Stuck In Paradise

Sweetheart's Castle pt3

When Aubrey first woke up in this whacky dream world she thought it was just going to be one of those weird dreams that reminded her of the past. It did do that, but it also did more. When she woke up after Basil disappeared she just thought it was a quick nightmare. Nothing more, nothing less.

Then the bet she made happen. The one with Kel and the Windows Downloader thing. The bet of ten dollars if he landed a hit that dealt a lot of damage. She jokingly said she would give him the money out of the dream world, thinking it would be funny handing Kel ten dollars with no context to him whatsoever.

Then he brought it up in conversation. Well, more like she brought it up in conversation as a joke, and then Kel randomly mentioned the bet out of the blue. Needless to say, she kept to her word and handed him the money but tried to convince herself that it was just a weird coincidence. Maybe Kel had a dream similar to her’s, she couldn’t simply accept they had the same dream.

The universe really wasn’t helping her at all by showing the dream creatures floating around Faraway. At that point, Aubrey really felt like she lost her mind. Perhaps it was just her being exhausted, after all, wouldn’t you be if you saw the dumbest person you know hold up a knife?

When she fell asleep that night she actually felt relieved that she could prove to herself that last night's dream was just a weird one-time thing.

When she woke up she was back in that weird colorful room. Hero still had his eyes closed yet Kel looked at her with a grin.

He brought up the money again, and that is when she knew it wasn’t a coincidence.

~~~~~~

The next event to shock her was the Lost Forest.

“T̷o̵ ̴t̴r̵u̷l̵y̸ ̸e̵s̴c̴a̸p̶e̸ ̸t̸h̷e̸ ̵p̵e̴r̴i̷l̵s̶ ̶o̷f̵ ̴h̵i̵s̸ ̴o̴w̷n̶ ̷f̴a̷c̴u̵l̴t̶y̸ ̷a̴n̴d̵ ̷a̷s̶c̵e̵n̴d̶ ̷t̴o̶ ̶a̵ ̸b̴l̶i̴s̵s̷f̸u̴l̷ ̴s̵t̷a̶t̷e̴ ̸o̴f̷ ̷i̶g̵n̷o̵r̸a̸n̷c̷e̷,̴ ̵o̴n̶l̷y̵ ̵t̸h̵e̵n̵ ̷w̷o̵u̸l̶d̷ ̶t̴h̴e̷ ̵n̷o̸i̵s̷e̸ ̵b̴e̶ ̷s̴i̶l̶e̶n̸c̷e̶d̴.̸ ̵S̵o̷ ̸t̵h̶e̶ ̶d̶r̷e̶a̶m̴e̶r̶ ̸c̸h̵a̶n̴g̶e̷d̷ ̵h̷i̷s̸ ̶n̶a̷m̵e̵ ̸a̴n̷d̴ ̷c̶h̷o̴s̸e̷ ̷t̸o̵ ̴f̸o̶r̶g̴e̸t̴ ̴h̵i̴m̸s̷e̷l̸f̵.̴ ̸”

It wasn’t hard to piece together who the “Dreamer” was from that line alone. Omori was Sunny and this was Sunny’s dream world. After all, Omori in this world was Mari’s little brother just going by a different name.

In all honesty, this actually made her concerned for Sunny. He changed his name and created this whole dreamworld, plus Kel in the real world said that Sunny was carrying a knife for some strange reason. Omori wields a knife so Aubrey wouldn’t be surprised if he brought it out for protection.

Protection from what was the question Aubrey didn’t know how to answer.

~~~~~~

When she jumped into the hole after Omori it was to make sure the group didn’t split up. After all, who knows what dangerous monster could have been hiding down there?

There was no monster, but what Aubrey saw shocked her more than any monster could.

She was now in Basil’s room. His real room from his real house, not the Dreamworld version of it. On the ground are photos from his photo album that were covered in scribble marks covering up most of the details from the photos, though the photos were of them from the real world. Not the Dreamworld ones she saw from this world's Basil.

His album was empty as all the other photos were gone. She felt her heartache. Wasn’t this Sunny’s dream? How would he know about the scribbled-out photos?