Chapter 9: Vision
He sees it. The human teeth, surrounded by a body made out of gray mashed feets, right above him. The vertical mouth makes a horrendous smile, widely open, and tubes emerge from the feet's edges, continuously pouring out a lot of the black liquid. The black liquid surrounds Kazuki. He looks up to see the face of the monster, who's laughing like the monster from before. The fear that this eye brings upon him is nothing he experienced before. It is almost instinctual. The monster's eyes explode, projecting blood everywhere. Hands pop out from the holes, moving in a discorded dance. They are the same as the one from the start. The monster is grabbing Kazuki by the neck. He tries to get away from the grip but it is too strong. Shortly after, he doesn't feel the ground under his foot. He is being lifted from the ground. With horror, he watches as the monster is dragging him to the mouth. The immense fear which takes him over prevents him from moving or screaming for help, even if his mind is screaming to. As he witnesses his final moment, everything around him changes again. He is back in his bedroom, laying on his bed. He gets up, looking around him. There is no circle. There is no blood. There is no monster.
He is trying to process whatever just happened when Master Yi brutally emerges in the bedroom, visibly worried. Kazuki stands in disbelief at the vision of his master, in a healthy shape and not falling apart. The fear of the vision is almost washed over by the joy of seeing his master alive. Tears of both feelings start to appear in his eyes and slowly stream down his cheek. The old man rushes to Kazuki and takes his head between his hands. He seems to inspect his students in every detail.
"Kazuki, are you alright ? I heard you scream ! Wait, you got something on your neck… What is-"
The young boy does not let his master finish his sentence, steps away from him and gets up. He walks towards a mirror on his wardrobe's door. He stands there and looks at himself in the mirror while the old man waits for a word from Kazuki. The master carefully looks at his students, intrigued by his behavior. Kazuki put his hands on his neck. Where he passes his fingers, red marks are visible. Long red marks. They look like.. hands. Hands with very long fingers.
Kazuki starts shaking, not knowing what his eyes could believe. His Master is here, alive, which proves that what happened isn't real. Nevertheless, the hands left a mark which is as real as his master. After waking up and seeing the old man, he thought it was only a bad dream. Now, the doubt takes over his mind. He even doubts the reality of this dream.. Is he in a dream again ? Was it a dream ? Is it a dream because he is dead ? He falls on his knee. His mouth open but nothing comes out of it. It is just shaking more than the rest of his body. He turns to Master Yi, and, uncontrollably, he starts crying.
The old man feels the youngling's trouble and comes close to him. The child holds the old man's clothes tightly and hides his face inside of it. But at the same time, when his master tries to put a hand on his head or to hug him, the young boy backs away. Faster, the Master took his students head between his hands. The kid didn't move, paralyzed by his tremendous fear. The old man puts his forehead on Kazuki's, and the kid starts to relax. He slowly calms down and puts his guard down. The child puts his arms around the old man and his head on his chest, feeling secure with him around and now sure that he is real.
The old man takes a very stern and worried face, not visible by Kazuki. But the voice, when he talks to his student, it is with a very soft voice which doesn't match with his facial expression.
"Don't worry. Everything is fine. You'll sleep in my room. I'll keep an eye on you."
The two of them head to the master's room. Kazuki lays on the bed and Master Yi sits on a chair, in a corner of the room. The presence of the old man give a sence of security against whatever threatens him. The young boy, now in a calmer state, slowly shuts his eyes, falling again in a deep sleep.
But when he opens his eyes, he is not laying on the bed. He is laying on a hard and wet surface. The fear of his previous dream makes him quickly get up to be ready to run and looks around him. Under his feets, the floor is made of bottomless dark grayish water. He starts to shake, as the Idea of being in another twisted universe becomes bigger and bigger in his head. As he looks around him, there is nothing. The black sea extends infinitely in the horizon, with nothing visible at its surface. He slowly gets more reassured. The surface of the water is disturbed by his presence and some water droplets falling from nowhere, appearing in front of his eyes or coming from very high in the sky.
Looking for a source to the droplet, he directs his gaze into the sky. His eyes widen by the horrific view which is offered to him. It is something beyond his comprehension, beyond his imagination. In an infinite black sky, far high, a giant celestial body throne right above his head. The moon-like planet looks like a completely golden eyeball. It's looking right at him, putting some kind of pressure on Kazuki's shoulder with its impressive presence. It makes Kazuki realize how tiny he is. But remembering from his previous dream that eyes in his dreams aren't. Panic slowly takes over Kazuki's body and mind, leading is every moves.. The water around him starts to make waves and whirlpool. The more he panics, the more it moves. He instinctively starts to run on the water, among the waves trying to drown him. Everything in this dream is unknown to him. In the previous dream, they were in something looking like his bedroom. He keeps running, not knowing where to go. There is nothing nor nobody he could count on. There is nothing he can do.
A high-pitched noise interrupts the regular echoes of his feet running on the water's surface and calms the water down, stopping every wave. As he turns to the direction of the noise, the horizon becomes blurry. Then everything suddenly becomes blurry. While he goes through this strange effect, an invisible force pushes him in the same direction as the blurry effect. A shrill and crystalline sound pierces his ears as he tries, in vain, to cling to the dark water-ground.
His hands go through the liquid. He is taken by surprise, because it is like the floor never was there. His whole body ends up falling under the black surface. The water enters his lungs and he panics even more, moving his body like he can. He is fidgeting, moving with the hope of coming back up. He is carried underwater by the invisible force. In the water, the high-pitched scream becomes laughs and words. The ones of a multitude of strangers, but yet so familiar. But one sentence makes Kazuki freeze. It is not from a voice. It is a whisper, like from someone very close to him. However he stands alone in this strange realm. It is why he is frightened by those words, yet doing the opposite of what is said . The sentence is made out of those 4 words :
"Do not be afraid."
Kazuki tries to grab onto something while being still pushed by the force. He grabs something visible at the surface, but he is still underwater. It's in the sky, a million lights everywhere. Stars. They weren't able to stop his course, but he was able to grab one. He looks in his hand and there is it, a ball made out of light. Its light is absorbed by the dark water.
Kazuki is thrown out of the water by the invisible force. The voices turn back to a shrilling scream, making his eardrums bleed. The force keeps pushing him away until he disappears in the horizon.
Kazuki suddenly wakes up. He looks around him. He is in his master's bedroom. Tian-Han is sleeping on the chair. Kazuki slowly calms down, as it was only a bad dream again. But still, he doesn't understand what he saw or imagined. He never dreamed about this before, neither the first nor the second dream. What is even weirder, is the fact that he is wet like he just swimmed. Even the bed sheet is soaked with water.
Unable to sleep again, he doesn't really know what to do. Then, he senses something. It's not in this room. He cautiously gets out of his room. He instinctively looks in the direction of his room. A gentle breeze comes from its direction. The door was left wide open. He slowly walks in the corridor to the door. He uses the wall to help himself in the dark, the light of the moon not being enough.
He ears footsteps from the end of the corridor, in front of him. But something, inside of him, tells him to approach the sounds. As he does so, he passes by his bedroom doors. He stops there. He turns around. It's here. Smiling.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone