CHAPTER 28 – T-minus (14)

The flesh on some part of my body gets torn, and I push off the beast responsible for it. At one point a werewolf, now a human; speaks some gibberish which I can't interpret.

Wasn't this the same beast which had attacked me on the bridge… the Exterior-Being? How was it a human? And where is this… place?

The void of existence, which also is uninterpretable by me, just bulges in tints of grey at some points in space, forming some uninterpretable shape.

"My turn," isn't that… that purple girl?

As I try to grab onto this girl, the void changes again, and my head hurts.

"Aren't you that girl in purple?" a voice comes, from right next to my face.

I jump, and punch a very muscular man's face. The man barely moves, and maintains his blank expression. This man…

"Why do you look like me?" he asks me.

"I should be asking you that," I say.

Obviously it was an Exterior-Being, but why was it that he was the only thing which I could interpret here? Was I… drugged?

I form a sword and slash towards him. Whatever this was, killing him must be enough.

But he simply moves away, uninterested, and places his hand on his chin, as if thinking deeply into the void.

"This indeed is a dream, but why does this one look like me? I barely know her," he talks to himself.

What the hell was this?

"Phobetor, what is this?" I ask into the void.

"Phobetor…?" He asks. "Are you that loser? The loser who died?"

The loser who died?

"But you… died," he says. "Perhaps only an element of the dream but…"

I feel my whole body clench, as a familiar voice shrills out of somewhere, "Silence."

I feel my whole body feel a kind of heat. The guy in front of me was the same, he seems to be trying hard to move, but couldn't move an inch. Because it was such a being here. A being I wish was also a dream element, if what I interpreted here is right.

"T-the peace is ap-ppreciated," he says, showing himself between the two of us. This being who was more than just a mere Exterior-Being version of me. This red-aura being, had bound me yet aagain

The Other-Being.

This must be my death right here. In this void of a dream, or whatever the hell this place was.

***

As I awkwardly work alongside Aarush, who also does so vice-versa, running sound from somewhere, breaks my weird trance, and gets me alert.

"S-sc-sc-sc," Thunder says, running towards me, and then making his way outside the building.

I hold the sword lying around me, with my gauntlet hands, and follow Thunder.

As I follow this guy who panics and makes everyone open the fence on the building, and steps out, towards… shit!

I see Lost-Bird lying at one corner, Feather fallen on his knees, as a lady circles him, like some psychopath. And dead bodies lying here and there.

Thunder runs towards this girl and she jumps away, as he tries to hurt her.

I run and get Feather, who snakingly stumbles towards the ground, and tries to make sense of my presence.

"She makes illusions too," Feather says, from his own weird stance.

Feather had his wings and claws out, and lost to… this girl? Illusions huh.

I throw my sword mindlessly towards the girl's thighs, and it strikes and makes her stumble to the ground.

"No worries, I'm good," I say, and give my hand to Feather.

Aarush, whose footsteps had slowed down behind me, finally reaches, and Feather gets up, from my support. But Aarush curses and rushes away. Oh right, Lost-Bird…

Aarush supports the bleeding Lost-Bird, and I look towards Feather, for help on the wounds on Lost-Bird.

"Shit, you really used that blood to…" Feather says, and looks back at the girl crying in pain, while fallen on the ground.

"Are you ok?" Lost-Bird asks. "You seemed to be in… pain."

"I'm fine, but I need to tell you; I'm sorry, I can't give more of my blood," Feather says.

"Kind of regret my choice," Lost-Bird says.

I move but stop, when Feather resumes talking.

"Still, how were you able to…"

"Are you guys done talking? We need to get this guy some help here," I say, pointing at Lost-Bird.

"Right, sorry," both Feather and Lost-Bird say.

Aarush and I lift Lost-Bird, and I reminiscence this to be like the time with Wrap, when we did the same.

"What do we do with that…" Feather asks, and without even looking, I realise he meant about that girl.

"I don't have the full story, but… just kill her," I say, and bring silence.

Aarush and I take Lost-Bird to the trip to Grandpa's house. On the way…

"By the way, where the hell is Witch?" I ask Lost-Bird.

"Last I saw, she was sleeping but…"

"She couldn't still be sleeping," Aarush says.

"We were unaware of the commotion until Thunder came running. So it wouldn't be that weird but…" I knew it was weird. That wasn't like Witch, who was always on high alert.

As the door to Grandpa's apartment opens, we find a not-so-excited Grandpa, after seeing another person hurt. But he still starts to tend to Lost-Bird's wounds, and we help.

While I'm physically tending to Lost-Bird, my mind was straying and pondering on the question; where WAS she?

***

"T-two," Other-Being says, exchanging his views from me to the other guy.

"What the fuck are you?" the-other-guy asks.

"Must ask you the same," Other-Being says, looking at the-other-guy now, making him visibly shiver.

"What the fuck is the answer?" the-other-guy asks.

