𝙾𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙸 ~ 𝟷𝟶 𝚈𝙴𝙰𝚁𝚂

a dream.

TW: possible derealisation, course language, mentions of trauma, yelling, violence and brutal sprout mole death™.

The monochrome version of Hero held onto me tightly... and he smiled. His eyes looked empty, but still kind. He didn't look like he did last time I was in the dream world, he didn't look like how he was in the bed of the hospital... He looked like how he did when I told everyone about what had happened. 19 years old. His black eyes met mine, and it felt as if the world was slowed down in an instant. It was Hero. He was alive. Well, alive-ish, anyway.

"He..."

"Yuki."

"How do you know my name?" I asked, prying his fingers off of my arm and staring at him. I was barely shorter than him. It amazes me still how both he and Kel were so freakishly tall. Maybe I was just short. I was probably just short.

"I'm going to be honest with you... I don't know. I just woke up here. I have no idea where this place is."

"You d-don't remember?"

"I've never been here."

I stumbled over my words. Never been here? Of course he had been here before, how could he not have? I remember it distinctly. "How did you get here, Hero?"

"I don't know. I was staring into the mirror of the bathroom one day, but I kind of lost sense of the world," he murmured, placing a hand on his head and flinching in what seemed to be pain. "There was something that was floating behind me. I then woke up and I was here."

"...Something floating behind you?" I asked, panic slowly rising in my voice. It couldn't be. "What did it look like?"

"It was... It was black. Pitch black, with one large eye. I didn't get to see it properly, it was just for a second, but it feels kind of burnt into my brain. Is that weird?"

"...Slightly."

I thought we had gotten rid of it.

I thought it was gone.

I thought she was gone.

I thought she was gone.

I thought she was gone.

I thought...

"Hey, are you alright? You don't look all that well," Hero asked, placing his hands on my shoulders. I looked at him with an expression of what could only be terror. And, then, he squatted down, picking something off of the ground. He examined it, twirling it around in his fingers in curiosity. A white petal. They were coating the floor. "...And do your tears normally do that?"

I had only then noticed I was crying. I wiped my left eye with my fist, collecting the water droplets and wiping them on the leg of my jeans, and then I reached to feel the other side. There wasn't liquid, just flower petals, spilling to the ground. I could practically feel as the roots of the plant coiled themselves around my brain.

"Yuki? YUKI!"

"Oh, right, I'm sorry."

"You seem to know more about this place than I do. Care to explain?"

"I will if you keep your voice down. Here is a place you do not want to get caught."

"Alright," he whispered, almost cowering at the way I snapped at him.

"So, a basic explanation of this situation: Welcome to Sweetheart's Castle. You don't remember this, but you, myself, Kel and Aubrey had a fight ages ago with this lady named Sweetheart but she had feelings for you and you broke her heart and she snapped, ten years later and we're back, Aubrey, Kel and Basil have been kidnapped and she's really mad at both you and I. Got it?"