Chapter Text
The soles of Z's feet began to sting with every step forward. He's been walking through the dark for a long while now. The seconds had stretched out, becoming uncountable to his feeble mind. His body was enrobed in pitch black, where the silence taunted him endlessly; "He's been walking without reason," it tells him— "There is nothing here to see. You are alone.".
In all honesty, it was better than his other dreams (Z had been sure that he was stuck in a dream for a while now). Crawling horrors and bloodshot eyes were the usual paint that splattered across the canvas of his dreams, accompanied by roaring laughter spilling out of his terroriser. Darkness wasn't his forte— and the boredom that came with it wasn't either— but he sure as hell prefers it over waking up in a cold sweat as tremors spread across his entire body. His heart would always beat the fastest it could in those moments after he awoke, and he would spend the time in silence; trying to catch his breath (unless Regect came in and Z had to shoo him away saying he was "fine").
Z kept on walking, continuing his self assigned Sisyphean task. There was no explanation for his doing other than "The fuck else am I supposed to do? Go to sleep? I'm already asleep!"; but in due time he did rationalise that maybe there was something pushing him to walk, that somewhere deep in his subconscious was the knowledge that there lies something at the end of this formless, colourless path. He just needed patience. Yes, patience… Something he never had a lot of.
Eventually however, his faith granted him success, further into the abyss rests a tiny light. It flickers, pulsing to the sound of his heartbeat. Z picks up his pace, even if this was a hallucination he would not care. He wasn't even desperate for hope at this point, he just needed something, anything to cure his brain of its starvation. His walk turns into a sprint for the finish line, reaching out towards the light like a maddened moth to a flame. Z will burn himself for all he cares; as long as it meant sensation. Then when he pulls away and all that's left is bright red blister on his arm, he'll lie to himself and say he didn't feel a thing.
It takes a while, but Z does reach the source of the light. Peering out from the shadows, a shabby wooden house sat. It would be better described as a hut, only a few blocks wide with a roof just tall enough that you wouldn't hit your head if you jumped on the inside. Floating in oblivion, the light distinguished itself into two torches that lit up the front door, they glowed a soft yellow. Z hesitates, unsure of how to approach it. He decides first to be polite and knock. When that doesn't produce any response, he knocks again, only more aggressive. It doesn't take long for desperation to overwrite Z's inhibitions, he mutters a "Screw it." and opens the door.
His eyes are met with a simply decorated interior. On his right was a long chest, its oak grain soaking in the light from the torch hung a few meters beside it. There in the left corner was a crafting table and two furnaces stacked together, where a puff of charcoal dust escaped the furnace's mouth every once in a while. It's hard to take in all these other details when there was something much more interesting in the middle of it, a bed covered with a white sheet; where it hid something beneath. Z took a hesitant step forward, hoping the creaking of the floorboards wouldn't stir whatever it was.
He inched around the bed, leaning over to find a boy deep in his slumber. The boy looked rather young, by about a decade or so compared to Z. White tuffs of hair spilled out over the pillow, his tiny face cradled in the soft dip created by its weight. Z shifted on his feet, both surprised and confused to find a child here out of all things. He's about to take a step back when the boy's eyes open, letting out a groggy mumble as his arms stretch out.
The boy's eyes widen as he finds Z hovering above him, immediately jumping out of his bed like a frightened kitten; a high-pitched scream leaves his throat. With surprising speed, he manages to fling himself away from Z and make a break towards the chest; haphazardly opening it and grabbing a sword. He points it towards Z, shoulders tense as he backed into the corner, expression twisted into something defensive. Oddly enough, the hand that held the sword was purple in colour, contrasting with the rest of his pale skin. Z just stares, dumbfounded.
"Uh… hey kid?" he speaks, not exactly as threatened as the boy was towards him.
The words alone seem to snap the boy out of his fear. Suddenly looking curious, he lowers his sword and tilts his head.
"Who are you? Are you another ghost?" he asks.
"I'm, um… Just some guy. Sorry about breaking into your house though."
