ｏｍｏｒｉ： １０ ｙｅａｒｓ (2022 ver)

wednesday?

warnings: blood/gore, violence, breaking bones, negative self-talk, vomit, mentions of death/manslaughter/suicide, description of a corpse, body horror, possible dissociation

When I woke up, I woke up to blue skies, a blanket of stratus clouds rolling across above me. 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. I groaned a little as I sat up. Sleeping on the ground doesn't do wonders for your back.

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

"Ugh... What happened?"

"You passed out. Then we passed out too, and people were cleaning up when we woke up, so we pitched in," Aubrey explained as I rubbed my aching head.

"You all look filthy. Come here." I licked my thumb, rubbing it against the dirty patches on their faces, 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. The world around me looked a whole lot cleaner than the night before. As I said before, people were wandering around, cleaning up. Everything was beginning to look nicer, but there was a black and white shape in my peripheral vision that wouldn't leave. I couldn't make out what it was, but it was in the corner of my eye, and it wouldn't cease.

"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 once, yet they always fell through.

"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. The rusted steak knife that was there sliced into my finger, drawing blood and making me wince. I stopped myself from cursing as I put it in my mouth, sucking the wound in hopes of cleaning the blood away. 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 of doing that alone!"

"To be fair, Kel, we were starving without 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 in shock, protest and excitement, 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 entrusted with three twelve year-olds, 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 together with thin white strands. There was a cool change in the air, and shivers made their ways down everyone's spines.