Capítulo 32: Home
I sat up in my pod and looked around while stretching, feeling the comfortable popping of bones. I could see the sunlight through the window and judging by the light it should be around noon. I crawled out of the pod and felt my body slightly buckle as I had to use my nearby bed to brace myself. My muscles were stiff, and I stretched some more feeling other bones pop.
After several minutes of stretching, I felt limber enough to finally move around. I was getting some clothes to change into when I heard my bedroom door open and heard a loud gasp. I turned towards the door just to see a blur run in and hug me.
"Mom! Oh my god, you're finally awake!" I heard Yuki say in between sobs as she hugged me tightly.
"Yuki, what the matter? I didn't go anywhere we were just in the game together not long before." I responded while gently petting her head.
She loosened her hug on me and looked up at me in confusion for just a moment before responding.
"Mom…you were in the pod for a whole week! Once you didn't log out towards the end of the first day, I called Aunt Alex over. The next day we saw you were still in, and we got worried, so we contacted the game company and a doctor to figure out what was wrong."
Hearing her response, I felt my blood run cold. I've been in there for a week? That's impossible.
"Yuki, that's impossible. I was in there at most for a day. The dungeon wasn't even that long, and I never slept even once."
"Mom? What are you talking about? What dungeon? After we all died, we respawned back in town except for you. After waiting some time Emiko went out to search for you while I stayed in town in case you showed up. Once the day was ending, we decided to log out and I would talk to you at home, but you never logged out…for an entire week."
"Hey, Yuki. Do you know where…" I heard Alex's voice as she came into the room. I looked over towards her and saw her run towards me and give me a hug too.
"Oh my god, Sarah. I am so happy you are awake now."
After several more minutes of hugging and crying, we made our way to the living room couch.
"So, mind telling us what the hell happened in there? You were out cold for a whole week. The doctors and the technicians couldn't figure out what happened. The doctors suggested you stay in the pod for the moment since it had some functionality of life support. Any longer and you were about to be moved to a hospital." Alex had asked with deep concern in her voice.
"I don't know exactly what happened. After I tackled that wolf, we went rolling away, and then we fell down a hole in the ground. I found I was in a large cavern room and the hole I fell through was too high up to even get out of."
I then went on to explain how I couldn't log out and went into the dungeon and how I lost my spark. I explained all trials and the weird and scary creatures I ran into. I had told them of the different things I had to learn in the trials and the most fun of them all was the flying around.
"Well mom besides being stuck in the game for a week, it looks like you have become more OP in the game. Psychic powers and truesight sound badass." Yuki excitedly said all while still clinging to me.
Alex gave a slight chuckle at her antics before speaking.
"Speaking of powers, I had just noticed but why are you wearing contacts?"
I looked over at Alex, most likely with some confusion on my face.
"What do you mean by contacts? I don't own any contacts."
"Well, your eyes are a different color, so I thought that you had contacts in."
I got up to run to the bathroom, swung the door open, and rushed to the broken mirror. The reflection who stared back at me was the exact same person I had expected to see. The only difference was the eyes. Those same magenta eyes stared at me back in the fourth trial. I tentatively put a shaking hand up to my face as I traced the edges of my eyes. The light from the bathroom made my iris contract to the point it looked like I had something similar to a cat's eye.
"WHAT THE FUCK!! NO NO NO NO NO!" I screamed at my reflection in a desperate panic.
I heard shuffling as both Alex and Yuki barged into the bathroom only to see me standing there in front of the mirror with tears coming down my face.
"Mom! What's wrong?" Yuki yelled in a panic as she tried to comfort me.
"These eyes are the same eyes I got in the dungeon," I said while looking at them, shock on their faces as my pupils were still cat-like.
The real shocker was hearing my front door open as I heard someone else walk towards the living room.
"Hey, guys what are you doing?"
The woman in question looked at me with surprise, probably just as much as I had for seeing her in my house.
