---

Echoing. Ringing. Piercing. Terrible, tragic silence as if the audio and video of a film had become desynced. Static filled his senses and the taste of metal filled his mouth. The blizzard had calmed and the ice had thawed as Fubuki stood still, frozen in place by the image in front of him. He was worn out, all of his energy spent, unable to continue fighting and yet this world seemed uncaring of his exhaustion. The winged nightmare aside, the glass he had finally managed to shatter was already attempting to reform itself, or worse. Death seemed to only stall the beasts of this plane. Torn between two reactions, fight or flight, Fubuki was paralyzed with indecision.

This is why I don't play wizards in D&D man. Getting ambushed when you're out of spell slots sucks. What do I even do in this situation? Do I have one enemy or two? I just need a moment to rest, to breathe. Where are my exit points? Is this really the best I can do? Can the other two get away on their own? If I could only have a second.

When was the last time I've been this tired? Is the rabbit kid able to move? How long have I been standing here? Why can't I feel my legs? I need some time. Can I even afford to worry about them right now? How long would it even take for me to recover after doing something like that? Is this how I die? Can I let them die in my place? Just a moment.



The prismatic shards that were swirling together froze in midair, as if time had simply stopped for them. A golden opportunity that Fubuki was naught to waste. There was no guarantee that the shards would stay frozen nor that the angel wouldn't interfere in some way. The other two seemed unable to act as one was wracked with pain and the other frozen at the sight of the winged guest just as he was moments ago. Fubuki dashed over to the other two, panting from fatigue, lungs burning as he struggled to breathe. Even if every organ in his body decided to fail, his strength refused to give out when there was still a battle to be won. He picked up his two compatriots as gently as he could with his rigid arms without stopping and continued down the nearest hallway. He could tell his senses were dulling as his head pounded from this place's incessant buzzing.

As quickly and as far as he could go, Fubuki ran until his vision was too blurred to tell if he was even going straight anymore. Hoping that he had succeeded in putting some distance between them and danger, he looked at the wolf girl and attempted the closest thing his form could to a reassuring smile.

"Give me just a moment to catch my breath... and I'll... be able... to keep... figh-"

Fubuki passed out, no longer able to keep his body standing.

Ohh no. It seems, in whatever atrocious nightmare Tohato had fallen into, he’d found the worst reality possible. Apparently, he was a winged monstrosity. Apparently, he landed on a beast. Apparently, there were 3 other…. People..? There, and they… probably saw him as a threat. And, apparently, that thing he’d landed on was reforming itself.

Wonderful. Just… wonderful. Tohato looked down at his… hands…? Talons? At the void that he became, and the red light that somehow still emitted from him. The red eyes around him, his strange halo, spun as he tried to register everything. But… wait. He could register the rabbit puppet and the strange humanoid deer, the two that had fallen in that hallway right as he landed in this new form, were… people. They both spoke, aware. And, on top of that, the one still standing— a girl, with some more… wolf-like..? Features? Definitely the most human out of the whole group. Her first instinct was to ask him if he was going to harm them.

“What?! No— n-no, I don’t— uh—“ Tohato shifted his weight and felt that glass dig into his strange void skin, that dark candle wax. That was…. painful to say the least— wait. Why was he experiencing pain? This was a dream! This had to be a dream— this absolutely wasn’t his body, this absolutely isn’t the real world.

Fuck, there was no time to think right now! They had to get out of there! He promptly ran to the nearby hallway where everyone that wasn’t a glass abomination was. Out of the many arms and wings, Tohato reached out a pair to the strange collapsed doll.

Then, he looked over to the woman that still stood, and spoke— somehow, he spoke, despite… not exactly feeling where his mouth is. “Hey— Ms. Wolf, we— we need to leave, right now, so please help me drag the other person out of here!”

And with that, the cosmic horror that had landed just moments ago sped off with a stranger in his arms, instinct taking over the fear of how… this wasn’t actually just a dream.

As glass simply hung within the air, caught and entwined by unseen strings, time held no meaning here. No rules are imposed but the world's own.

Within the dark heart, a place that saw all within the aberrant landscapes of the Alterworld, the trinity watched, as hands were placed upon the table.