"Hmm… this indeed is a dream but… you two are real. And it should have been one," Other-Being says. "Oh, excluding them. They are… weak."

I feel shivers as I hear familiar growling, and feel the Exterior-Beings being around here too.

"I won't have a need of them," Other-Being says, and I feel the Exterior-Beings… no more. "But you two… shall do."

"What the hell is this?" the-other-guy asks.

Other-Being turns and looks at the-other-guy, and he visibly shake again.

"You two are one… but two. Even your behaviour is similar to an extent. She talked a lot, the first time too," Other-Being says and looks at me. "Now she obeys me."

I feel the urge to break through the bind, but I feel my whole body would break if I did so.

"You were supposed to be dead," the-other-guy says, looking at me.

"You are me?" I ask.

"Hm-mm," Other-Being says. "The Saturn Organisation are such a thing I see. They made two of you."

"Incorrect," the-other-guy says. "You could say that I developed faster. And I escaped them long before anything happened. Before they realised I guess."

"Coward," I spit.

"No… I just developed a brain faster you see. And I knew what danger is, unlike you."

"Well, Morph here also has such a story," Other-Being says.

"Don't call me that," I say, and Other-Being looks at me. "I go by Witch now."

The-other-guy scoffs, and Other-Being looks back at him. "You have a name to share?"

"I go by Mesomorph," Mesomorph says.

"That is basically her name," Other-Being says.

"Well, she doesn't need it," Mesomorph says.

"Your talking has become better. So I don't think you came here for the same thing as last time," I say, without making my hope too obvious.

"T-too b-ad," Other-Being says, and I shiver. "D-dream… I'm the ma-ast-ter."

"So you are here for that," I say, clenching my own body, even with the bind to the add.

"For what?" Mesomorph asks.

"He believes that he can become a human… if he eats us," I say.

"N-ot human! I'm fa-ar from that," Other-Being says.

"Even for you, you seem to be overdoing the cracking noise," I say.

Other-Being bursts in laughter, and not even letting him enjoy a moment, I say-

"Even the laughter is fake," I say, clenching my whole body. "You are incap-"

Before I finish, Other-Being storms towards me and crashes into me. The bind breaks, as expected, and as I feel pain, I form the sharpest of swords I can make using my hand, and stab it towards Other-Being's leg. The sword comes to a halt, right as it enters about an inch into Other-Being's leg, while he doesn't even react to it, but I see his thigh lowering.

I punch my other hand into my sword-hand, cleanly cutting it, and with a groan turning into a roar, I hit the sword-piece side ways, slicing down a part of Other-Being's leg.

"Why do you," I hear Other-Being saying it, calmly, still unfazed, yet I hear a second voice, screaming it.

I feel energy, right at my neck and my chest, but as I endure it, I get thrown far away from Other-Being… but… I didn't feel any pain. And… Other-Being is the one who stumbles to the ground.

Must be because I had cut his leg but… his floppy figure was… bit more fragile now.

"As the god of the world," a chilling voice comes from right behind me. "I command you to stop."

Other-Being looks towards me, and glares behind me.

Other-Being rushes forward, and whatever is behind me, does too. Two powers, exceeding mine, clash and form a commotion in the void.

Red energy moves around, from its centre as Other-Being, and the other person plans on fighting it, but somebody else appears and stops it.

"Morpheus," I say, recognising this new person… no, being.

A rose-pink-tint coloured being. A being possessing no form of a face, just a blank oval headed, with spike like extensions on its top, as if they are hairs.

That, was the god of this world I was in, dream-world.

"I do not allow fighting here," Morpheus says, even when he doesn't posses an actual mouth. And then he faces towards Other-Being, even when he technically had no face. "I let you in, as a peaceful sign. Not to use this place to kill people across the world."

Other-Being doesn't say a thing.

Morpheus looks at the first person who had randomly entered here. "You are…?"

The person freezes for a moment BUT- "Bye," he says, and walking away into the space, disappears.

"No," Morpheus says, extending his hand towards the person, yet the person disappears, and Morpheus 'stares' at his own hand, in a dazed way. "Interesting…" he relaxes his hand, "and annoying too. Hmm, it can't be him, can it?"

Other-Being starts moving, and Morpheus yet again extends his hand out, as Other-Being travels a distance. But Other-Being freezes, even without being touched.

"Ah, you can't escape like he did. Whoever he was. Sad," Morpheus says.

"You lot with powers, are annoying. Annoying when I'm not able to feel you," Other-Being says.

"Do not dare use my powers… or you know you won't be facing one this time but… a hundred," Morpheus says.

Other-Being ignores that, and looks towards me. "I think I know which one of you two, I'll choose to come for. You got a nice… fanbase."

Other-Being disappears, as Morpheus relaxes his hand.

"Don't think you are special to have lived here," Morpheus says. "I treat everyone equally but… dying here… is the worst curse. I can't let anyone else have it."

As I try to look towards Mesomorph-