"Oh…uh. Hey Sarah." She meekly said as if she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
I saw a woman with brown hair and green eyes standing in the bathroom doorway with Alex. I wouldn't say she was a stranger, in fact, I knew her fairly well. You could say that I knew her well enough to have an extreme hatred for the woman.
Naomi Reyes, the woman who destroyed my life.
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Floating in the void on a celestial body that orbited a small blue planet were three figures. Two women and a floating orb of light.
"What happened to my trials? I had set up the perfect dungeon and it all went to shit once she entered!" Yelled Scarlet as she paced back and forth across the moon.
"I don't know what happened. I was with mommy in some creepy place. She said she kept hearing something and it was causing her pain, but I couldn't detect anything. Next thing she just started running as if her life depended on it and went through a door. That's when I found myself here with you." Said the glowing ball of light.
"Kairi, it's not your fault. I just wish I had more information on what in the nine hells happened." Scarlet sighed as she sat down at her fancy tea table where Eri poured her a drink.
"All I know is that something an unfathomable amount of power interfered with the trials."
The conversation was broken when a burst of feminine laughter filled the surrounding area.
"Oh, you young gods are funny. Always thinking you are hotter than stars."
A figure materialized in front of the trio. It had a feminine shape but looked very much like a jellyfish and cuttlefish in the shape of a woman. The back of her head elongated slightly and looked like the back of her head was part jellyfish as it constantly undulated as if swimming. Long tentacles flowed down from the back giving her the appearance of hair. Her body looked to be similar to a cuttlefish as pulses of light and colors flashed from her head down through her body and elongated limbs. Her eyes were also very similar to a cuttlefish while she wore what appeared to be a dress made of the membranous material of a jellyfish not hiding a single speck of her body but instead enhancing her alien, ethereal-like body.
Scarlet was frozen in place as this being appeared. Every fiber of her body was telling her to run away as fast as she could.
"Wha…who are you?" Scarlet had stammered out in fright.
"You probably have never heard of me. Only the Elder Gods would have any memory of me. I am Scthacalz, The Ghost of the Formless Void. All of this…" As she spreads her arms and motions to everywhere in space. "Is all me. What you're seeing now is but a small part of myself."
"Impossible. You can't exist. The Elder gods sealed your kind. You shouldn't be here"
"To seal me away they would also have to seal away the void. No, I simply made a deal with them that I wouldn't interfere with them. If I were to be sealed, then all life in the universe would cease to exist."
"As for the other Outer Gods like me, well they were just banished to other realms while the Elder Gods made it difficult for them to return."
Scarlet was visibly shaking not even attempting to finish her tea. Eri had passed out long before and Kairi was shivering under Eri.
"What are you doing here then. Why show yourself in front of me?"
"Simple. You messed too much with a certain woman. You gave her trials you had no business giving her. I don't care much what you do with that 'game' or her involvement with it, but your trials have messed with things that shouldn't have been messed with. I tried to rectify it as best as I could. Put simply, that woman and her family are under my protection. No more trials. You can continue your other plans with her as long as they don't bring her harm."
"What about those eyes? I saw how she started to freak out about her eyes down there at her house. You can't say that didn't bring her harm."
"Oh, you're funny. I never harmed her. Those eyes were always hers. I simply gave them back to her and took back the temporary ones." Scthacalz had a large toothy grin filled with sharp teeth, further increasing her frightening appearance.
"I'll be off but know I will be watching you." She waved her hand and space could be seen tearing as something distorted the light around the tear. She then entered, disappearing from sight and the tear closed up behind her.
Once the powerful entity had left, Scarlet collapsed on the ground shaken by what she just encountered.
"Should I even continue what I am doing? She said no more trials but everything else I had planned was alright. I need time to think. For now, I'll just watch over her."
PENSAMENTOS DOS CRIADORES 
Sfayte
Sfayte Hopefully this chapter leaves you with more questions than answers.
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