Ray's POV

I opened my eyes, I was in a forest, from what I could tell. It was dusk, I thought. I wasn't sure. Everything looked… purple. Why was everything purple? And… and that fog, that fog from before was there again. I remembered it, vaguely, at the edges of my memory.

That was the first thing I noticed. The second thing I noticed is that nobody was around me, nobody. Not Emerald, not Strider, not the Flygon, not the old man. Nobody was around… and it was… unnerving. I had not been alone in a while. I could not feel warmth from someone else, I could not feel the energy of other's living around me. This forest was… dead. Even the trees themselves seemed to be dead or dying all around me. What was this place and… how did I even get here? Hm?

Well, first order of business would be to figure out where I was and where everyone else was. Emerald, at least, couldn't be too far away. She could be out of sight and earshot, now, but she couldn't go so far as to evade my view from the sky. I floated up, not too quickly, as I didn't want to miss something by just shooting straight up. The trees went up high, but the canopy… was quite thick. I hit the top of the trees and tried to push through it, but, uh… how do I put this? The leaves seemed to be made of stone or something? They looked a sort of purplish gray, so it was possible they actually were stone leaves. I tried backing up and head butting in a place where the leaves didn't look quite as thick. I just ended up with a headache.

So… I wasn't breaking through those leaves, and I couldn't see a whole lot from this height, twisting vines and branches, a little bit of the ground. There wasn't a lot. I wasn't going to get anywhere this way, and I certainly was not going to find my companions like this. I floated back towards the ground. It might have been my imagination, but it seemed harder to fly down than it had been to fly up. There were more vines and stuff in the way going down than there had been going up, and the vines had spikes, too. I had to be careful if I didn't want to scratch my skin. It wasn't too difficult, however, because of my snake-like structure. I could bend every which way, I could tie myself in a knot, if I really wanted to. That would be a really bad idea, though… probably mess with my digestive tract and whatnot.

I missed the palace food, I missed my palace life. What even was this? What was I even doing, now? Strider sent a large orb in between the both of us, me and Emerald, and I blacked out. I could only assume she blacked out too, and was in here somewhere. This wasn't a place I recognized. So it couldn't have been, you know, home, for example. It would have been great if it was home, but no place in my world looked this… monstrous. This didn't feel like either world I had been in, but something else, something separate. I didn't know how to explain what it was I was feeling.

What else? The old man said something about the trial of affliction. So, this was some sort of trial? So this was probably some sort of bubble reality, a coliseum for the old coot's test, training grounds. But then, why was it so outwardly, in your face spooky? There didn't seem to be much of a point to it. It was not scaring me or anything, so what was the point? Maybe there was no point, and this was merely how things were? Things didn't always need a point, I supposed. The old man also said something about affliction before… He said I was afflicted and called me poor thing.

What did that mean, and what did trial of affliction mean. He said I was afflicted, so was this actually… my trial, or something? But it was a trial for Emerald, wasn't that what it was supposed to be? Well, we were connected, closely connected, so maybe if I strengthened myself, I was strengthening her. But, I didn't want to strengthen her, I wanted her to strengthen me. I had done enough training on my own in my own world. It was her turn.

But then, where was Emerald? If this was supposed to make her stronger, shouldn't she have been there, at the very least. Now, that was not to say I wasn't glad to be rid of her. This was not the most ideal place to be, but I didn't have to deal with her right now, at least.

I made it to the ground and took a breath. It was silent, absolutely silent, none of her voice there to annoy me, to remind me what she took away from me, to remind me of Meliae. Meliae… The light of my life… a light gone out. Wait, no, not gone out, that was a horrible thing to think. I backtracked on that metaphor and went with another one. It was like clouds had covered the light, like a veil was in the way. This fog… the fog was blocking me from her, too. I knew she sent me off with a smile, but that was only because she knew about my duty. I knew… in her heart of hearts, she did not want me to leave. She cared about the position of Chosen One, but if I came back, she would not send me away. She missed me as much as I missed her. The two of us, we were the greatest of combinations. Somehow, I would return home to her purity, with or without Emerald's help… whatever it took.

"Whatever… it took…?" a voice spoke out of the shadows, all around me, it seemed like. I couldn't sense where exactly it was coming from. I looked around, trying to locate the voice, but there were nothing but trees and vines, dirt and fog, and everything was tinted in blacks and purples.

"Who's there?" I asked calmly. The last thing someone would want to do in this situation was show any sort of fear or weakness. If it knew you were afraid, it had you in its jaws. Once you were there, all was over, doom would befall the world. It would crunch your skull and with the oozing brain connect the neurons and fire.