"Woah."
Disarmed, the boy puts his sword back into the chest, eyes brightening up as he took another look over Z's appearance. He hops towards him, cheerfully extending his hand towards Z.
"It's okay, my name is Micha! I'm sorry for pointing a sword at you too. I thought you were a skeleton." Micha giggles, the previous fright on his expression having been washed away.
"…A skeleton?" Z looks down at his clothes, wondering where the boy got that impression from. "My name is Z," he shakes Micha's hand, mostly glad he didn't have to fight the kid, "do you live here?"
"Well yeah! This is my house… Oh, then outside is also—" He walks towards the door, opening it to find the abyss surrounding his home.
The boy's expression drops as fast as lightning, closing it shut and opening it back up as if that would bring the outside world back. He seemed rather horrified by the realization, sinking into himself once it melts into sadness.
"Um…" A big frown weighs down Micha's face. "I guess it's not there anymore."
The sight manages to tug at Z's heart strings, realizing this kid probably got randomly teleported into oblivion, maybe a result of that entity's doing. He's unsure of the logistics of Micha being in his dream (or if Micha was even real in the first place), but his sympathy pushes him forward; deciding that figuring out insignificant details won't get him anywhere.
"It's okay Micha, we'll try to find a way out of here." Z attempts to comfort the boy, knowing he doesn't know the way out of here either. "Maybe— maybe we'll find it if we keep walking."
"Walking?" Micha turns towards Z, brows furrowing a bit. "Walking in there?" he asks, looking back towards the yawning abyss that greeted him. "I don't know…"
"You scared of the dark?"
"A little."
Z gently grabs his hand, taking a step towards the door.
"I'll hold your hand through it." he whispers, keeping his voice gentle.
Taken by surprise, Micha's eyes dart back and forth between their hands and Z's face. He smiles.
"Okay."
And there Z goes, taking a stranger's kid for a walk in the void. It's obviously not a great idea; he's still unsure if they'll even find the exit, or worse, get lost in it's expanse forever. But at least taking some precaution, Z takes a torch off the front of the house, holding it out towards the dark. The light shines, but nothing is revealed, just more of the same old nothingness. Welp, they might be fucked.
Whatever, it was too late to back track now. Micha had already begun to joyfully skip, Z's bit of support enough to keep him full of mirth throughout. Even as they continue to find nothing, even as the torch continues to be useless, Micha remains pretty jolly. The silence creeps on Z again, but even that's extinguished; for Micha started asking him random questions along the way.
"What's your favorite color, Z?"
"…Black."
"Oh, cool!" he chirps. "So the dark must be no problem for you then, since it's your favorite color?"
"Not exactly… Depends on the context. Being surrounded by black is scary, but seeing black stuff is pretty neat."
"What type of black stuff?"
"Just anything," Z shrugs. "black cats, black guns…"
"But this place would remind you of all that, right? Red always cheers me up, even when I hurt my knee and it comes out."
"Huh? I mean… I don't really think the same way. This place just reminds me of loneliness… and being trapped."
"Oh."
The quiet reclaims the space, their steps the only resemblance of noise left.
"But at least you got me!" Micha pipes up, trying not to let the mood sour. "E-even if we're still both trapped." Subconsciously, his grip on Z's hand tightens.
A sigh escapes Z's lips, he needs to get this kid out of here fast. They trudge on endlessly, as the oblivion ahead remained unchanging, but he's determined to get the boy out of this nightmare— or more, his nightmare.
"We'll find a way out of here. Promise."
"Pinky promise?" Z's assurance seemed to work on Micha.
In response, Z turns towards him, leaning down and reaching out his pinky towards the boy. Micha smiles, interlocking their pinkies and completing the ritual.
"Pinky promise." Z says.
With that, they begin walking again.
"Um… Do you come from here?" Micha throws out another question to pass the time.
"No. I came from somewhere else. I guess both of us must've been thrown in here."
"Where?"
He shrugs, unsure what answer Micha's question needs.
