Chapter 5: I'm surrounded

Iru slowly opened his eyes, he had a throbbing headache. He looked around but all he saw was blurry colors and shapes, probably people. Blinking a couple times and taking in a deep breath, he coughed. The room he was in smelled absolutely horrendous. In fact, whatever he was laying on stunk worse than durian. Not only that but it was also harder than rock, no wonder he had a headache. Looking down to find a dirty atomic tangerine couch, with crepe pink and seaweed green patches, he shivered in disgust.

"Mornin' sleepy head." Said a familiar deep voice. It was the mouse!

"Ah I must still be sleeping," Iru claimed, turning over to go back to sleep. "and this is a dream."

"No, you are very much awake and this is not a dream." The mouse twitched his whiskers in annoyance.

"Not possible. Mice can't talk." Iru re-positioned himself again on the couch.

Out of nowhere a pair of gnarly green hands grabbed him by the shirt collar and shook him. "Not dream! Very awake! Very real!" said a stuffy, scratchy voice.

"What the hell!?" He sat up and looked around. There was a crowd of various animals and mythical creatures from many different cultures and folk-tales in the room around him.

"Hell?" A deer tilted it's horned head, "There is no such thing."

Iru was dumbfounded, "I-it's an expression..." he knew one thing, he was not going to like it here.

"Ah, what kind?" The deer queried.

"Anger and surprise I guess...?" Iru responded at a loss of reactions.

"Another question, what is 'hell'?" A wood fairy asked.

"..." They really know nothing, do they?

The wood fairy looked at Iru expectantly.

"It's an afterlife." He explained.

"Oh, we don't experience afterlife. When we die our coding is just rewritten or deleted."

As expected in a video game. "I see."

"What's it like?" The wood fairy continued.

"I wouldn't know, I've never been there since I am alive." Iru said, "In the Bible it's a fiery place, lead by the Devil, where you get punished for your sins."

"Sins?"

Iru's expression was one of pique, this would take a while.

After a couple hours of answering question after question, Iru was irked. This was like talking to curious toddlers with an endless lack of knowledge.

One of the many fairies flew over to Iru without him noticing, and slightly brushed her hand over his forearm. He came close to squishing her, her touch was so light it tickled, making him automatically think she was a mosquito. He came close to hitting her off but stopped his hand in mid-air.

"What are you doing?" His tone was darker than before.

"Oh I'm sorry, I was just curious." She again brushed her tiny fingers over a burn on his arm. "What is this?"

"..It's a burn.." Iru responded hesitantly.

"What's that?"

"A form of injury?" He said, realizing that they don't scar in this world, injuries heal over and disappear just like that for them.

"Oh, we don't have after affects on injuries."

'Yeah I realized that.' Iru sarcastically thought in his head.

"What is it from?" The fairy asked, oblivious.

"..." Oh how you'd all like to know.