Second Floor: Wake Up To Reality

"Come, Ace!" A calm, serene voice called from the deepest void in existence, a soft chuckle following as they called out to Ace.

In an instant, the dungeon walls shifted, summoning Ace's soul out of it at once and the once damp, dark dungeon was swept away into a soft silence.

The world shifted and the dungeon was replaced with bright blue colored sky adorned with puffy clouds enough to cuddle one to sleep. 

'Where am I?' Ace asked himself in his thoughts as his once blurry vision began to pick up the fragment of what was in existence around him.

"Grab my hand, let me take you somewhere safe." The voice called again, waving enthusiastically at Ace to grab unto them.

"Who are you?" He finally voiced out his first question at the entity before him.

With a closer look, Ace could identify the one before him and he wondered what was suddenly happening to him.

The one before him, a young boy with white long hair that reached out to his waist, draped in a simple silver mage garment that hung perfectly on his body while reaching out his arm that showcased a pale skin adorned with golden hue across each vein passage on his skin.

And then, he came to a conclusion. No matter what the boy seemed like, he wasn't human with his physical outline.

If he does not have the appearance of a human, then perhaps, he's— a god.

'Who is he again? Why do I seem to not remember him?' 

The presence of the boy was striking an uneven balance in Ace's mind, causing his head to suddenly ache as he continued to delve deeper into his head, trying to fish out the clustered memory he had with the boy standing before him.

And then he took notice of the most important feature bestowed on the boy. A blessing or a curse he would say because the boy had no— face.

"ARGHHH!" A sharp scream raged out of his mouth as the pain coursing through his head intensified. 

He grabbed his head with his hands, trying so hard to pacify the pain that was raging through his head. Suddenly, his ears gave in, forcing out streaks of blood like tears.

The next minute, his knees buckled, forcing him to crumble into the field of grass, bowing slightly in front of the being before him. His eyes trickled out tears, not of salty liquid, but— blood.

The longer it took for him to remember the being before him, the harder a claw hammer like weapon was bashed into his head by some unseen forces which he couldn't recon with.

The pain continued to intensify, so did his will to live start to slip away. His eyes were blinded with blood, his hands grabbing his head tighter; that he could crush his own skull with the streaks of pain coursing through.

'What is happening to me?'

Alas, he felt a soft touch ruffle through his hair. The boy had laid his hand on his head carefully and in that moment, the pain ceased and there it was again, the hand waving enthusiastically at him to grab.

With clear uncertainty shrouding out of his eyes, Ace instinctively stretched out his hand forward, an attempt to hold onto the entity's hand, until he felt a familiar presence crawl up behind him, forcing him to retract his hand immediately.

"If you go with him, you won't come back for me, Ace." The soft feminine voice spoke.

He recognized the voice at once, tears welling up in his eyes coupled with a loud shattering of his heart within him. He turned around to grasp her face one more time, but he wasn't bold enough to face her yet.

How much he had missed her—

His fists clenched harder by his sides as he tried to hide his seething rage.

His mind cursed his creator on and on for abandoning him to such cruel fate.

But it all ended when her warm palms enveloped his burning fist in hers. She pulled his face towards hers and there on her face was the most pleasant smile ever.

Seeing her smile again grinded his heart a million more times, forcing his quivering lips to mutter her name.

"Anya."

Her smile deepened and he let himself curl up in her warm touch. 

"You have to go back, Ace. Your friends are all waiting for you… so am I." She said weakly, her voice filled with warmth despite her frailty.

"But you are here."

Anya shook her head softly, pushing his bangs into some side splits like a mother would.

"You know this is just a dream, Ace. Wake up to reality." 

GBAM!

GBAM!

A soft panting continued to play in his ears and the once quiet field got filled with an otherworldly aura. His vision had turned blurry again, but he could still see her tears streaming down her face and glistering in the dark void like crystal.

His right arm shot up and crawled towards her face, carefully wiping off a bead of tear from her face, taking her by surprise a little, but she didn't stop what she had been doing before he regained his consciousness.

"Ace?" She called out sharply after pushing the huge rock rubbles piled up on his chest away.

His throat got hinged with the dust, forcing him to cough a little as she pulled him to take a seat up. Alas, it wasn't Anya, but Dawn who had pulled him out of the rubble.

"What has happened?" Ace inquired calmly, the pain he had felt from the sudden attack still searing through coupled up with slamming into the dungeon wall that fell over him without mercy.

"Armin and Damien are barely holding up." Dawn cried, her hand instinctively holding up to Ace's arm. "And my wings… my wings." She tried to say again, her tears stocking up her words in her throat.

Ace took a brief look at her wings which were now badly damaged. Her face was bruised and her leg had an ugly wound etched in it already.

'What in the worl—'

Immediately, a huge force slammed into Armin and Damien, sending them flying across the dungeon the same way Ace had been dealt with earlier.

He managed to get up to his feet despite the unending pain and sprawling across the dungeon from him was a titan beast.

A colossal creature with glowing red eyes filled with malice, towering a little under the structure of the domain with its tongue curling out dangerously, ready to force an attack again.

[Ding!]