Were We Doomed From The Start?

18.- Trash Heap

Ninja fell to the world below, briefly knocked out by the landing, waking up on a golden flower bed.

His glasses had been tossed aside, into the shallow water which was surrounding him entirely while his backpack sat next to him on the dry bed of flowers.

He got up and grabbed his glasses, drying them off using a corner of his shirt then wiping off a smidgen of blood on his cheek, once again taking note of his surroundings, grabbing the backpack and walking along the collapsed bridge on the ground, jumping from spot to spot, almost slipping on certain areas.

Trudging through the waterfall like place, he passed by mounds of garbage, vaguely remembering the brands that they bared.
Heading deeper into the cold and dark trash heap, he went by a few more piles of trash, seeing how the waterfall he was next to was flowing from the ceiling of the cavern, with an occasional piece of garbage flowing through, falling into the bottomless abyss down below.

Watching the endless cycle of garbage flowing through Waterfall, filled him with determination.

Having went into the next room, he saw a rusted bike, resting his hand on it as he squeezed the horn, which let out a honk of despair. On the deeper parts of the water, he held up his backpack to not soak it and his journal inside.

Sometimes, he would scribble the path on a note which he kept in his pocket to add to the map later, looking to get out of the trash zone first and reunite with the other two.

Further down, was a case of a beat-up desktop computer, the internals gone and dented from its fall down into the Underground. Up ahead was a cooler, with no brand or signs of wear. Rummaging through the cooler, he found it had two freeze-dried space food bars. Ninja took them, placing them gently in his bag, right on top of the Abandoned Quiche. Taking note of his surroundings once again, he was about to go past a regular training dummy but he felt as if he was being stared at. He briefly stood in front of it, making eye contact then went past it, hearing a noise just as he was about to leave the room, turning around to see the dummy turn a brighter orange, start levitating and then teleport directly in front of him, blocking his way out.

"Hahaha...
Too intimidated to fight me, huh!?
I am a ghost that lives inside a DUMMY. My cousin used to live inside a DUMMY, too.
Until...

YOU DESTROYED THEIR HOME!
Us ghosts spend our while lives looking for a proper vessel. Slowly, slowly, we grow closer to our new bodies...

Until one day, we too may become corporeal beings. Beings able to laugh, love, and dance like any other...
But YOU!!!!
My cousin's future...!
You took it all away!

Despicable.
Despicable!
DESPICABLE!
HUMAN!
I hope you're not too attached to YOUR body...
Because your SOUL's about to get EVICTED!!!"

Ninja had no other option but to fight the dummy, getting out his stick and aiming for the neck, doing no damage. The mad dummy laughed at him and called their attack a foolish attempt, because they took no damage by failing to be corporeal.
A fight began, Ninja's soul appearing in the box again, dodging the balls of scribbles being tossed at him by smaller little dummies.
While dodging, Ninja had moved up a bit, going around the scribbles which then hit the Mad Dummy, dealing damage.

"OWWW, you DUMMIES!!
Watch where you're aiming your MAGIC attacks!
...
Hey!
You!
Forget I said anything about MAGIC!!!"

It was Ninja's turn again, and he skipped his turn, allowing Mad Dummy to attack with the goal of making the small dummies hit him.

"I'll defeat you and take your SOUL!"
It yelled.

Ninja didn't break concentration as he dodged again, constantly moving up so the dummies would hit it. Mad Dummy took damage, acting like it didn't happen so Ninja would quit.