The Dreamer's Epilogue-Chapter 18: Cloud of flies

Chapter 18 – Cloud of flies

Emrys walked aimlessly through the field of pristine white flowers, his mind echoing again and again the same question since the moment he opened his eyes into this strange place.

His every step made a crushing sound, flattening the flowers — shaped like the wings of a fly — making a clear path for him.

The sky overhead was immaculately pale, with gentle clouds drifting leisurely across it, and a disk of dust-like sun hanging there, glowering on Emrys.

His face was crunched up in a tight frown, his palms sweaty and his heart pounding like a hammer on an anvil, making him doubt if he was indeed in a dream like he initially believed or if it was reality.

Emrys felt like cursing, and the atmosphere soaking this paradise-worthy place was not helping his mental state.

Even though the atmosphere was eerily peaceful, there was something rotten and stinking hanging all around.

It was something Emrys was slowly getting used to. It was the thick scent of iron.

It was blood.

’But there is no blood around.’ Emrys thought, licking his dry lips, ’there are only these weird-looking flowers as far as I can see.’

The place seemed to have no visible end.

And beside the scent of blood, there were other things. This time, Emrys sensed as if someone was forcefully tearing open his mind and heart, pouring inside of them new emotions and even...memories.

The memories were blurry and fragmented, only being a child crying then a splash of blood.

It was already worrying enough.

But the emotions were very vivid inside himself.

There was an inexplicable amount of sorrow and pain and hatred drowning him on all sides.

’Is this because of the Gift?’ Emrys wondered, trying his best to keep his calm. There was nothing else Emrys hated more than being in a situation where he had no bloody idea.

Especially in his current reality. That was particularly a death sentence.

He sighed.

’What was the definition of the Gift again?’

When you sleep, you do not dream.

When you dream, it is never your own.

That was what the Gift had once said.

’Does this mean I am not in my own dream?’

He continued to walk while thinking of his current situation, easily marking this as an event caused by his Gift.

At some point, Emrys no longer looked around, completely absorbed in his thoughts, trying to find a way out of this hopeless situation.

The world blurred around him.

He had already slapped himself, hoping it would wake him up.

It didn’t.

Except feeling pain as if he was actually in his body, Emrys felt nothing else.

And that was when fear began to creep in. If even he was feeling pain and all the bodily reactions, despite thinking he was in a dream of some sort...

...then was he really in a dream?

Maybe it was another stupid test by the system? Or a hidden quest like those of the novels he usually read?

The more Emrys thought, the more the fear increased, reaching a dangerous level.

Yet before it reached a point of no return,

"Fear is poison."

Emrys muttered again his father’s words — his mantra — taking deep breaths to calm himself while closing his eyes.

He repeated those words a few times, before opening his eyes again, only to yelp in absolute shock, staggering backward in haste, making him fall on his back.

Emrys groaned, his black eyes resting in front of him. His heart skipped a dangerous beat.

Just a couple of meters from him sat a young girl.

She wore tattered clothes stained by blood, blue hair that had become black because of years — or maybe more — of lack of care framing her head.

Her black eyes were sunken, filled with traces of tears. She was looking at the broken toy in her hand.

A wooden toy of a smiling woman, Emrys supposed.

But with Emrys falling so loudly, the eyes of the young girl peeled away reluctantly from the toy and turned towards him.

She stared at him so unnervingly that Emrys felt the hair on his back stand like spikes of a porcupine.

He immediately opened his mouth to speak. However, he swallowed back his words as the girl’s voice reached him first.

"Are...are you going to help Nafi?" The girl whimpered, voice familiar to Emrys despite just meeting her, "Mister...are you going to help Nafi?"

Emrys was silenced, his eyes darting from the face of the girl to her outstretched hands holding the broken wooden toy.

’Help?’

"You want me," Emrys began, voice rasping, "to repair this?"

He pointed to the toy and the girl nodded her head furiously, tears spilling out.

"The other bad guys broke Nafi’s mother." The girl, Nafi, cried, "they said Nafi’s mother is dead, killed by monsters. They say Nafi should forget mother and come with them. But Nafi cannot forget mother, mister. Nafi does not want to go with bad guys. Nafi cannot."

She cried harder.

"Mister, help Nafi. Help mother."

The girl began to crawl towards Emrys, holding the two broken pieces of the toy.

Emrys gulped, using almost all his willpower not to run away. Nafi’s voice made the memories he was beginning to get become more clear and vivid.

And they were swallowing him whole.

Nafi finally reached him, putting the toy inside his hands.

Emrys sat there, looking at it blankly, not knowing how he would repair this and why he was even here.

The more time passed, the more he felt like he was losing his mind.

