Little Dreams and Hollow Nightmares

Ph1 Ch15: The Old Stag

Mono waited for his friend by the acid pool. They were going to come back, he knew they were. They had come back for him last time, so surely they would come back this time. He waited, and waited, and then he saw his friend swimming back through the acid.

"Did you do what you needed to?" Mono asked the knight as it got out of the acid.

The knight nodded.

"Good, then let's go!" Mono said, and the two of them walked out of the teacher's archives.

The walked back through Fog Canyon, and had to avoid a few more obstacles. They came to a large hole in the ground, with jellyfish and electric butterflies floating around. The knight lead Mono down the hole, and together they made their way down, avoiding the jellyfish, and the butterflies. After a while of climbing down, they arrived at the bottom of the hole, and right in front of them was a tunnel that was coated with silver walls.

Mono followed the knight into the room, and he saw that the room was a lot larger than he thought. There were several doorways leading to different rooms, and there were platforms all around so that you could get to them. Mono followed the knight to a room with a sign that had a symbol in the shape of a stag. Mono walked into the room, and he saw a bench in front of a long tunnel. He sat down, letting the soul particles sink into him and heal his wounds. In front of the bench, there was a bell, which the knight struck with its nail.

Suddenly, Mono felt the ground rumbling, and heard a sound coming from tunnel, as if something massive was coming their way.

"W-what's going on?" Mono asked, slightly afraid.

He inched towards the tunnel, and suddenly a humongous stag ran up through the tunnel. The stag stopped right in front of Mono and the knight, and then looked towards them.

"Well hello there my little friend!" The stag said with an old, scratchy voice. "It's very nice to see you again!"

The knight nodded, and the stag looked at Mono.

"Who might you be?" it asked.

"Um..My name is Mono," he said, not knowing anything else to say.

"Are you travelling with the little one?" The stag asked.

"Yes, I am," Mono replied. "Who are you?"

"I am the old stag," the stag replied. "For a long time, stags like myself roamed these stations, carrying passengers throughout the kingdom. But when the infection came, many people stopped using the stag stations, and my kind started to die. For a long time, I considered myself to be the last stag in this vast kingdom, but after finding my home, I had hope that others had escaped this kingdom, and went to live elsewhere."

"Wow, that's...pretty neat," Mono said.

"Yes, but never mind that, where would you like to go?" the stag said, turning towards the knight.

The knight looked at a board, and pointed to a place titled, "Dirtmouth".

The stag sighed. "I almost forgot to tell you, my little friend," they said. "Something has happened, and many of these tunnels have closed off, giving me only a few places to take you. I'm sorry, but the place you want to go has been closed off with several bubbles of that orange infection. I don't dare to go near it, for fear I may lose myself," The stag said.

"Well, where can you take us?" Mono asked.

"Alas, I can only take you as far as the king's station, and nowhere else," The old stag sighed.

"Well, how about we go there?" Mono said, looking at the knight.

The knight shrugged, and started to get onto one of the seats the old stag had on his back. Mono followed the knight, and took a seat on the chair behind the knight.

"Have you ridden a stag before, young one?" the old stag asked, leaning its head towards Mono.

"No, I don't think I have," he replied.

"Then hold on tight!" said the old stag, and it started to run.

As the stag galloped up and down, Mono held onto his seat as he bounced up and down on the stag. They ran through the tunnels, and Mono felt slightly afraid that he might fall off. Despite the old stag's age, it could run pretty fast. The stag carried them through the tunnel, and they came to another station. But this one didn't have a roof over it, and it was pouring down with rain. As Mono got off the stag's back, he felt slightly nauseous, and stumbled his way to the bench.

"Be careful around here," The old stag said. "This city has changed, became more, menacing."

The knight hopped off of the stags back, and walked over to Mono, who was trying to stop his head from spinning. Mono sat still, and focused on the wall in front of him, staring at it while his head moved. Eventually, his nausea faded, and he was perfectly okay. He got off the bench, and he and the knight walked into another room, that was about just as big as the last one. 

The floors were soaking wet, and the walls were polished with a dark blue paint on them. Mono looked around, and saw that all the tunnels were blocked with several large boulders. The knight jumped down into the water below them, and Mono followed. They both got out, and found themselves in another tunnel, which looked like it was previously another stag station. The tunnel where the stag would've come was flooded with water, the sign and bell were destroyed, and the bench looked like it had been sawed in half.

Mono looked back at the knight, and it jumped into the flooded tunnel, swimming underneath the rocks above it. Mono jumped in as well, and swam after his friend. They arrived in a tunnel, that didn't look anything like the station they had entered through, and there was a bunch of rubble all around them. Mono followed the knight to a large opening in the roof of the tunnel, with light pouring out of it. The knight leapt onto the walls of the tunnel, and climbed into the hole. Mono grabbed the rigid edges of the rocks, and followed the knight into the hole.

Once he got there, he saw that this hole had walls, patted with mattress-like material. He was in a small room, with two doors leading to the left and right. The knight walked through one of the doors, and Mono followed. They both climbed up platforms to reach the top of the room, with nothing but patted walls, and a patted door with a keyhole.

Mono remembered they soft, patted keyhole he found back in the Queens Gardens, and pulled it out. He slipped the key into the lock, and the door opened. Mono and the knight walked through, unaware of the deep black creature lurking above them, watching them as they walked into the tower.

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Another chapter done! Once again, thank you to everyone who has been reading this. Although I'm a little concerned why some chapters have more reads than others. How does that work?? I guess people just don't like reading about Nosk.

Anyway, see you next chapter!