"Knowing you, Erebus, you like this little game you play with these humans... if they can even be called that after what you did to them. I don't know how Malgam puts up with you, dear brother..." The formless one let free a sigh, Nyx crossing her arms across the table as she sat, the cowl that enshrouded her head pulled low.

"The least you could have done is give them more information about their predicament, instead of throwing them straight into the fire."

"I didn't ask you to comment on the way I conduct my business." The masked one, Erebus, retorted. Taking his own seat, the one of many faces silently adjusted his outfit, as if waiting for something to happen as he stared intently at his contracted...

---

"AH!" Chihiro cried out as she was pulled to the hallway, before she was set down, the deer passing out on the ground, pushed to his limit.

Her gaze is brought to the black hole- fallen angel- thing, as it spoke, uttering its frantic words as it brought the puppet into one of its many pairs of arms...

"W-wait! We don't even know where the exit is, let alone if there even is one!" She called out, anxiously going to the deer as she steadily began dragging him toward where the seraph went... Her eyes drifting down to a glass shard grasped in her paw, colorful and reflective... yet her reflection showed not what her form was here, but her more human visage. Her eyes closed for a brief second, stowing the shard away, as she dragged the unconscious deer.

"Just... Wait for me!"

---

A Dream Within

A Dream Within

A Dream Within

A Dream . . . Surely, it had to be a dream. You're not supposed to feel pain within a dream though, at least that's what people always say. Maybe if I was heavily lucid I could hallucinate the pain? But, can you fall unconscious in a dream? If not, then am I dreaming now or did I fall deeper into whatever realm I was in? If the first layer had animals and animal-people and weird mirrors, then what's to animals that animals are to humans? Bugs? Bugs are animals too though, so maybe bacteria? Will I be a deer talking to an amoeba and have a bunny-virus ally to help fight a spider shadow-puppet? That's stupid, I'm stupid for thinking about that.

Then there was light, and a room, and belongings within the room. A simple living room with worn-out furniture and stained carpet, a man's voice coming from an adjacent room, sirens from outside getting closer. Fubuki sat, much smaller than he remembered being, on the floor. His head barely peered over the coffee table he was next to. He stood up and it was evident that he had been de-aged to about 8 years old. He approached the sound of his father's voice, the dark room filled with nothing but his voice and two silhouettes. Father was pacing back and forth on the phone, the other figure was on the ground, motionless. The sirens were right outside, and other people stormed in before snatching up Fubuki's smaller body and moving him out of the house. He felt empty, confused, and disconnected. This wasn't an experience he remembered having, and he doubted he'd remember this dream once he woke up.

Then the police car dropped him off at his house, and he felt excited to see his mother again. Fubuki noted that at some point he had put on his schoolbag before watching three men leave his house. He assumed they were likely friends of his father as men often came and went to talk to him, although his friends were often rude and loud. He went inside, the house was cold and he heard rasping coming from the side room. "Mom?! Are you sick again? Do you went me to get you some cold medicine?" the boy shouted with no response. His body went cold, his mother would always get on to him for shouting through the house but she was silent. The rasping continued.

Mother left . . . Remember? She left us, and the house has been empty ever since. Who is that rasping in the house then? A street bum who broke in? "Mom?"

Fubuki approached the room, opened the door, and stared at the floor. He couldn't see anything, a black rasping blur was all that existed on the ground. His gut sank as he tried to process what he was looking at. Then, Father burst into the house. Drunk, shouting, angry. He came into the room and lost it. Father shouted at Fubuki to get out of there and don't come back in. He ran, trying hard to remember what he saw. He couldn't see anything, gods why couldn't he see anything. He ran out of the house as sirens rang in the background.

Then he ran out of his room, crying and panicked. His mother came over to hold him and calm him down. She sung softly and stroked his hair until her warmth reset his system back to normal, forgetting what he had seen. Or, not seen.

"Are you okay my dear Fuyu? Did you have a bad day at school?"