"In the normal world, y'know, planet earth? Um… I have a house with some friends there."
"What's it like? Is it small like mine?"
"Way bigger. You'd be jealous. It's actually pretty sweet… Well, before I ended up destroying it…"
Z winces, the reality crashing into him that he, Regect and Moe were homeless at the moment, and that it was his fault. They ended up having to crash at the wizard's place for a while. The guy's swell and all, but it's not exactly their house.
"Aw, that's sad. I have a friend who's super good at building! Maybe he can help you guys… If he's still…" Micha's sentences trailed off into the dark, caught on something.
"Still what?"
"Look, the exit!"
The boy switched subjects in a matter of seconds, pointing towards a door a few paces ahead of them. It appeared to be an unassuming oak door, fully illuminated despite there being no light sources nearby. Their pace picks up, both excited to be out of the void and hopefully back into the real world (or more pessimistically, a different dream Z will have). Z takes the final step forward, reaching the door with his arm outstretched.
He turns the doorknob and he wakes up.
The next dream Z has is of a little more substance. He's in a dark room, head laid on something soft and warm. The humming of a computer fills his ears, bright rays exploding from the monitor in front of him. It's sat on an elevated surface, just tall enough that Z was unable to parse what it displayed; it didn't help that his vision was clouded from sleep either.
Something from the darkness behind him reaches out and makes contact with the nape of his neck. It's gentle, a slow motion massaging circles into his skin. A shiver runs down Z's spine in response, it makes him drowsy, makes him want to resubmerge himself into slumber. But he's sure he's already asleep; a continuous theme in all his dreams. In nightmares or in the weird ones like this one, Z knew it wasn't real, but he could never control them, could never force himself awake. His dream self was but a hapless victim, forever trapped— either in torment or in numbness.
"Is it that game again?" With enough effort, he managed to speak. Strange, he doesn't know why he said it.
"Yeah. Not like you let me play anything else." Another voice replied. Whiny is the first thing that Z would describe it as.
He doesn't say any more to the voice, instead opting to get a feel of his limbs. It occurred to him now that he was kneeling, his weight shifted on the thing in front of him. Searching his dream self's mind, he came to a quick conclusion. He was laying his head on someone's lap. Interesting.
The contact on his neck which Z guesses was a hand moved towards the back of his head. It attempted to run its fingers through his hair, but seeing as he had a buzz cut, it had to make due with petting Z's head like he was an oversized house cat. And what if he was? This was a pleasant dream all things considered. He'll happily play that role.
A low grunt echoed through the air, followed by the other person shifting in their seat. Z attempts to lift his head up before a hand promptly guides him back down, keeping him still. He doesn't protest the silent order, instead burying his face in the warmth, spine tingling when he hears the other person chuckle.
"I don't mind you staying here. No need to leave."
"I never said I was going to."
It's stupid, Z couldn't help but let his voice waver and weaken. He feels abnormally warm now, it's impressive how much a dream managed to effect him. Despite the comfort it offered him, there's still an edge to this fantasy. It felt like a ruse, just giving him a false sense of security before the rug was swept away from beneath him. Even in his dreams, Z feels that things are too good to be true.
From far behind him a rattling sound emerged. The sound was impatient, desperation seeping through the cracks as it continued on. A small voice seeps in from the outside.
"Z? Where did you go? I'm…"
The last part of the sentence was too quiet for Z to hear, though it was more than enough information for him to understand.
A sigh escapes his lips, back creaking as he gets up.
"Where you going?" The other voice asks, turning towards Z.
"Somewhere."
His body was already facing the door, its outline sketched in by the monitor's light. He approaches, hesitating as his hand hovers just above the doorknob. The thought to turn around passes him once, but Z decides against doing so. He already guessed who the one stuck to the computer was anyway.
"Z!"
He's greeted to Micha's brightened face, looking relieved to see him.
"Micha! How'd you get here?"
Z takes his eyes off the other for a moment, taking in the surroundings outside the door. Micha was standing in a long hall of sorts, doors lining the walls as they stretched towards infinity.
