天国の日没 Tengoku No Nichibotsu (Heaven's Sunset) - Volume 2

Chapter 14 - Terry, Cun, Alice & Srđan

A companion of four is wandering through the Memory field. The four of them have absolutely nothing in common, except for being lost together in a strange place. The contemporary team consists of:

- Terry... a purple dragon child with small wings and big eyes. Even though he has wings, he can fly for only a limited amount of time. Terry is good-hearted, but way too naive for his own good.

- Cun... a monster-sized eagle whose eyes are bleached so much, his eyeballs are barely visible. He is an ancient eagle who possess great wisdom and values freedom above anything else.

- Alice... a blonde-haired girl in white skirt whose imagination and adventurous spirit took her to Wonderland once. Being from a wealthy family, she is polite and well mannered,

- Atanacković Srđan... a guy who looks like a teenage boy, but is actually 22 years old. He has sharp brown hair and blue eyes. It's hard to tell what he's thinking, or how he's feeling.

The four of them are wandering atop a huge cloud overflowed with countless species of plants. The nature and scenery are nice and all, but the problem is, they can't find a way to get off this cloud. They can see other clouds and floating islands across the sky, but there is no any kind of bridge or anything they can use to reach any of those. Normally, Cun would be able to fly them all to another place without fail, but his left wing is severely injured right now.

Terry picks up a strange, blue apple with from a small and strange-looking curly tree. Without a bit of hesitation, he takes a bite and happily crunches the delicious apple.

The enormous eagle sighs and snatches the apple from Terry's hands. "It appears none of the fruit we ran into here is bad for us, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep four eyes open" Cun explains, studying the apple, before returning it to Terry.

"Something that looks so beautiful cannot be bad for you" Terry replied, enjoying his apple. He glanced over at his companions, who clearly weren't in as bright mood as he was. "Come on guys. You can't possibility think we'll stay trapped in this place forever, right? We'll get out of here eventually. This is probably a secret garden of Kinoto or something." Terry genuinely believed that.

"Honestly, I do not think we are anywhere near Kinoto" Alice gave her opinion, poking a weird sunflower with red petals.

"We've been here for a day only. Somebody's probably looking for us already. We'll leave this place in no time" Terry reassured everyone as they were entering a field with dense flower bushes. The field was swarming with bees, which was not surprising, since there was a honeycomb inside a hole on a nearby tree. Alice smelled one pale yellow rose. Its scent was so strong, she instantly felt a little dizzy, but the aroma was so nice at the same time.

Terry finished eating his apple and threw it as hard as he could. He could've sworn the apple fell onto the nearest cloud. In fact, that was true. "While we're here, shouldn't we enjoy this place? I mean, just look at it, like we're inside a fairytale. Floating pieces of land and clouds with all kinds of plants, this is heaven for eyes!"

"Heaven..." Srđan murmured to himself. "Perhaps that's exactly it" He concluded casually, although Alice and Cun seemed to be rather disturbed with his implication.

"Heaven..." Alice nervously looked around. Honestly, she thought the very same thing. "Indeed, this might be the afterlife." For some reason, she quickly calmed down, as if she accepted her fate. "Oh my, it does make sense. We woke up in this place without knowledge of how we arrived here, plus none of us can't remember much other than that horrifying event in Kinoto. Truly, we might be deceased." She gazed at the sky as the hem of her skirt fluttered in the light breeze. Her eyes suggested she was saying farewell to the world of living.

Cun gazed at the large flower field, all of a sudden feeling the greatest freedom he has ever sensed, although that was entirely influenced by Alice's speech. "If that's the case, it appears-"

"No! No! No!" Terry interrupted the melancholic conversation, not wanting to believe he's dead, when he felt very much alive. "Just how did you arrive at the conclusion that this is the afterlife?! No, we're not dead! I can feel my heart beat. Obviously, something happened after that atrocious event in Kinoto and we somehow ended up in this place. We're probably not the only ones." Terry tried to sound as convincing as possible and it was effiective. He could tell the other three stopped believing they passed away.

Cun folded out his injured wing. "Yes, it appears we're still alive. Injuries wouldn't exist in heaven, won't you agree? Even so, where in the endless sky could we be?"

Continuing the stroll, the company eventually reached the edge of the cloud, bordered with dense rows of rather large roses. The thorns were also larger and sharper, overshadowing the magnificent flowers. For Alice, who was in Wonderland, this was nothing all too unusual.

"This place has quite a few roses." Alice noticed.

"Roses or no roses, how do we get off this cloud?" Cun didn't believe crossing onto the another cloud or floating piece of land would get them out of here anytime soon, but they've spent the entire day in this area, so a change would at least seem like they were making progress. If nothing, they were at least convinced the exit is not anywhere on this cloud.

"Who knows, maybe there is more to this place than we saw so far..." Terry wondered, looking around in case he saw anything that could trigger their point of interest.

Srđan stared into the endless ocean below. "While we're here, we should try to find something that could help cure Cun's wing" Srđan murmured, not really expecting anyone to listen to his opinion.

"Yes!" Cun immediately agreed and could swear Srđan was surprised by it. "If we could cure my fing, we could fly away easily."

"I see, I see..." Alice saw that as the most possible way to leave the island. She turned around, about to walk back from where they come from and that's when she spotted a large black dot in the sky that clearly stood out from the rest of the scenery. "What might that be?" Alice pointed to the dot and everyone else noticed it as well.

Cun: I don't remember seeing this a while ago. It appears that little being has just arrived.

Terry: Ah, it's probably just a rain cloud.

Cun: A rain cloud? No, it certainly is not any kind of cloud.

Terry: Well, it's nothing to worry about for sure, so...

Srđan: Even if it is, it's not like we can do anything about it at the moment.

Alice: I sincerely hope it is not a preview to our future perils.