Absent Link

Chapter 17: Melding

While Dylan had kind of made a decision to kill Emon, he knew he wasn't really convinced of it. He wasn't that kind of person, and Emon... well, Dylan couldn't speak for Emon. Either way, he was gone now, and why did it matter? Dylan didn't have anyone to plant ideas in his head anymore. He wouldn't have to worry about Emon's control over his actions. He had the option to lay low after all this was done with— if he ever got to that point. Yes, aside from the fact that whatever, or whoever, killed Emon was probably a greater threat to Dylan than he'd faced before, this was for the better. Dylan slowly hung his head, wondering what this would mean for the things Emon generally did, aside from mind controlling him and activating his abilities. He began thinking about how he would connect to other hosts, and tried to reach out his arm into a tentacle just as Emon did, but this didn't seem to work.

Before he tried anything new, he was knocked out of his thoughts by a loud bang from the window next to him. A man was, quite angrily, pounding on the glass. Dylan quickly got up to his feet and leaned in to hear him, turning up his hearing moderately this time. His ears seemed to filter out the background noise and focus in on him, his voice clearly picked out.

"Hey, Lovegood! Are you actually retarded?" he said with an upset voice.

Dylan frowned and motioned for them to go on.

"Try the door down there," the man pointed to Dylan's right side, "I think it locks from the inside."

'You think any of these doors lock from the outside?' Dylan thought in amazement. He did, however, follow the man's lead, running down the hall to the closest door to the outside and trying the handle, only to find that it was locked by a key. He figured that any key he could find would probably open it, given the compromises the Mind Realm had to make when building this world, so he looked around the room, wondering where he might imagine a key was. His thoughts turned to the counter at the entrance. 'That seems reasonable.' He thought. Plus, if it was the first place he thought to look, it would make sense for it to be a place where his mind would place a key.

He turned around and began jogging to the exit, but before getting very far, he slid to a stop and almost tripped over himself in finding that right at the doorway was the face of Amelia. Dylan caught his fall, getting ready for a possibly nasty encounter before realizing that she didn't look quite right. She didn't have a human body, but it wasn't really an ersatz's either. Her mouth wasn't long and wavy, and her body wasn't black and contorted. The unnatural element that set her apart from him was was more surreal than physical.

Dylan froze. He watched as she stared up at him, sitting cross-legged on the ground, almost daring Dylan to step forward. Then, she began to laugh. Not the laugh of a demon, like he imagined an ersatz would have laughed, but the normal laugh of a healthy girl. It was genuine, but not enough for Dylan to lower his guard.

Once she finished chuckling, she said, "Right, well, I probably shouldn't laugh since I don't have much good news for you."

Dylan remained silent for a moment. He slowly opened his mouth to speak, taking in a light breath with confused eyebrows before she continued.

"In case you're wondering if I killed him, yeah, I admit it."

He stood absent-mindedly. Was this Amelia, transported into the Mind Realm as she had the people in this building? Regardless, she stood up, snapping her fingers to get Dylan's attention.

"Hey! Did you hear me, honey?"

"Yeah..."

"You got nothing to say?"

"I mean..."

She sighed and began walking toward Dylan, who quickly stepped back. "Oh, ok. I see. You're scared of me because I killed your moss friend— yeah, yeah I get it; and hey! That's fair."