I believe my earlier assurance must be retracted. After this chapter, there will be another chapter and then an epilogue. This time I'm certain of it. Well. Eighty percent certain.

GUESS WHAT GUESS WHAT GUESSWHAT!

I AM ALMOST AT 1000 REVIEWS!

(Even the nice doctors are impressed!)

CONTRIBUTE, I DEMAND YOU!

And, by the way, I'm reading The Sandman. Wonderful comics, amazing storylines, and completely loopy. Blame that for this dream...chapter...thing...

I like writing dreams. The laws of reality are so constricting.

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It was dark.

Bedivere hated the dark.

Then he noticed it wasn't completely dark. He could see something. Two somethings, actually.

The first was a tree.

The second was a path.

He blinked and looked around more, but that was all there was. He was standing on rock. The path and the tree were right in front of him, the tree on his right and the path on his left.

It was very strange.

Bedivere shuffled a bit, and looked down in surprise to find his shoes missing. For the first time he felt a little annoyed. They weren't the best shoes, but they were his, and now they were gone and he was barefoot.

He looked at the tree and path again.

The tree was tall. The tree was very tall. Bedivere realized that he couldn't see the top, even if he bent his head way back. It was a tree with needles, and branches sticking straight out. It looked like it could be used for climbing. Maybe he was supposed to climb it.

Bedivere frowned. Where had that come from in his head? Trees were for dead people.

He looked at the path. It went away from him, and he couldn't see more than a few feet after it started. It looked like it went down, and - he squinted - it was…muddy?

Stepping forward carefully, he looked from the tree to the path again. There was something he was missing, he was sure of it -

Then he smelled it.

In Bedivere's entire life, he had smelled meat that crackled and roasted over the fire, soups that almost fed him on scent alone, herbs that made everything taste so wonderful, spices that made him sneeze, wines that had sharp scents that tickled his nose, ales that smelled like honey, and every wonderful smell the forest had.

This scent made him forget all of those.

Bedivere's eyes widened.

It smelled…almost familiar, but if he had smelled it before it wasn't the same. This was amazing and wonderful and he wanted it so bad.

It came from further down the path.

Bedivere jumped onto it, and his feet squelched in the mud. He looked down, distracted from the whatever-it-was for a second. There wasn't that much mud, more like a thin layer. Bedivere grinned and squished his feet around.

The smell got stronger. He lifted his head up and looked at the tree again. It was odd, but he felt he really should climb it.

Then, however, the smell got even stronger and he turned his head back and stepped forward. The path was very steep. He needed to be careful not to slip. That would be -

Actually, maybe wouldn't be bad. Mud was fun to play with.

Bedivere pushed away thoughts of the tree and ran down the path. The smell got stronger and stronger, until he could almost taste it in his mouth. Even the ghost-taste of it was better than anything he had ever eaten.

The mud got thinner and wetter until he was splashing through puddles and it was more slush than mud. The path was easy to run down, down, and he knew that the he could have what was smelling so good soon, which was good because he was hungry, so hungry he didn't know why he hadn't noticed it before and his tummy was growling that he needed to eat, needed to eat not just anything but the wonderful smell because only that would be good enough and he would have it, have so much that he would have it all until there was none left for anyone else because it would be all his -

Bedivere tripped.

He flew head over heels, tumbling down the slushy path facefirst. He shouted, maybe, and felt himself plowing through the puddles and slush-mud and getting covered with mud all over and the world turning in dizzying circles until he stopped.

He coughed.

Maybe he shouldn't run.

Bedivere tried to think. What was he doing?

Oh. Right. The smell.

Bedivere sighed. There was something in the back of his head, something about his ankle, that said you shouldn't be able to run, but it was a tiny voice. He could ignore it.

He pulled himself up so that he was sitting, and felt that his hands were covered in wet slush-mud. He glanced down at them and -

His hands were red.

Bedivere jerked back and gaped at his hands. They were red, and wet, and he saw his feet and legs and arms were red as well, and it was on his clothes and it was everywhere -

He froze.

He looked closer at the path.

The slush-mud and puddles weren't made of water.

They were made of blood.

Bedivere frantically looked around, for what he didn't know. He stumbled to his feet and turned around -

but the path didn't stretch backwards, only forwards, and the tree was gone.

Bedivere couldn't help it. He let out a sob.

Except…

The smell was back.

It was stronger than any other time, clearer. And for some reason, it both scared and comforted Bedivere.

He knew what it was now.

Slowly, Bedivere reached out his hand and dipped it in a puddle.

He pulled it back and stared at the handful of blood.

He really was very hungry, and it smelled so good…