17: Last day on Earth

The cafeteria, once a place full of laughter and noise, has now turned into a gloomy and silent place. The only ones still talking were some legacies, but even they looked somber at the prospect of being sent to the Dream Realm.

Well, I'm not very different, actually. I also have a dream that could make me lie down anywhere and sleep like a puppy, but I must endure until the end of the day.

Letting out another long, tired yawn, I reach my usual corner and sit down.

I saw Sasha lost in her thoughts and she didn't even notice when I arrived.

"Good morning, Sasha. I see you're very nervous about going to the Dream Realm."

She was startled for a moment and turned her gaze in my direction, giving a slight smile as she responded:

"Good morning, although there's nothing good about it. But yes, I'm very nervous. Even so, I'll go, conquer it, and come out alive. Those pieces of trash creatures won't stop me."

Wow, she has spirit. It's unfortunate to know that no one named Sasha was ever mentioned in the novel. That can only mean two things.

One, she died and that's why nothing was ever said about her. And two, she wasn't part of the original novel, just like Ludwin and... who was the other one? Oh, forget it, I'm too tired to think about complicated things.

After that brief exchange, we ate in silence until we finished, said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways.

I'm heading to the training room, even though they told me I could skip both classes. Training after breakfast has become a habit; after all, it wouldn't hurt to move a bit.

...

I released Vorlath and put myself in a fighting position. It was strange to fight with myself, really strange since I could see myself from both sides and knew what I would do, so it was very odd.

Oh, Vorlath had already recovered after a night of rest in my soul, even so, I shouldn't allow him to take so much damage.

...

After a few minutes, my consciousness in the puppet dominated my real body. Eh, I dominated myself? It's very uncomfortable to fight this way, and the strangest thing is that my sixth sense, or rather the foresight, doesn't work on myself. So when I attacked myself, it was weird not to feel that sensation of knowing what would happen the next second. Anyway, now I can say that I fought with myself and won/lost at the same time.

After returning to my room and washing my sweaty body, I set out to meditate for the next few hours. After all, I had nothing to do.

...

Five hours had passed since I started meditating, and every time I found that light within me, I could maintain the connection for longer. I feel that if I find it one last time, I will finally achieve something.

So I didn't give up, and I spent another hour searching within myself until I saw it, that same radiant light that was so familiar. This time, not only did I form a connection, I felt something strange, I felt like I was standing on a cold, smooth floor.

When I opened my eyes to see my own soul sea, I almost broke the connection instantly due to the terrifying sight.

I was standing on a polished wooden floor that extended as far as the eye could see. Ethereal threads were falling from above; I couldn't see where they were coming from, but many of these threads had the deformed beasts I had killed in the last month hanging from them, each thread connected to their chest.

When I looked for my soul core, what I saw brought back the primordial fear I felt upon entering my own soul. What I saw in the place where my soul should have been was an immeasurable amount of ethereal threads tangled into a ball. Countless threads protruded from its surface and rose to the top, then bent and hung in the dark void that was my soul. A few held the deformed beasts, and only one thread came out from the lower part of the ball of threads, a black thread that had Vorlath hanging from it.

But no, none of that was what made me feel so much fear that I wanted to flee from my own soul.

What did it was the grayish-white mist that covered every corner of my soul and my own core, and the most terrifying thing of all was that in my own soul, which should be the safest place for any being, I managed to feel an extraterrestrial presence in the deepest part of the mist, something so primordial and terrifying that it froze the non-existent blood within me.

After seeing my core and feeling that presence in my soul, I immediately left, fearing to awaken or provoke that being and have disastrous and irreversible consequences.

When I came to, my body was sweaty and as pale as snow. I felt my heart beating so fast that I could have a heart attack at any moment.

I tried to calm my trembling body but failed miserably and vomited my breakfast.

"I shouldn't enter my soul too often. I wouldn't want whatever is there to wake up. I don't know if it would be good or bad, but I won't risk it."

After another half hour of calming my terrified body and mind, I got up to take another shower before going to the entrance hall, where Instructor Rock would take us to our sleeping pods, where we would spend the next year sleeping.

...

I met Sasha again in the entrance hall, and we talked a bit until Instructor Rock arrived, who led us to a place where many Hollows were, those who die in the Dream Realm and whose bodies remain alive in the waking world.

After scaring the kids with them, he took us to our resting place, but first, I said goodbye to Sasha.

"Well, Sasha, here I say goodbye. If we meet alive in the Dream Realm, I hope you accept me as a member of your group."

Sasha smiled, and her smile lit up the gloomy room we were in.

"Of course, there would be no one more suitable to join me. But if you find me, it will be I who joins your group."

I returned her smile, a sincere one that I rarely had, and replied:

"Of course."

Rock spoke again, and it was time to say goodbye.

I looked at Sasha once more and said:

"Well, it's time. Good luck in the Dream Realm, and you better use the armor I gave you, even if it's a bit ugly compared to you."

Sasha laughed for a moment and smiled back at me.

"Sure, sure. I wish you luck too. See you on the other side."

That sounded...

"Don't say it like that, or it will seem like you'll find me dead and 'the other side' sounds like a way to refer to heaven."

Sasha started walking to her place and spoke to me one last time.

"You better not show up like that, or I'll kill you myself."

A while after saying goodbye to Sasha, I found myself in front of a sleeping pod. I won't lie, I was trembling. I was really scared, afraid of dying in the jaws of a horde of giant demonic crabs, afraid of being devoured by creatures from the depths of the black sea, and many more terrifying things.

But I couldn't give up now, not after all the work I put into improving myself to survive. I had no plans to die, so I took off my clothes and got inside.

...

In a room far from Jonathan, a girl with pink hair and green eyes was trembling as she looked at her sleeping pod with a determined gaze. No one knows what was going through her mind.

...

A small, forgotten boy looked somberly at his sleeping pod while all sorts of thoughts went through his head, be it his family, his goals, or his future. Somber or not, he got into his pod.

...

In a separate room, a boy with black hair and eyes, thin and pale-skinned, was talking to his shadow before getting into his pod.

...

In a room near Sunny, there was a poor blind girl crying while trying futilely to orient herself in an unfamiliar room.

...

Another room, a tall, slender girl with silver hair and gray eyes was looking at a hand, where there was a spark of light, and she grimaced in pain.

[End of Volume 1: New Story.]