Chapter 14

Zeik wasn't sure what to take in first, the girl with the ears of a cat sitting above her head in front of him, or the fact that he had made it out of the hell that kept him wandering in circles for a month solely because he walked through one bush.

He turned back around, and found that whatever he had just come out of had disappeared completely, leaving him standing at the edge of a normal forest, with the sun beating down hard upon his head, as if he had not just been standing in a sunless, hopeless Venus flytrap of an overgrowth.

Wait, had these negative outlooks always been part of his thought process?

More importantly, had girls always had cat ears atop their heads? Because they fit together so damn well.

Zeik stood there, unsure of what to say, unsure of what to do, and unsure of what to think. The girl took this opportunity to stand up and run as fast as her legs would allow in the other direction.

"Ah, wait!" Zeik called out, but the girl-the fascinating creature that he assumed to be a girl-kept running.

He sighed, disappointed. For a second, he didn't even feel the sun beating down upon the nape of his neck.

once he did, however, a feeling of accomplishment washed over Zeik. He'd done it. He didn't know where he was, when it was, or why he was there, but he was there and not wherever the hell he was before.

The Sun! Well, suns. But he could see them! Overhead were two flaming balls of light, not an overgrowth of leaves! He had no clue what had led up to him being stuck there for so long, or what even happened there, but he was out!

Zeik found that odd. Why was it that he felt so adverse to the area that he had just been in, but he could not recall anything that would cause that adversity?

"It was like hell... Right?" Zeik examined his arms, legs, and clothing. Nothing seemed out of place, there were no rips, no scars, not even a scratch anywhere on him.

Wait, that doesn't add up. He was practically covered in mud, his clothes should have been borderline shredded, and his hair...

Zeik's eyes focused on a strand of hair that was dangling in front of his face.

His hair...

Wasn't it black before? No, he was sure that it had been black, so why was there a strand of blue hair right in front of his eyes?

Zeik turned to the little puddle on the ground, and tried to make out his reflection. His hair, which was a bit longer and messier than he would have preferred, was indeed still black, with a strand of sky blue down the right side of his bangs, and his eyes reflected the same color. But it didn't feel all too "new." In fact, why do the black parts look unfitting to Zeik instead?

It was as if he had gone through nothing at all. So why was it that he felt a chill whenever he thought about going back to... Wherever that was? Had he even been there in the first place? It very well could have been a dream.

Though, his memory's been so cloudy, he wouldn't have been surprised if everything was a dream, and that he was asleep at his desk at school.

"This feels pretty real for just a dream, though." Zeik said, running his fingers through the grass.

Well, if this wasn't a dream, then what kind of sadistic god had their divine fingers wrapped around Zeik's windpipe, ready to crush any attempt to catch a breath? Quite literally nothing made sense. Rather than being in the middle of an exciting adventure in a brand new world, Zeik felt like he had been thrown into a terribly made RPG storyline, where continuity was sacrificed for quicker passage to each event, and none of the events linked up at all as a result.

If Zeik had simply been thrown into some shitty game, it'd make sense, but he sure as hell was not staring at a screen, and as far as technology goes, VR did not feel anything like real life. Though it'd still be a better explanation as to why everything just seemed to happen, and why he couldn't gather any coherent memories of any past events.

A better explanation than nothing, at least.

Zeik's excitement, confusion, and any other emotion he was experiencing quickly turned into frustration and annoyance, and the hand the he had run through the grass tightened around the tall, green blades and ripped them out of the ground. He then drove that fistful of grass into the ground that it had come from over and over again, caking his knuckles in a mixture of blood and dirt.

Nothing! He knew absolutely nothing! He had been forcefully ripped from the life he was perfectly content with, the life where he knew where he was going, had a girlfriend, and had plans for the future for, the life where he had a friend who he could strike up a casual conversation about anything at any time. Now he had none of it. It'd all been taken away from him, and he didn't even know what went wrong.

His emotions had flipped so quickly, that even he wanted to stop and be surprised about it, but his body and mind moved too quickly to allow him to do that.

He was mad. Not sure what it was at, or even why, but Zeik felt a burning, inexplicable sense of frustration that drove his fist into the ground, over and over and over.

And through that frustration rose a single thought, a simple solution.

"I'll just make it back there." Zeik decided, not bothering to think logically. "I'll make it to the top in this damn world, and I'll go right back to where I came from!"

It was a foolish, childish thing to say in a situation that anyone could see as hopeless, or rather, hopelessly confusing. But Zeik was determined to follow through with it. And if he couldn't, he'd at least die knowing he tried.

Zeik started laughing. Had his emotions always been this out of whack? He wondered what J would say, if he saw this. Would he laugh? Would he try to comfort Zeik? Knowing the type of person J was, he'd do neither of those things.

