9 : The Dreamworld
Sorry for the rough picture above, I made it really quickly.
It's basically what I was pictured at the end of Chapter 8, with the floating path in a dreamworld.
—————————————
I quickly ran over to them, shaking their limp bodies. Kintes stirred first.
"Zepth?" He squinted his eyes, blinking the sleepiness away. Kintes glanced around and then smirked at me. "This is a dream, isn't it?"
"No, it's not!" I ran over to Deltul, panic in my voice. "Wake up guys!"
Nota and Deltul sat up, equally as confused.
"Where am I-" They both began, but I cut them off with a paw.
"I don't know where and I don't know how." I explained. "But Milodr came to be and told me there will be a series of trials."
"What kind of trials?" Kintes asked, lowering his brows in determination.
"Well... he failed to mention that." I bit my lip. "And I don't want anyone to get hurt, so please just wait here until I can wake us all up."
"If we're dreaming, can we even be injured?" Deltul glanced at the broken path ahead.
"Yeah! Let's just hop off this floating rock and wake up." Nota fiercely charged to the side.
"Nota!" I shrieked. Kintes grabbed her and pulled her away from the ledge. "Let's not use a potentially fatal test, okay?"
"What do you suggest!" She huffed.
I thought for a moment, then gestured to my claws. They all stared as I pricked the soft padding of my finger with the sharp tip. Dark red trickled down my arm.
"Oh..." She worriedly looked at me.
————————————
I was too afraid Nota would try to jump off the path to leave her alone, but I wasn't happy about bringing them along. It could be dangerous ahead.
Regardless, we all carefully stepped on the dirt road, and into the misty beyond.
The sides of the ledge were cracked and crumbling away. The bits were floating, as if frozen in time forever.
It was eerie.
But the path was getting thinner.
Pretty soon, we were walking in a line, and even shifting our steps when it got especially narrow.
There were times, I admit, where I thought about how much easier it would be if I just threw myself off and died. Then, everyone else would wake up. Can't test if I'm worthy to live if I'm already dead.
But I quickly shook the thought away, reminding myself of my previous self argument.
In fact, I was persistent. I would prove that fate doesn't make mistakes, and no one will die.
I nervously glanced behind, towards Kintes.
No one will die.
————————————
We continued onward, each with our own theories about where we actually were. Was this a real place? Or somewhere in our hidden reality? Perhaps this was a dimension created by the Dragon Gods. But one thing was for certain: we couldn't go on.
No, literally.
The path was so thin and crumbled, that we were afraid to step onto the barely connected chunks of rock. It didn't seem to get better farther up, in fact, it seemed to thin into nothing.
"Anyone have any ideas?" Nota shakily kept her eyes on the floor.
"I'm thinking! I'm thinking!" I bit my lip, wobbling a little as my balance was momentarily lost. I couldn't imagine if we fell...
Wait a second.
What if we fell? Surely it had to end eventually. True, we could fly straight back up, but if the distance was too great, we would tire and be unable to. We weren't machines. Flying vertically was exhausting.
But we didn't have any other options.
"If you see anything dangerous at the bottom, unfold your wings and catch yourself." I briskly told everyone. Before their confused looks could manage a question, I rolled over the side and free-fell into the bizarre world.
————————————
The air was rushing past my eyes, making them water. I dove through the sky, slicing through strange cloud formations.
The air was swooshing along my scales with such force, that I could barely move. I picked up speed, the wind whistled.
I glanced up. Everyone else was following.
And then as the ground came rushing up to meet me, I used every muscle and forced my wings to unfold slowly, gradually slowing myself down. I flapped a few extra times to regain control.
Deltul, followed by Nota, also stopped their dives. Kintes also stopped, and gave me a laugh while raising his brows.
"You're one Taliig of a diver, I'll give you that." He grinned, and I snorted back.
"I know." I laughed and nudged him with my shoulder.
We all landed and glanced around in curiosity. The land was exactly like the path, extremely far above us, but it was whole.
It was flat and endless.
It was our first trial.
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top