Chiaroscuro

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In a week's time, a lot had unfolded. Many discoveries were made, none of which were pleasant.

For one, there was actually life here in this world, but it wasn't pretty. This place was a host to an entire ecosystem that wasn't just tied to enormous mushrooms, as bizarre and eccentric as it could be.

Prime example: Carnivorous flesh-eating bunnies.

Of course.

Of course.

Right now, as Aldrich ran for his life from a hungry horde of the aforementioned bunnies racing after him, he bounced on top of a shorter mushroom before leaping onto a bigger and taller one. Through his acrobatic endeavors, spurts of sunlight jetted out from his feet, boosting him higher into the air.

However, some of the bunnies, with their sharp fangs bared open, decided to crowd around the front of the mushroom he was atop of. Together, they all lunged forward, bashing their fluffy white bodies against the mushroom stem.

They intended to knock down the stem with the collective force of their numbers. The surface of the mushroom quaked underneath Aldrich.

Think, think, think.

He could blast them away with some sunbeams, but then he would be blasted away to who knows where himself. And while he couldn't necessarily fly, he could still conjure up enough sunlight around his feet to avoid a major crash landing.

He tossed a glance behind his shoulder, only for his stomach to sink once he realized that there was nothing but an ocean of mud awaiting him. By some cruel twist of fate, this mushroom was the last of its kind before crossing into more uncharted territory. Nothing else could be seen beyond the horizon.

It was either drowning in mud or facing the carnivorous flesh-eating bunnies. And as much as he hated getting dirty, he couldn't afford the luxury of decent hygiene. Not anymore, not since being dropped into this cursed realm. He couldn't afford to die either, especially since he'd already sworn to himself that he would find another portal back home.

And so, with a sharp inhale, he jumped off the mushroom cap and plummeted into the murky brown abyss down below.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

Chocolate.

Not mud.

Chocolate.

He had been drowning in endless tides of chocolate. The only reason he managed to survive was because he had barely managed to catch onto a slanted slab of blue rock candy jutting out from the edge of a waterfall.

Though all of his limbs were still intact, he was drenched to the bone in the sticky sweet sustenance. First the carnivorous flesh-eating bunnies and now this.

Aldrich truly was done.

This world was topsy turvy, with no rhythm or rhyme. For the past week, he'd been exploring the chaotic wilderness of a mushroom mania, only to now stumble into a candy wonderland instead.

He had unlocked a new destination, but at what cost?

As he trudged past spirals of candy cane trees, stomping over bubblegum pink gravel with a trail of chocolate footsteps, his stomach let out a painful growl. Once more, he felt his insides churning. He hadn't had anything to eat for days.

The last time he ate something, he took the risk of consuming a patch of some, er, smaller mushrooms. Luckily, they weren't harmful, though they did trigger a trippy hallucination episode that led him right into those bunnies in the first place.