He would simply smile, and say,

"If you're so set on it, then you already know what to do." Zeik repeated the phrase he had often heard from the normally laid-back J, who often seemed like he had no other outlook on life other than jokes and laughter. Such serious moments were not rare to come by, if one hung around him enough.

A feeling of sadness and nostalgia welled up from inside of Zeik. Ah, if only he could have J here with him.

Then, speaking to nobody in particular, Zeik stood, reaching up and grabbing at the sky, taking hold of whatever fate awaited him.

"I'll get there, just you wait."

---

"J-Juni?" Arek's hands flew to cover his crotch, and he turned his flushed face away from the naked figure on the bed.

He braced himself to be hit, yelled at, whatever else that happened in situations like this. Instead, only soft mumbling came from the direction of the bed, and Arek could barely make out the words.

"Elei..."

There was a tinge of sadness in her half-asleep tone. Arek turned back to look at her.

Between her silky, blue hair and smooth, subtle curves, Arek hadn't been sure where to look at first. But he was so focused on what she was saying that at that moment, he couldn't be bothered to think about where he was looking.

"Give him... back..." Juni's hands reached out in front of her like she was trying to grab something, or someone. "Keep your... hands... off..." With that, Juni fell back down and returned to sleeping peacefully, the only sound in the room being her soft breathing and Arek's pounding heartbeat.

Arek wanted to walk over to the bed and burn her sleeping image into his mind, to keep the sensation of her skin on his fingertips, but he jerked back as soon as he took a step forward. He had no clue why he was here, but this was obviously not his own house. Even if it was, he couldn't bring himself to assault a defenseless girl like this. Arek scanned the room again, and spotted his clothes neatly folded and placed on a chair in the corner of the room. He quickly threw them on and looked out the window. The room was on the second floor, but there seemed to be a bush down below. Arek took a deep breath, put his foot on the windowsill, and...

"You'll hurt yourself if you jump from here, you know?"

Arek almost launched out the window, but barely stopped himself. He turned around slowly, praying to any and all of the 4 supreme deities that his ears were just messing with him.

Wasn't she just sleeping peacefully?

Atop the bed sat Juni, her eyes fully open and staring straight at him. She made no attempt to hide her body, so Arek quickly turned back around.

"A-ah..." Arek started thinking up his will, or maybe a suicide note.

"Don't worry, I didn't do anything to you." Juni said. "Well, nothing of that sort, anyway."

Arek wasn't sure whether to breathe a sigh of relief, disappointment, or to be even more terrified.

"Then..."

What DID you do? Arek wanted to ask.

"I unintentionally dragged you into something you weren't supposed to be a part of earlier, so I had to block of some of your memories, just the ones that heard a few words too many." Juni said casually, with a soft but wicked smile on her face. "You'll remember them when you need them... IF you need them."

That's not reassuring at all! Arek wanted to yell, but his mouth refused to open.

"You can walk right out that door right there. Nobody's going to be waiting outside to catch you."

Arek glanced at the door, and then at what was presumably a bush down below, out the window.

"Ah. Sure." Arek nodded, and walked towards the door. He turned the knob to open it, and saw that the hall, or at least, what he assumed was a hallway, was pitch black, even though the room behind him was so well-lit.

"Then I'll see you later," Juni's voice had none of that innocent cheerfulness that it had when she dragged him to class. Instead, it seemed sweet. Sickly sweet, like it was dripping with the juices of a fruit you thought was a vibrant, juicy apple, or the venom of a snake with a colorful pattern that you thought was a safe species. To sum it up, she sounded appealing, but terribly dangerous. "My dear, dear Romeo." with these final words that sent a chill down Arek's spine, he was pushed through the doorway by some invisible force. When he hit the ground on the other side, he realized it was the floor of his very own room, and not some rich girl's hallway.

"What the fuck..." Arek ran his hand along the floorboards. These were, in fact, the splintery old boards of his own room, and the silver light that shone through the window told him that it was in the middle of the night, as the buildings he lived near were packed so close together that the moon could only be seen if it was directly above.

He failed any attempt at comprehending what had just happened. He'd heard of "Alters," a popular name for those who can bend, manipulate, and create their own reality, but he'd believed that it was all some fairy tale, just like most normal people around. Anyone who actually believed in them were considered childish, delusional, or cultists.

No, let's not jump to conclusions. There could have been some rationality to what just happened. Surely, the supernatural is not the only thing that could explain such-

Arek cut his own thoughts off. No, no matter how you looked at it, what he just witnessed was completely impossible.

"A dream, then!" Arek declared, and jumped onto his own bed. "I had a weird dream, and fell off the bed, that's all!."