Vivid (BoyxBoy) {Pipe Dream: Book I}

Chapter Thirty: Broken Reflections

A/N: Yep another update...yay for momentum!

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Chapter Thirty: Broken Reflections

My eyes open onto a world that was a vast and empty dark space, like a desert on the verge of twilight and complete night. Only, there were no stars or moon or anything, except a low halo of dull light running the horizon, it felt like the death of light.

As I hesitantly take the first step, I notice that the ground giving off a pale light, illuminating a small halo ring around me, giving me enough sight for a few steps in any direction around myself and it followed underneath me like a shadow. Half wanting to run around like a headless chicken to see if it would follow me, a glowing of blue light slowly dances passed me, leaving an ethereal trail of purple. Watching it, I see another one joining it, travelling further away from me, a soft ghostly chime escapes from them as they move.

Feeling the need to follow them, I quickly walk in their general direction. As I did, I see outlines of charred black tree skeletons but there were only a sparse few. A few more of the wisps sprang up, moving in the same direction I was but in slower speeds, bobbing up and down, like they weren't in a rush. One runs passed my side only to turn into black smoke and dissipates into nothing. Feeling a bit curious at that I keep looking ahead, peering at the trees more closely and saw that a few were crumbling, branches falling off into smoke and disappearing into thin air. This world was dying. And a feeling of déjà vu mixes in with the unfamiliarity of this place. ...Like I had been here before but it's been twisted by this person's reality.

I can't ponder on this. I need to find this girl...I think? Is that where I am again? Whatever it is, I know that is what I needed to do.

Walking passed another tree, I notice that its colouration was split down the middle. On the side that I'm coming from, it was still dark, dead and crispy looking while the other side had brilliant blood red foliage and a dark brown trunk. I stare up at it and a wisp goes through the branches, but as it does, some of the foliage crumbles into the all too familiar darkness, along with the wisp choking into smoke. I recoil back a step.

I walk further along my path and notice the difference as I head further in, the dead wasteland was turning into an autumn forest, sickening from the black rot slowly taken over the trees. The corrosion was obvious, the woodland will soon look like the rest of this place; there was no time left. I bite my lip, not liking where my thoughts were heading.

As I walk under another tree, this time with minimal black rot, I began to hear someone screaming out in distress, echoing from the depths of this place. I try my best to stop my knees from shaking, preparing to meet whatever it is in here. Will it be the Queen? Ready and waiting to rip out my throat? What difference does that make now? Either in here or out there, it's the same. Death.

Rounding a tree, I try to piece together the scene before me.

Between a few trees was a bedroom; two walls strung up like I was looking in on a set on a show. The wall colour was a strong fuchsia pink with a full bookshelf and an unmade bed beside it and on the other end was a small build in wardrobe. On the floor was a thick round pale grey rug that I had a strong urge to roll on; it looked fluffy. There was even a decorative orange and black glass ceiling light dangling from an outstretched branch, creating a false sense of a 'room'. On the floor was a girl who was about my age, looking into a rustic gold oval mirror that was on the bottom of the wall adjacent from me. The girl was smashing her fists against the mirror, sobbing and calling her heart out.

"Stop! Please, stop it! Why aren't you moving? Please! Please! Stop me! Please!"

She continues on and on, her fists thudding on the smooth glass but the mirror doesn't break.