Many types of emotions were surging inside of him and those emotions increased in potency the moment the girl came close to him.

Unknowingly, his face began to crunch into a woeful expression, unable to shake away those emotions.

He was being tainted by this girl, Emrys chillingly realized.

"If mister helps Nafi," Nafi said, "Nafi will give mister a gift."

"A...gift?" Emrys asked gingerly.

Nafi finally smiled. It was an abnormally wide, eerie smile. She next turned her head to the right.

Emrys mirrored her action instinctively, and his eyes settled on a gruesome sight.

Dozens, no hundreds, of corpses — all humans — were piled up like a tower of nightmare, blood dripping down from top to bottom, tainting the flowers in red.

Emrys finally realized where the scent of blood came from.

Nafi stood up and walked towards the tower of corpses nonchalantly. She crouched, took from one of the corpses a golden ring with a Regal Hawk sigil on it.

She turned her head back towards Emrys, smiling innocently, showing him the ring drenched in blood and pieces of flesh.

"The bad guys loved this. Nafi will give this—!"

Emrys didn’t even wait to hear the rest of the sentence.

In a burst of furious power, he stood up and ripped through the landscape of white flowers, running with all his strength — even more — his mind screaming like never before.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What is going on!!!" Emrys almost cried, feeling the hold of death gripping his heart tightly.

"MISTER!!"

A sudden, mad-filled shriek thundered across the landscape, the ground writhing like a living thing, sending Emrys down face first.

He immediately stood up, turned his head back, seeing the previous face of the cute girl tearing open and bursting into a cloud of small, withered dried crimson-black flies.

"Good Lord!!!" Emrys squealed.

He instinctively activated his skill, Lightning Body, causing gray arcs of lightning to sizzle around his body, wrapping around him like arms hugging him on all sides.

A burst of strength bathed Emrys and the man didn’t think twice. He stood up and ran again, trying to leave behind the girl, now a monster of apocalyptic sight.

"YOU PROMISED TO HELP NAFI! YOU—!"

"Oh fuck you! I promised shit!" Emrys shouted, his voice both knotted with anger and fear, running away aimlessly, knowing well he wouldn’t last long.

He was falling and getting up continuously, feeling like the place itself was against him.

He cursed.

The cloud of those death-blessed flies was close behind him.

He looked back once, and saw an amalgamation of all the flies, buzzing erratically and madly, chasing him as if he was the one who killed her mother.

The air was shrieking in terrible protest.

"Fuck! Where am—!"

"MISTER!!!!!"

Emrys felt a sharp whip-like blow on his back.

An atrocious pain bloomed at the point of contact, sending him flying away like a ragdoll, his scarred back torn open, blood spattering the air.

"Arghh." Emrys groaned in agony, his stomach knotted into a ball of fear, falling on the ground looking at the coming monster.

The girl’s face was still there, somehow, though her body was now made of those strange withered crimson-black flies. She was asking the same thing over and over again.

Emrys could no longer speak, his lips dry, his throat tight as if a lump of rock was stuck at the entrance.

He watched as the monstrous face descended upon him slowly like an omen of death, stopping an inch from his own.

A long, human-like tongue — made of those flies — erupted from her mouth, slithering towards him.

"HELP NAFI!" The monster shrieked, licking his face, "MOTHER! NAFI WANT—!"

"I can’t help you." Emrys finally said, looking at the monster with tired eyes, lightning still coursing around his body, "I can’t help—!"

BAAM!

Emrys barely managed to tilt his head to one side, escaping the piercing tongue from making a hole inside his head.

His eyes widened in shock, looking at the tongue coming directly at him again.

At that instant, Emrys saw his death and the fear was way worse than what he initially imagined.

But right at the moment when the tongue brushed against his forehead, about to slash his head like a crushed watermelon...

"Are you still sleeping, lad?"

GASP—!

Emrys gasped, bolting awake from his bed, beads of sweat dropping from his whole body, sticking his clothes to him like glue.

He turned his wide eyes towards the two presences inside his room. He stared at his two companions.

They stared back at him with quizzical eyes, noticing his fearful face.

"A bad dream, lad?" The old man said with a gruff voice, smoking a pipe in his leathered mouth.

The young woman, purple hair and purple eyes, didn’t even speak. Though her eyes were looking at Emrys in a shy but concerned way. Her hound was growling like always.

Emrys didn’t answer at first, then slowly he fell back on the bed, only noticing that he was not breathing. He exhaled, letting out a thick pale steam.

"Yeah..."

He muttered, putting his hand across his eyes.

"Just a bad dream."

And then,

[Gift of Dream activated.]

[You have obtained the item: Broken Wooden Toy of ******* (Unique).]

—End of Chapter 18—