"Well, you opened the door and then you disappeared!" The boy answered. "I-I didn't really know what to do… So I tried opening the door but it was locked until you opened it."
"…So no time passed by for you?"
"Hm? You were only gone for a few seconds. It was really scary, though."
Micha inched closer towards the doorway, looking around him nervously. He seemed surprised to find the hall, lingering as he stared into it.
"What did you find in that room?" The boy eventually asked, trying to take a peak behind Z.
Instinctively, he shut the door behind him, leaving no trace of the previous sight behind. An odd feeling of embarrassment bloomed at the thought of letting Micha see what was on the other side of the door. The boy didn't need to see it. It wasn't real anyway.
"Just more void." He stepped into the hall, eyes back on the hall.
The wooden floorboards there seemed a little soggy, the dark oak cracked and disintegrated at the edges. The wallpaper on the sides was peeling off, the lime green patterned it held fading away into a sickly yellow. It was darkly lit, a ceiling light allowing a bit of illumination with gaps of darkness in-between them.
"…You wanna keep searching for the exit?" Z asked.
"Okay."
He feels Micha's hand grab his, holding on just a bit tighter than last time. That was another odd thing too, Z remembered his last dream relatively well compared to the others. Micha's appeared twice now. The idea of him being an actual person dawns on Z, motivating him to actually try and help the kid.
Once more, they walk on into the unknown. Unsurprisingly, the hall didn't seem to end no matter how far they journeyed, the same sight continued meeting their eyes, more doors, more shitty wallpaper, more creaky floors. They occasionally halt to open one of the doors, and taking a peak into the other side, they found more void. There was some sort of novelty that they found on the agonizingly boring walk, though, the floorboards dishevelledness began to increase. Some of the wood stuck out from the ground, while others had a huge crack striked through them as if the hall had been bent and broken in half like a chocolate bar.
Micha jumped over the crack every single time they discovered one of them, even though it was rather shallow and Z stepped on them fine. The boy started doing this with the gaps between the floorboards as well, carefully timing his steps so his feet wouldn't touch them. Z found this amusing.
"You're avoiding the cracks?" he muttered, a ghost of a smile on his face.
"Step on a crack and break your mother's back!" Micha seemed happy that Z noticed his antics. "I love my mom, I don't wanna break her back."
"Hm."
Subconsciously, he began to mimic Micha. Not like there was anything else to do, and it managed to feed his entertainment starved brain just a little bit. Besides, he didn't want to break his mom's back either.
"How old are you, Z?"
A question leaves Micha's mouth suddenly. He seemed equally as bored as Z was.
"I'm 20."
"Wow, your old!" Micha giggled.
"It's not that old." His rebuttal comes out a bit defensive.
"But you're old enough to drive cars right?"
"Yeah, I'm saving up to buy a car in a few years."
"Cool! Then you can race around the city all fast and stuff." The boy stretched out his arms, pretending to turn a steering wheel as he mimicked an engine revving up.
"That does sound pretty sick. Pretty sure street racing is illegal though."
"Who cares? You'll be too fast for them to stop you. Why do old people care about the law so much?"
"'Cause you can get into prison."
"Just break out. All the guys in the movies do that, can't be that hard."
"Maybe when you're older you can get into jail and try breaking yourself out." Z replied. "I'll bet 20 bucks that you can't."
"But won't you be dead by the time I'm older?"
"I'm 20, not 70, you little freak." An incredulous laugh escapes him.
The two come to a stop when they see it. The end of the hall; a genuine surprise for Z considering he thought they were in those liminal space things, forever doomed to be walking and never seeing an exit. It's a door that was lighter in colour compared to the previous ones, brand new and untainted by the mold and erosion of the halls. He opens the door and…
Fuck, it's just Micha's house again.
"Oh." Micha steps into the house, equally as disappointed as Z.