"I'm already here… you invited me in." The voice… which I supposed was the voice of the forest itself. I invited the forest in? What in the world was this, I didn't understand at all, and yet I felt the understanding tug at the edges of my consciousness, but I did not want it there, but I did but I didn't but I did but I-

"Who's there?" I repeated my question, louder this time.

"I heard you the first time, but you didn't answer my question yet. Would you truly do whatever it took in order to get you old life back and reunite with the love of your life?" Whatever this thing was, it could hear my thoughts, or maybe, in this reality, thoughts and words were the same, because I was not sure if I could hear that voice with my ears or with my mind. Usually there was quite a clear distinction between the two, but that was not the case right now…

That was a question, a question I would have to consider seriously. Was I willing to do anything? Was I willing to do anything to get back to Mel? Well, Mel was worth the world, worth everything I had, but it sounded like the voice, the forest, wanted him to do something rather unsavory in order to get what he wanted, and offered him a simple question… was he willing to do whatever it was that was necessary in order to get back to the world I knew. Whatever it was, whatever Emerald would have to do, it was costly. Well, it was costly to her because she would lose her familiar, maybe crossing the barrier the wrong way, getting back, merely required some sort of personal sacrifice? Was that it? So, what? Would it be my principles for my passage home? But I didn't want to do anything to make Mel ashamed of me. She wouldn't have to know how I got back, I didn't have to tell her how I got back, just that I got back. No, no, the burden would still be on my shoulders. I would know, and she would quickly find out, I was sure. I could never really keep secrets from her, she was so good at reading me…

"You're getting a little ahead of yourself, don't you think? You sound like you're contemplating murder." The voice of the forest said. Right, it could hear what I was thinking, the thoughts were the same, spoken or inside.

"Well, the way you phrased it sounded like you wanted me to do something pretty serious." I retorted. The voice, the entire forest seemed to pause for a moment, before continuing.

"Come find me." It said simply.

"Find you?! You're the forest, I already found you! Where am I supposed to-" But then I took a breath and centered myself. There was no use of getting mad at a bunch of trees. It wanted me to find something, and it clearly wasn't about to say anymore. So… I guessed the only thing I could really do right now was explore.

A faint, lonely, stringed instrument played in the distance. It was something I had never heard before. It sounded beautiful and tragic, and I did not know why. It felt like it was playing through me, like the vibration waves, the particles of the music boring through my skin and coming out the other side, but not enough to destroy me, only enough to take a piece of me with it, a piece which I could not say I would ever get back.

I was probably supposed to follow that. My mind was fuzzy again, and thoughts kept drifting through my head that were not quite mine. It wasn't the words of someone else, though. They were my words, but also not. I… could not explain. It was like a script written for me that I was executing with exact precision.

I, what, what was I doing. Follow the music, follow the music. The vines, the stone, petrified spiked vines were starting to close in. I did not like them, but they were a part of me, the sharp and horrible parts.

Stop, stop, just follow the music. Or maybe I was actually supposed to run away from the music, the music spelled out doom, and it was making my thoughts weirder. I tried to turn around and go the other way, any other way, but the vines were thick behind me, all around me, the trees seemed to be leading me to the specific location the voice wanted me to find. If it was just going to lead me somewhere specific with noise and vines, physically pushing me toward it, then what was the point of telling me to go find it?

The music seemed to get louder and louder, and then I thought I showed up at the spot the music was coming from. There was a dark purple energy form that looked like my silhouette. It had an instrument in its hands.

"What kind of sick magic are you using on me?!" I demanded, my breathing getting heavy for a second. It turned towards me, it had no eyes or anything, just an outline, a three dimensional shadow.

"I'm not doing anything on purpose. It's just me, I guess, just you, you guess." It said.

"Cut it out… you know what you're doing." I asserted. I was struggling to think clearly. If this was manipulation, this wasn't fair. If I wasn't doing something of my own volition, then what was the point of this whole thing?

"Yes, but you have the key to your redemption, to all that you desire, and that is me." It said, why was it speaking in such a cryptic, roundabout way?

"I have to pick your words one by one, forgive me." The shadow said snidely, in the same sort of tone I would use to talk to Emerald, apologizing in a way that was slightly insulting. Was the creature trying to learn my language on the fly, and that was why it sounded kind of weird? That didn't really matter too much to me, anyways. What I really wanted to know was-

"Ok, I found you, or rather, I wandered around for a while in a creepy forest and you guided me to you. Now, could you tell me how I can get back to my world?"

"I don't ask much, just do to Emerald what she did to you. Steal away her life." The shadow of a dragon floated gently near me, its voice echoed off the walls, or, rather… the trees? Wait, no… what? There were walls. There were walls here? How did that happen? I was, I was in a forest, but… but now, walls, buildings, and the same twisting branches… and there she was.

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