Chapter 24: Dreaming of the gods

The darkness of the mind is complex. A land that can always be accessed but never understood.

"What a strange one…" A voice called out in this strange darkness.

Fishy floated around in the empty space. As if he was taken away by the sea and left to drown. He couldn't control where he went. He wasn't even fully awake to listen.

"Sealing the power was the only choice." Another voice said, causing Fishy to open his strainful eyes.

"Where am I?" He said to himself as he spun his body to look around.

He squinted into the distance but all he saw was darkness. Various shades of black as if he was trapped inside a shadow.

"We don't know what it could do. This was a gamble."

Voices kept appearing. Each one was louder than the last as Fishy floated around. As if he moving closer to the source.

He spun around one last time, only to wish that he had never turned.

6 giant creatures, all that looked distorted from the world they were in, towered over Fishy who felt as if he shouldn't make himself known.

The figures reminded him of animals from back home. His wide eyes looked at them, making sure that he was certain as to what he was seeing.

A snail. A bee. A frog. A lion. An elephant. A butterfly.

These 6 creatures, one of which was familiar to Fishy, spoke about something he couldn't understand.

"The gamble won't work." The lion said, "You'll only doom us all."

"Nonsense." The snail spoke with a voice as if they were an old man. "We owe it to **** to make it work."

Fishy listened to the word he couldn't even repeat. A word that was too distorted for him to understand. The figures stayed over him. He hadn't noticed that he had stopped moving and wasn't even breathing. Even with his hand over his chest, he couldn't feel his heartbeat.

"I will make sure to look after him." The snail said as if smiling towards Fishy.

Fishy looked back at them all as they all seemed as if they were tilting down at him. He wanted to move on to get out, but as if he was experiencing a night terror, he couldn't move. He was trapped in that single spot in darkness with only their booming voices to keep him company.

"I personally don't want to look after him, but I shall play my part." The butterfly said with a flap of its wings. "If he turns into the next undead lord, don't blame me. I'm leaving now."

The butterfly evaporated into the darkness of the nightmare. The others quickly followed with only the snail left behind.

"I do hope he'll try your hardest. Anger is a painful emotion."

With nothing left behind in the empty space of darkness. Fishy was alone for a bit, although, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, as if alerting him that he was still being seen. He attempted to look around, seeing if he could find who it was, but his body was stationary.

# # #

"WHAT THE HELL!"

Fishy, who was once staring blankly at the sky, paralysed in sleep. Darted awake only to see several of the villagers staring at him. Silmor stood with the building group whilst the triplets climbed all over Fishy's recently awoken, and still aching, body.

"Can I have a moment to rest?" He asked, only to be denied.

"I'm afraid not." Tin said," That girl you brought back, she's awake."

Hearing that caused him to jump out of bed and push passed everyone who was blocking him. He didn't know why he did but he ran towards Ziu's house as if he knew that's where she'd be.

Surrounded by more people, the girl sat in the centre of an empty room with various food in front of her. Clothes were quickly made by Clara to replace the old damaged rags that she wore before. Her short blonde hair moved as she spun to face Fishy who had just entered, staring down the girl with the red eyes.

"Interesting eyes…" Fishy muttered to himself staring deep into her crimson eyes.

"What about her eyes?" Clara said as if they saw two completely different things.

"Nothing… it must just be normal for this world…"