Nightmares

--- Rodrick's Home, IronSpark Center

Jay was currently lying on one of the sofas in the living room. For some reason, Rodrick was getting a bit too friendly with him and told Jay that he can stay at his home anytime. Jay did not have a reason to refuse since he did not have a place to crash anyways.

"Rodrick Castle... I still can't help but think that we are relatives or something..." Jay thought to himself as he closed his eyes and went to sleep. There were just too many weird stuff that happened this day and he wanted to rest.

...

On Rodrick's bedroom, while Cidney and Jay were asleep, Rodrick was currently going through the pages of a book while lying down on his bed. It was an album that was passed down onto him by his father.

"Father, mother... Jay's home. I'm sure you missed him too right? I bet you do..." Rodrick mumbled softly as he looked at a family picture that was a bit crumpled.

On a grassy plane, there were ten people standing side by side. Rodrick's father, John Castle, was the person at the leftmost part of the picture. He was wearing formal clothes and a brown fedora. On the rightmost part of the picture was Roxanne Castle, Rodrick's stepmother and the biological mother of Jay. She was a tall and slender lady. She had long black hair and was wearing eyeglasses. In the picture, there was a bulge in her stomach, showing that she was pregnant. As for the remaining eight people in the picture, there were four boys and girls, with Rodrick being one of them.

"I wonder how should I tell him after all this time... I wonder how he will react if he knew that I am the only one left in our family besides him..."

Rodrick's eyes teared up a bit before he placed the album beside and went to sleep.

...

--- Bronn City, Rockhaven

This city was the capital city of Rockhaven, one of the strange places discovered in the newly changed Earth. Rockhaven was a place filled with mountains, hills, valleys, and volcanoes. On a certain hill, Bronn City was built. Buildings of varying heights circled around the hill. There were roads and bridges built around the hill making every place accessible to all.

The buildings had flat rooftops and the windows had a circular shape. If compared to the cities in the world before the changes happened, Bronn City looks and feels really the same. The people who lived in the city were part of the Alliance and did not have to worry about monsters and other stuff. They just live their lives the same way as before.

...

On the streets of Bronn City, Jayson and LJ walked around while finding something that can point them in the right direction. For some reason, they felt something weird in the city that may or may not have a connection to one of the dimensional gates present.

"You really don't have any way to find out where the dimensional gate is?" LJ asked Jayson since this was the first time they encountered a problem like this. Usually, when they felt something, they can immediately detect where the dimensional gate is. But right now, they couldn't even find out where the weird feeling was coming from or if is even related to a dimensional gate.

"No. It feels really strange... it is as if something or someone is pulling the strings behind the dimensional gates in this dimension." Jayson said softly as he continued looking around.

"Then what about Jay? He was an anomaly right? Are you sure you thoroughly investigated him?" LJ asked as he took out a cigarette and started smoking.

"Jay is a rare occurrence that only appears one out of a trillion. His soul is somehow severed into three and split up into three different bodies. One of his soul fragments is obviously here, and I bet his other soul fragment is in Ellthree. As for his third soul fragment, I couldn't even find traces of it."

"Ellthree Dimension? How the hell did his soul fragment end up there?" LJ said and was shocked with what he heard concerning Jay.

"He told me that he somehow ended up in Levendricus, one of the worlds in Ellthree. He told me that the culprit behind this was Hellson. But I still don't understand how his soul managed to get split up into three fragments and how the hell is he still alive or sane..."

Before Jayson could even continue speaking, sirens suddenly rang all throughout the city and someone's voice was heard from the loudspeakers around the city.

"Everyone! Please go back to your homes!"

The announcement kept on repeating for ten times. While people rushed back to their homes, Jayson and Rodrick felt the weird presence in the air getting stronger.

Not even wasting time, they looked directly in the skies and some runic inscriptions appeared on their eyes. What they saw almost made them shit their pants and made them think that they were in a dream. They saw a gigantic black portal and there was a gigantic hideous face coming out from it.

The portal and the face stretched throughout miles and miles, covering almost everything as the eye could see.

"Holy shit! What the fuck is that?!!" LJ cursed loudly since this was the first time he saw something like this. Throughout the five centuries of him being a Gatekeeper, he never seen something like this. When he looked at Jayson, he saw that he was sweating a lot and had an annoyed look on his face.

"Damn it! Why is 'he' still alive?!!" Jayson shouted loudly as he took out a red glowstick from whatever spatial inventory he had and snapped it into to. This was a signal to the rest of the Gatekeepers that there is an emergency where everyone needed to go to.

"Who's 'he'?" LJ asked Jayson as he equipped his knife and gun.

"Korr."

When LJ heard this name, he gulped and started to sweat. This wasn't the first time he heard about Korr, but this was the first time he saw it with his own eyes.

"Korr, the one who devours all. But didn't you kill him already?!!" LJ said as he looked at Jay who was still making a weird face as he looked at the face coming out of the portal.

"No. I sealed him in the Blank Dimension. Killing a being that is a dimension itself is just impossible for man to achieve." Jayson said as a glowing liquid that was green in color wrapped around his body. He slowly merged with it and he started to look like a demon.

While this happened, he quickly flew through the skies and a gigantic longsword appeared in his hands.

...

--- Rodrick's Home, IronSpark Center

While all of that happened at Bronn City, Jay was having nightmares in his sleep. He kept seeing deaths of his friends and allies at Levendricus, or whatever the place was called.

No matter how much Jay wanted to wake up from the nightmares, it was of no avail. It was as if he was stuck inside his own nightmare and had to see it over and over again. The worst part of the nightmares he was in were the words uttered by everyone as they died in front of him.

"How could you do this... we trusted you... I TRUSTED YOU!!!" Izumi shouted as she slowly got hacked into pieces by something.

"Damn you boy! You were our last... hope..." Stromm said as he slowly collapsed in front of Jay and disintegrated into dust.

"Fucking coward..." Hot Buns said with a ragged voice as he coughed up blood until he died from it.

Besides these three, Jay kept seeing death scenes one after another. No matter how much he wanted not to get affected by their words and gruesome deaths, he just cannot help but start to feel guilty.

After who knows how long, Jay somehow managed to wake up and he was sweating crazily.

His body was shaking and his heart felt really heavy. When he tried to calm himself down, he saw that in front of him was a little girl in ragged clothes. The little girl looked exactly the same as Nuggets' human form.

"Jay..." The little girl muttered softly as blood started to flow down her face.

Not being able to take it anymore, Jay punched himself in the face.

"It's just a dream! It's just a dream..." Jay kept repeating this words to himself and saw that the little girl in front of him was gone after a few more punches in the face.

After this, Jay got up from the sofa and went to the kitchen. He grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator and he sat down on the chairs provided near the dining table.

"Jay?"

For some reason, Rodrick also woke up from his sleep and decided to do the same thing Jay did. But he was surprised when he saw Jay was already at the dining room, lost in his thoughts while he drank some cold water.

"Hey. Sorry if I woke you up." Jay apologized to Rodrick since he was not sure if he screamed while experiencing the nightmares he had.

Rodrick sat in front of Jay and snapped his fingers, causing a bottle of beer to appear in his hand.

"Jay... there is something I need to tell you..." Rodrick hoped for the best as he drank some beer to help him muster the courage to say some stuff to Jay.

"I'm not in the mood to talk right now... sorry..." Jay said apologetically since he was still feeling gloomy.

"But... never mind then..." Rodrick gritted his teeth and drank his beer again. Not having any other option, Rodrick decided to just make feel Jay as a part of his family and tell him the real thing when he's ready.