Hell's Glitch (initial draft)

I_K 1.10 A Dream & 1.11 Out of Sight

Chapter 10

A Dream

Was I dead? I didn't know. My vision was clouded by the dark, obscured, or maybe this was what I wanted to see. Isn't it what I felt? Dark and dead? I was dead, from the waist down. Nearly anyway, but I guess that wasn't enough to call myself dead, no matter how badly I wanted to be. My parents flashed in front of my eyes, so quickly that I thought my eyes were playing a cruel trick on me. That was until I saw him. Dane Mills, the beast who took eighty-seven lives at an amusement park. It was then that I knew. This was what I wanted.

He tried to flicker away like my parents did, but I wouldn't let him. I didn't feel the feedback of my feet against any sort of solid ground and didn't even know if I had feet, but I was in front of Dane Mills in no time at all. If anything, my desire had carried me. Was it my desire too that put the Basilard in my hand? Was it my desire that made Mills turn and run in fear and was it my desire that conjured the alchemy book into my left hand and cast Living Vine to ensnare Mill's entire body? Was it my desire that made me taunt him while he was captured and to cut off his fingers and toes one by one, before stabbing him and reveling in his cries? Even as I screamed and beheaded the evil bastard, I had to wonder if it was my desire that willed all this to happen. And when I felt the hollowness of it, I knew it wasn't real, even less so than the virtual world I'd inhabited. My real revenge on this man would've felt so damn good.

"A dream?" I said as moonlight filtered in through my eyelids. I opened my eyes and beheld the glowing plum colored satellite. Was it always this big? My thoughts went back to the dream, but was that really what it was? That couldn't be right. I was already dreaming according to Alanna. "A dream within a dream? Inception?"

I sat up before I freaked myself out any further. I freaked out anyway when I noticed my legs dangling over a narrow ledge. I nearly panicked myself right over the edge, before scooting my back to the solid wall of rock behind me. I was sitting on a piece of land that stuck out from the cliff. It was shaped, oddly enough, almost like a catcher's mitt but was barely wider than my body. I was folded up inside of it, stuffed like one would stuff a family sized load in a tiny washing machine. Below me, was one hell of a drop into what looked like another forest. The land to the south was noticeably less green and rockier. I willed my HP bar to show and saw that I was nearly dead.

I used the menu to heal myself with the Soul Fire. It forced me to complete the entire drinking animation. Once done, I gathered myself and climbed up the cliff. I'd expected Ji to be at the top, but she was nowhere to be found. How long was I out anyway, I wondered. I collected my weapons then continued back up to the forest and looked around for Ji. I found a few treasures instead.

As I walked, I realized that I wasn't really sure what direction I was going now, and found myself in a part of the forest I didn't recognize. I felt a strong "pull" coming from this direction, something beckoning me to this area, but I wasn't sure what it was. Perhaps it was some prompt from the game. I passed some enemies I hadn't seen before, some tree men. They pranced around the forest, singing and swooning over the moon. I ignored them, as I didn't get the sense that they were a threat and made my way towards a strange voice I heard nearby.

It was a foreign muttering, maybe incantations. I couldn't make out the words, but I knew it was close by. I couldn't see anyone either. Not in the trees or anywhere on the forest floor. It was then that I realized I wasn't hearing a voice, but instead the pull of a transmutation. It was the same feeling that came from my alchemy book. I equipped it to compare the sounds and listened for the alchemy again. It was right in front of me, a transmuted tree. I touched the bark and watched as the tree's trunk was hollowed out. Inside of the tree was a small man seated at a wooden table covered in archaic lab equipment. The man had ignored me until the moon's light filtered in unto him and his table.