snapping you out of your stupor and making you jump. You turned your gaze from the hypnotic ocean to the owner of the voice.
The owner of the voice was a troll boy who looked to be around your age, give or take few years, and a sea dweller at that. Unusually though, he wasn't wearing any jewellery or showing off his high status. Instead, his attire was vaguely reminiscent of the 50s on earth, his slicked back hair adding to the effect.
"Hey there doll, nevwer seen you around before. You newv?"
You frowned slightly at the nickname, but answered shyly none the less.
"U-um, yeah. And that's not my name, it's (name)."
The troll boy eyed you suspiciously.
"W-what?" you asked. He didn't answer for a bit.
"Say, dol-(name)," he cut himself off before he called you doll again. "Vwhat kinda accent is that, if ya don't mind my askin'."
"It's Australian, but I doubt you've heard of the place, being on earth and all," you said, getting quiet toward the end.
But it seemed that the troll had indeed heard of Australia, and his eyes lit up when you mentioned it.
"Seriously? Y'mean like vwhere Sandy from that human movwie Grease is from?" he asked as a goofy grin formed on his face.
"Uh, yeah." You'll admit that the smile was kind of adorable and you relaxed a bit at his childish curiosity.
Suddenly the smile lost it's goofyness as a sly smirk replaced it.
"Y'know, I could be the Danny to your Sandy if you vwant," he said in sultry voice, getting closer to you.
"U-uh," you took a step back from the greaser as the mood suddenly changed.
"C'mon doll, vwe're on a beach an' evwerythin'," he took a step forward. "Just like the movwie."
Suddenly his wavy voice was annoying you and the smell of his cologne was all you could smell and oh god was he trying to flirt with you?
"N-no thanks, um, I think I'll be going now," you said as you took a few more steps back.
The smirk on the boy's lips drooped a bit, but he tried again.
"(name), babe, c'mon, vwe don't havwe to do anythin', just a little date?"
"No, sorry, look I really have to go."
You turned to walk back down the path that led you to the cove, but the boy snagged you by your wrist.
"Vwait! Look, don't go, I just-"
"Let go!"
You pulled your wrist from his grasp and gave him a glare.
"I literally just met you, I'm not going to go on a date with you. I don't even know your name! Just leave me alone."
With that you jogged back off down the path leaving the sea dweller behind on the beach.
You eventually slowed to a walk as your feet passed from sand to dirt and the coastal trees turned pink. You walked on for a while and you began to wonder if the path was this long when you first walked down it.
You eventually came to an opening on a hill, giving you a view of a map like landscape with the tops of tents in the distance.
"No, no, no nono," you groaned as you saw that your room had disappeared while you were on the beach.
"Fuck! Fucking fuck fuckety fuck fuck FUCK!" you yelled in anger.
All you wanted to do was escape from reality for a bit and just chill out, relax a bit, but even your dreams wouldn't leave you alone.
Leaving my room was a terrible idea.
You sunk down to the ground against a tree or a rock or something, you weren't really paying attention since now you were focused on the tears dripping down your face. You wanted to wake up, but you didn't want to go back to playing that stupid game! Why did everything have to be so hard?
A grey hand on your shoulder jolted you out of your thoughts and you pulled away from the touch.
The troll boy was in front of you again.
"Leave me alone, I don't want to date you!"
"Hey, are you ok?"
"Do I look ok?"
"Vwhat's vwrong then?"
"...I just want to be left alone."
The troll stared at you for a bit before sitting down next to you.
You shuffled away.
The troll boy didn't say anything, just sat there and let you wipe away your tears and snot.
"You vwanna talk about it?"
"No, I just want to go home."
"Vwhere's home for you?"
You sighed and looked down.
"I don't really know anymore. This fucking game took it all away, and now my room that was here's gone too. I never should have left it."
The boy nodded knowingly.
"Yeah, I knowv the feelin', havwin' evwerythin' taken avway by the game. You'll find your room if you vwander around for a bit though."
"You're a player too?"
"Vwas."
"Oh, sorry, right.
"..."
A silence fell over the two of you and you shuffled awkwardly, still sniffling a little. You felt ready to wake up now.
As you began to fade from the landscape, panic took over the boy's face, and he tried to get in a few more words before you couldn't hear him anymore.
"My name's Cronus!"
So as I said in the A/N of Normal is in the Past chapter 3 (if you read that :P), this is a thing that was sitting in my fanfic folder that I finished when I found it again. I'm not entirely sure where this is going just yet, it's just a little thing that I thought would be interesting to explore. I kinda imagined that Cro would flip a little if he met an Australian girl XD
Happy reading, and let me know what you think!