Ragatha awoke in Pomni's arms, still slightly disoriented from sleep. She moved carefully as to not wake her up, before hopping off the bed and tucking the covers over Pomni.
She stretched a bit and then decided to try and see if breakfast would be served soon. So she opened up the door and quietly walked out to the balcony, to try to get a glance at the main floor.
Not much was there, but the sky seemed... Darker? Strange shadows fogged up the floor with the occasional white speck flying from them, nearly looking like snow.
"Should I go wake the others...?" Ragatha thought aloud to herself before being startled by a voice behind her.
"No need. Could barely get any sleep last night, UGH." Jax complained as he rubbed his eyes. "Whatcha lookin' at?" He questioned before looking out over the balcony and realizing.
"Ok, then." He continued nonchalantly as he began walking down the stairs leading to the main floor.
"Do you think that maybe the weather thing from yesterday... Wasn't a one-time thing?" Ragatha asked in a concerned tone, as she crossed her arms over herself.
"Mm. Possible, I guess. Though I wouldn't be surprised if this is just one of Caine's elaborate pranks on us." Jax half-mumbled as he continued down the stairs.
Deciding there wasn't a much better course of action, Ragatha simply decided to go back to Pomni's room and tell her when she woke up. To her knowledge, no one else was awake yet, so it's not like she had a ton of options.
Ragatha opened up the door again to see Pomni just beginning to stir and wake up for the day, so she shut the door quietly behind her.
Pomni slowly rose from the bed and rubbed her eyes awake, and slowly climbed out of bed.
"Mm... are you ok, Doll? You seem a little stressed..." Pomni yawned.
"Uh, well... The clouds are back and uh... I guess that warrants a little concern." Ragatha explained awkwardly as she looked at her still-fairly-tired girlfriend.
"The clouds are what." Pomni repeated, shocked. "Yeah, uh, I'm starting to worry it wasn't just a one-time thing..." Ragatha murmured as she looked to the side.
"Well, uh, should we go take a look?" Pomni asked Ragatha as she reached her hand out to her.
"Yeah, good idea." Ragatha responded as she took Pomni's hand and placed a light kiss on it, making Pomni laugh.
The two of them exited the room and walked to the balcony, where they noticed that Zooble was also there, along with Gangle, who was curled up by the balcony wall. Kinger was already downstairs with Jax, where the cloud situation seemed to be getting worse. Now it looked more like a whirlpool of flat gray with some white flecks mixed in, occasionally flying out. Except now instead of being snow, it was more like huge chunks of hail.
Ragatha also noticed the brewing storm had grown quite a bit. Around twice its original size, actually.
The four of them rushed downstairs, with Gangle being the last one, before arriving at the main floor, where the storm certainly wasn't getting any better. Chunks of hail would escape the swirl of clouds every couple of seconds, and nobody wanted to get hit by one of those.
Zooble was cursing at the sky, Kinger was hiding in his rebuilt pillow fort, Gangle was curled up on the ground, Jax was still yawning through the cacophony, and Caine was nowhere to be found. As usual.
Suddenly the clouds expanded even more, and even more white flecks appeared within the storm. Before they knew it, the storm had partially lowered to ground level and surrounded them, with a pillar of bright white glow down the middle.
"Um, that doesn't seem good..." Gangle squeaked. "Eh, how bad can it be?" Jax shrugged as he casually just... walked into the random light. God, he must be bored.
Kinger then randomly dove into the pillar of light after Jax, not saying anything while doing so. Has everyone lost their minds? Ragatha thought to herself.
Zooble than was about to go in. "Jax, you fool! You don't just go walking around into bright lights! That's how you end up DEAD!" They shouted into the pillar.
Gangle was standing up near the portal trembling with fear, quite reasonably. "Uhh, theater ribbons. Come on, don't get left behind." Ragatha was surprised to see Zooble's tone soften, but just as soon as she could process it, Zooble had walked into the pillar of light, holding Gangle's ribbon hand behind them.
"Well, let's go, I guess. Could be exciting." Pomni shrugged a bit as she spoke.
"Yeah, you're right, let's go." Ragatha smiled warmly back at her as they both walked into the light, hand in hand.
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Everyone ended up in what looked to be a flower-filled meadow, with all kinds of plants around, and even some trees scattered here and there.
Ragatha and Pomni walked in the middle of the group, shuffling closer to one another whenever there was a cluster of trees they had to go through. Zooble and Gangle had wound up just behind them, with Zooble's expression hidden from view. Kinger was just in front of them, out of sorts, as always. And Jax was a little bit ahead of Kinger, relaxed and laid-back with his hands behind his head as they all walked through the grassy field.
Eventually, they came to a larger clearing of trees, with small mice scuttling around and some rabbits hopping about. The further they got in, the more... Real everything felt. And not just circus-real. It felt... almost like back home, wherever that was.
The trees only got thicker the further in the cluster they went, until eventually the branches in front of them were sagging down and blocking their path. Jax mostly held them up, but dropped them a bit on Zooble for fun, which quickly earned him a backhand slap to the face.
Just when it seemed like the branches were so thick they couldn't go on, they started to thin out into a small clearing in the trees with what looked like a clear pond in the middle. Jax pulled away the last branch leading there to reveal...
"Caine?"
YOU ARE READING
Nightmares (TADC)
Hayran Kurgu⬆️(Not my art!)⬆️ Pomni can't take this anymore. The exit doors keep flashing through her vision, taunting her with the possibility of escape. She knows that it's impossible, but she still wants to try. On top of that, she's starting to develop some...