Fubuki couldn't remember anything. He felt scared, as if he knew something bad was about to happen. He tried to push that out of his mind, he was just glad to be with his mother again. There was a knock at the door, his mother went to go answer it but Fubuki pulled at her clothes to stop her. He was too small to do anything, too weak to pull her away. She opened the door, three men pushed it open and forced their way in, his blood froze. Every inch of him told him to run, but he couldn't leave his mother behind. Everyone was led into the side room, but Fubuki was pushed out. He banged on the door, helplessly, doing everything in his power to get the door open. There was arguing, and a scream, and a . . .

Then Fubuki's eyes opened, awake.

Clammor. Everything just felt like noise as things started to happen. It was all just c o l o r s. Just chaotic jumbles of nonsensical colors frantically flashing and clashing at the edges of his vision as he was tossed about like the puppet he appeared to be. That, along with the ever-shifting presence of hot and cold surrounding them made the whole situation disorienting enough that Kousuke found themself feeling physically sick as they were jumbled about in the waxy creature's arms. His stomach churned violently with each jostling stride and eventually, he could take no more of it.

Forcefully, Kousuke twisted in the angel's hold and promptly shoved against the beast to throw themself out of the creature's arms. He rolled as he toppled to the floor and curled on his side for a moment with a long groan.

"You'll thank me for that..." he muttered. It was only a few beats longer before he quickly propped himself up slightly and...well, there went that lunch...nothing new there. Granted, though, it was the first time he had vomited in a mirrored black void!

That's a stupid thing to be positive about. There's nothing positive about any of this. I'm a literal puppet! Surrounded by equally bizarre freaks! Bizarre freaks who are now watching me vomit my brains out. Oh─ Oh no─

Kousuke coughed and gagged, choking on his own bile as he realized─

They're watching me! They can see this! They can see me! Like this!

"Fuck.." the word bubbled out of his mouth as he fought to hold back the reflex to just let it all out, but it was no use. The sound of his own heaving and everything else that came with it was enough to make him feel even more sick to his stomach and he just continued to go through the motions until there was nothing left to give.

A horror. A horror. I am a horror. I am a horror in a dream that’s not a dream that’s a dream and this isn’t my body and—

Tohato’s thoughts halted. The living doll broke away.

The living doll proceeded to throw up. Oh no. Was this his fault? He just crashed in. He didn’t mean to fall in here. His body ached. The body that wasn’t his. The many eyes shifted to stare at the bunny marionette or whatever he was. Many eyes. Many red eyes. They all blinked on their own, too. Tohato sure felt like he was giving a worried expression, but… well.

How does a void show emotion?

His many pairs of wings flapped and tried to settle themselves across his wax form. He almost chirped, chittered. Pain shot up from his feet. Feet..? Could he call them feet? His form shifted again. He chose to set himself on the ground, as much as he could with all his strange feathers and… body parts? Were they really his? No time to figure that out. Uh…

Tohato simply started to pick at the glass shards imbedded in the wax layer, pulling that strange fabric draped over him aside. It hurt, yes, but he needed to walk. What if there was something else coming? Let’s see— the marionette bunny is throwing up, the deer guy— well. He actually woke up? Opened his eyes? What kind of dream happened? And there was the wolf lady.

“I-I know I entered this place… I think… I-I crashed through.. the ceiling? The… the sky? I d… don’t know about you guys…?” Damn, he was stammering so much… no doubt because of what just happened. And the fact he was in the process of digging glass out of his already bad feet. “If we enter, then we can come out. There’s definitely a way out, even if… if reality right now doesn’t have those rules. I’m sure all of you guys came from somewhere, too. I came f-from…”

He had to pause. It was wax. He was wax! He wasn’t even bleeding, really! Just light. Just. A lot of light that fissured out and then got sucked back up and continued on and on. It hurt, though. Wax wasn’t supposed to have those funky little receptors! What were they called? Neurons? Nerves? Nervous system? Something like that.

“I came from… my dad’s cafe. The outside. I was… checkin’ the girls. Chickens…” Tohato still decided to continue after he got some more pieces out and bore with the pain. It wasn’t like he never experienced pain before! He felt it all the time!! His leg always hurt, his body and especially his back creaked when he moved, his mind was in pain so often.

Another piece came out. He didn’t feel anything else in the wax. Maybe dust? Shards? But those were in the wax. The wax… Why was his skin wax?