Chapter Text
Sunny laid in his comfortable bed, his consciousness drifting in and out as he stared off into the dark corners of his room. It was like any other night he’s had in the past four years, only with the additional thought that this would be one of the last few nights he will be able to take in this scenery. Moving out… would it make any difference for him? For the people he used to know?
Just as his last bits of consciousness was slipping away, he thought he could hear a whisper right in his ears. It was the whispers of a stranger.
“Sunny… you still close yourself to the truth. What would it take for you to lose the safety of the shelter you have created? Perhaps… perhaps that is the answer…”
And as Sunny fell asleep, Omori awoke.
===
Russell sat on the dingy bed he was provided in the isolated ward. In his right hand, he gripped the syringe filled with the strange orange substance ‘Happy Dream’. He sat there, staring at nothing as he held the tip of the needle to the skin exposed by his rolled-up sleeve. Happy… The dreams truly were happy, the happiest he’s been in a long while. If only everything could stay like that, stay happy like it was in his dreams.
He injected today’s dose.
He didn’t even feel his head fall to the bed as he blinked his eyes open to an unfamiliar landscape.
Far away, away from where Rusell could hear, in a blue house labeled ‘Infor!mashun’ an identical boy lounged on his couch. He pondered to himself, “I wonder… Russell, how much happiness would it take for you to see? How would you handle something happier than your happiest dream.” He flipped open a book as he smirked there alone.
===
Omori stood in front of an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. The room felt small, smaller than any room he has stayed in by himself. Its white walls and ceiling were a welcome sight, but the bright window behind him was not. Why have such a large view of something he didn’t need?
This was not his dream.
He forced his thoughts to focus on observing his new surroundings. He touched around the poor excuse of a bed and the side table. The only noteworthy discovery there was the empty syringe that sat on the table, in a tiny pool of orange fluids that must have been spilled from its tip. A strange item, but not important enough for him to pocket it.
He turned his attention next to the few pieces of paper strewn across the white floor. Omori crouched down to pick up the nearest one to him. It had a messy drawing of a monkey violently scribbled on its surface. He turned it around in his hands, but nothing else could be found on it. Omori walked slowly around the room and looked at the rest of the papers. To his disappointment, many of the other scribbles were much harder to decipher. Omori considered his doodles to be pretty abstract, but this unknown person brought a whole new level to the word.
Knock knock
Omori froze where he stood, his eyes glued to the white door where the casual sound had come from. He’d never had anyone knock before. A slow step. Followed by another. Omori inched his way to the door. He placed his hand on the doorknob and pulled it open.
“Good morning, Russell.” A young man in a green hooded trench coat smiled warmly like the sun that shone brightly behind him. Omori squinted his eyes at the sudden change in brightness. The man ran his fingers awkwardly through his hair, “I was getting worried a second there, did you just wake up? Sorry if I came at an inconvenient time.”
===
Russell stood there in an endless white space. It was vast, yet it felt just like the ward he was assigned to—just with less mocking voices around.
This was not his dream.
Russell began to wander around and see what he could find. As he walked, he noticed the sensation of the blanket beneath his shoes. The white of the blanket blended in perfectly with the whiteness of everything else in the space. Russell’s attention jumped to the laptop that laid on top of the blanket. His family never had anything like it, the closest they had was the TV his dad would watch as he drank from his bottles. The only time he had seen anything as advanced as this must’ve been in Gardenia’s house when he was invited…
Cautiously he pressed a few keys and buttons. His eyes widened and his hands darted off the keys as the screen lit up in front of him. There wasn’t much to see, just a nearly empty desktop and a journal application. Russell sat there, fidgeting with the laptop until he figured out how to use the cursor to interact with the screen. He clicked on ‘Omori’s Journal’ with a small feeling of triumph.
‘Today, I spent time in White Space. Everything was okay.’
‘Today, I visited my friends. Everything was okay.’
Every entry was filled with those two phrases. ‘Everything was okay’ the repeated words almost felt reassuring in some odd way. Russell logged off. He stood back up to explore the space.
“Meow?” Russell looked down at the black mound of fur lazing on the edge of the blanket. He crouched down and slowly outstretched his hand with his eyes focussed on any reactions from the cat. Mewo continued to lounge there without a care in the world. Russell carefully stroked her fur, hand steady but still ready to pull back at a moment's notice. Mewo purred lightly at the warm sensation. Russell found himself comfortably petting the cat as he buried his hand through soft fur. It was just like then…
Russell pulled back to look at everything else he had missed. A simple black tissue box. A peculiar light bulb that glowed black. And the sketchbook in the corner. He flipped through the pages, the red and black lines flickering past his eyes. The images were confusing but well-drawn. He placed the sketchbook down.
The last object there was the large white door that cast a light shadow in the white world. Russell tugged the door open without any hesitation.
“Hey, Omori! It’s so good to see you, you won’t believe what Kel did to me this time.” said a young girl, maybe two or three years younger than Russell, dressed in a teal nightgown and a pink bow in her hair. She stretched out her hand and grasped his arm. “Come on, you need to back me up here!”