𝙾𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙸 ~ 𝟷𝟶 𝚈𝙴𝙰𝚁𝚂

wednesday?

TW: possible derealisation, mentions of death, actual death, breaking bones, blood, spooky spider creatures and negative self-talk.

When I woke up, I woke up to blue skies, stratus clouds rolling across. I wasn't where I had fallen asleep. Rather, a boisterous playground. As I sat up, people were everywhere, hacking at long, winding roots and tall, thorny roses that kept the equipment tangled. People were... cleaning up my Headspace. A group of three very grotty young children ran over to me. I noticed they weren't as skinny, so they must have found something to eat and drink.

"Finally, you're awake! You must really be getting old, you're acting like my grandpa did," Kel said, snickering a little at my surprised face.

"Ugh... What happened?"

"You passed out. Then we passed out too, and this was happening when we woke up, so we pitched in," Aubrey explained as I sat up, rubbing my aching head.

"You all look filthy. Come here." I licked my thumb, rubbing it against the dirty patches, much to the three's collective frustration. They all shouted words of protest. I smiled. "There we go, much nicer."

I must have fallen asleep on the couch to the TV adaptation of Captain Spaceboy, or some other cartoon that was on, because I was back in the dream world. Everything was beginning to look up, but there was a black and white shape always in my peripheral vision. I couldn't make it out, but it was there.

"I see this place is getting cleaned up."

"Oh! Yeah, I guess it is, hehe," Kel said with pride, sweeping his right hand over the horizon but leaving his left one to rest comfortably in Aubrey's. It was adorable, the kind of relationships that kids have. The ones I was so close to experiencing, yet they always fell through in the end.

"But, it's going rather slow," Basil hummed, teetering back and forth on his heels. "We were going to visit Sweetheart's Castle, see if she could help. I mean, last we checked, she had control over a ton of sprout moles. Now you're awake, we could go visit together. I-I mean, if you want."

"There's no reason why I can't," I replied. "I mean, someone's gotta take care of you guys."

I reached into my pocket and felt around. There was a lump of plastic, then I trailed my fingers down to touch a rusted blade. It sliced through my finger, making blood trickle. I stopped myself from cursing as I put it in my mouth, sucking the wound in hopes of cleaning the blood. I just hoped tetanus didn't exist in that world.

"Hey! We don't need people to take care of us, we're perfectly capable!"

"To be fair, Kel, we were starving without Sunny, Mari and Hero."

"...Yeah, you're right." Kel threw his ball in the air, catching it as it fell and spinning it on his finger as he turned back to me. "Well, pops, I hope you know the way... cos last one there's a rotten egg!"

After a bit of yelling, they ran off into the overgrown forest. I followed suit. I knew that if Mari was there, she'd be joking about something stupid like 'my fatherly instincts kicking in'... but I couldn't help but realise that she would have been right. I was just entrusted with three twelve year-old kids that I had to care for, give me a break. They all eventually slowed down when we reached Pyrefly Forest. It got foggy, and there were cobwebs all over the place, connecting trees and bushes. It was a cool change, and shivers made their ways down everyone's spines.

"Sunny... I'm scared," Aubrey mumbled, holding onto my hand with hers. It was small in comparison to my own.

"Come on, we've fought off spiders before. I don't know what there is to be afraid o..."