At least there's something different about it this time, the sound of rain outside echoed through the walls, bringing its scent as company. Hesitantly, Z looked at the hall behind him one final time. It was still as static as it was before, the only movement being the occasional flickering of the lights. He closes the door as he follows Micha in.
They stand in the middle of the house, unsure of what to do.
"Guess we're back here…" Micha spoke softly, walking over to his bed and collapsing himself onto it.
"More comfortable than the hall, at least." Z fidgets with the hem of his jacket, leaning against the wall. "We can rest up here, then we'll try to find the way out again, 'kay?"
"Is there even one?" The boy grumbled, burying himself in the sheets.
That's a question Z can't really answer. Whether or not it existed, does it really mean anything? They're trapped here either way, better to find something else to do than spend their time twiddling their thumbs. Until he wakes up again— hopefully wakes up again— Z will try to find something to do, and maybe help out the potentially real Micha.
His eyes land on the holes in the door, the only source of natural light in this house (whatever natural light meant considering the outside wasn't any more normal.). Something catches him by surprise, the sliver of the outside the hole allowed him didn't show the view of the hall, neither the abyss that they were trapped in before. It was blue. Real blue outside, rain dashing across like thousands of shooting stars.
Curiosity takes him, pushing him to open the door and see a gaping, cloudless sky ahead of him. Z looked down, finding there to be no ground, just more cerulean fading into navy. Albeit, it was rather beautiful, but not very helpful. He's not stupid enough to test fate and see if he would float if he walked forward, but the house seemed to do just fine being suspended in the blue. Raindrops land on his nose, and he wipes it away with the sleeve of his jacket. The view gave him serenity.
"Woah!" Micha jumped out from his bed, sprinting towards the door.
Z grabbed the back of the boy's shirt, afraid he would misstep and fall straight through the sky. Maybe there would be land down there to catch him, but most probably he would fall forever or die via fall damage.
"It's pretty." Micha's hands grabbed Z's, trying to free himself from the other's grip. Z does not relent. "I'm not stupid. I won't fall, I swear." He pouts, almost dragging the other down with him as he sat on the floor.
To Z's annoyance, Micha inches further towards the doorway, just enough so his feet dangled off. The boy reached out his hands as his eyes closed, immersing himself in the feeling of rain against his skin.
"Been a long time since I felt the rain…" He leans against the doorframe, legs swaying back and forth. It's cute.
"Guess you need to go outside more."
Z retreated into the house, keeping a keen eye on Micha, still afraid he might fall. His heart seemed to be at ease now that they were stuck in the blue rain, which although not very ideal was more pleasant than what they previously faced. After a while, the boy stretches out his arms, laying down on the floor while his legs remained swaying. The hem of his shorts had gotten water on them now, patterns of wet circles painted onto the white fabric.
"What's your job?" Micha asked.
"I work at a fish market. It's pretty boring."
"Is it smelly in there? Fish doesn't smell good."
"Real smelly. I'm thinking of becoming a blood splatter analyst instead. Just need to finish up my studies."
"Blood splatter ana-list?" Micha sits up, turning his body towards Z with curiosity. "What's that?"
"Um…" He takes a moment to figure out what he's going to say. The concept of staring at blood to figure out how someone got their brains blasted seemed too grim to explain to a child. "It's kind of like a detective? They help find out how someone died through the blood they left behind."
"Ooh, cool! I wanted to be a detective too." Stars shined in Micha's eyes. "I'd be like Sherlock Holmes, solving crimes left and right."
"I'm sure you'd be a great detective, Micha."
"I sure would've!" A bright smile stretches across Micha's face, Z can't help but reflect it back at him. "Would you be my assistant?"
"Hm… Sure sounds fun. The great detective Micha and his assistant, Z." he mused.
A peaceful silence follows their conversation, the sound of rain taking space in the house.
Z can't remember when the sight faded away, but he soon awoke from this dream as well. The sunlight shined into his eyes as he sat up from his bed, looking out the window and realizing there was a light drizzle that morning. Micha's face lingered in his memory. He's guessing he'll meet the boy again the next time he dreams.