10

👍︎︎︎♒︎︎︎♋︎︎︎◻︎︎︎⧫︎︎︎♏︎︎︎❒︎︎︎ 📂︎📁︎🖳︎ 👎︎❒︎♏︎♋︎❍︎⬧︎

The Puppeteer proceeded to lay on the floor of a prison cell and tried to remember anything from the fight, but he couldn't. He decided to fall asleep which, to his surprise, happened very quickly. As he drifted into sleep the two enforcers began to speak.

"Are you sure that we should let him go?" Taria asked, "Aren't the higher ups going to be angry with us?"

"We'll be fine," Pecan replied, "I could tell he wasn't lying which meant we couldn't get any information out of him and that means that the higher ups can't punish us for it."

The two stopped talking and looked at The Puppeteer who was now in a deep sleep. They continued to talk before leaving The Puppeteer alone. He dreamt of a simpler time. A time where magic didn't exist. A time of peace.

"I'm home," he said as he entered a house, "I brought ♌︎︎♐︎︎♒︎︎🙵♋︎︎ with me."

With him was a beautiful girl, dirty blonde hair and green eyes. "Hi!" she exclaimed, "I'm glad to meet you all."

The Puppeteer smiled, "I forgot that you haven't met most of my family yet, but meeting new people is one of your favorite hobbies." He playfully nudged her as he said that last part.

"Oh shut it," she replied with a giggle, "Isn't one of your favorite hobbies just running around and annoying the hell out of everyone?"

"Hey!"

"Settle down you two lovebirds," a homely voice called out, "I know you two love each other very much, but dinner's about to be ready."

"Got it mom!" The Puppeteer called out before turning back to his girlfriend, "I'm going to grab my collection so just sit here for a bit okay?"

He ran up towards the second story of his house and vanished. Soon after, there was a lot of rustling and noises of things being thrown everywhere coming from up the stairs.

"Let me guess?" ♌︎︎♐︎︎♒︎︎🙵♋︎︎ called up to him, "You can't find it?"

"Yes and no," he called back, "I have my collection at the ready, but I can't find the on— Nevermind I found it!"

He came rushing down holding a box. On top of the box was a colorful card. Once he reached the final few steps he had accidentally missed one and tripped, launching everything everywhere.

♌︎︎♐︎︎♒︎︎🙵♋︎︎ began to laugh, "Never did I think I'd see the day that you'd fall down a flight of stairs,"

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, "can you just help me clean this up?"

They started to pick up each and every one of the cards and The Puppeteer began to sort them to put into his box. ♌︎︎♐︎︎♒︎︎🙵♋︎︎ began looking and them and spotted one that caught her eye.

"The Butterfly's Flower?" she questioned, "♏︎︎❄︎︎🙰💣︎︎☠︎︎? What's this?"

"Oh, uh, it's the card I was trying to find. ♓︎︎♍︎︎⚐︎︎🕈︎︎♑︎●︎☪︎ gave them to me to give to everyone else so I was just planning on giving yours to you today."

"Aw, he's a pretty sweet guy isn't he? Now what'd you get?"

"I got The Puppeteer's Strings. It seems like a pretty strong card and I'm probably going to add it into my deck if it becomes legal since these are new cards that haven't been tested yet."

"♓︎︎♍︎︎⚐︎︎🕈︎︎♑︎●︎☪︎ seems pretty well versed in his craft. He designed these cards so well that it seems that they were made for us!"

"They were made for us."

"No I meant—"

"Dinner's ready!" his mother called out, "✈︎✡︎☼︎✞︎⬧︎♎︎♏︎❄︎, can you help set the table? Your sister's not here today."

"Coming mom!" he said before turning to ♌︎︎♐︎︎♒︎︎🙵♋︎︎, "We can chat later, the foods ready and my mom's cooking is pretty fricking good."

"Hey mom? Where is Sis anyway?"

"Oh she had a job interview and she said that she's spending the night at her friends house."

"Oh okay, Well the table's set"

"Thanks dear," she said as she kissed him on the forehead, "Let's eat. Your father said that he was going to be a little late today."

The three sat down at the dinner table and began to eat and chat. Everyone seemed very happy until ♌︎︎♐︎︎♒︎︎🙵♋︎︎ stood up.

"✈︎✡︎☼︎✞︎⬧︎♎︎♏︎❄︎ we need to talk," her voice was stone cold, "I have to go."

The Puppeteer was petrified. Her voice had sent chills down his spine. "H-hey, ♌︎︎♐︎︎♒︎︎🙵♋︎︎? What's up?" he reached to grab her arm only for her to spin into a flurry of fire and vanish. "Wh-what's going on? He looked at his mother and reached for her too only for the same thing to happen. He began to frantically look around. Everything was vanishing and turning into flames. He then looked at the sky, a massive burning meteorite was falling towards him. He could feel his flesh starting to melt away, his blood was boiling and his mind soon vaporized.

The Puppeteer woke up in a heap of sweat somehow banging his head on the cell's bars. "A dream?" he thought to himself, "No, that was a memory. That did happen. Except for the last part. Kind off." He remembered the events that had conspired on that very day. He had indeed brought his girlfriend home for dinner that night. They did begin to chat but nothing like that happened. He searched his box for the card he gave her but couldn't find it. He continued to jog his memory to no avail.

"What happened? C'mon c'mon c'mon. Think!"

"It happened," the voice spoke to him, "that horrible tragedy that befell everyone happened that day."

"That's right," he thought to himself, "the meteor hit. We were happily chatting away and then everything went red. That heatwave blew everyone away and burned them." He touched his own skin remembering the feeling of being burned inside out. "I never want to feel the pain from losing someone I love again."

The Puppeteer then looked up towards the sky hoping to see the stars only to see a grim wall. He sighed and went back to sleep. Or at least tried to. He could only toss and turn. His mind continued to play that scene over and over again, taunting him. After around the 15th time, it had become morning.

"Look who's up early," Taria called out as she walked into the area, "Here's a complementary bread roll for staying with us." She tossed one towards The Puppeteer which he caught with one hand.

"It feels a little heavy to be a bread roll," he thought to himself, "it's also super hard."

"Where did you get this... thing?" he asked Taria, "It's harder than a rock and heavier than steel."

"Oh, it's um, from the regular bread roll basket,"

"Doesn't seem like a regular bread roll," he said while tossing it up and catching it again. He quickly took a sniff at the bread roll only to not smell the smell of bread, but the smell of paint and steel. He quickly formed a plan.

"Hey Taria," he speedily said, "CATCH!"

He had thrown the "bread roll" directly at her forehead knowing that a bread roll at that speed even if it were super stale would only leave a mild scratch.

Taria on the other hand knew exactly what the "bread roll" was and barely had time to duck in order to dodge it. The "bread roll" flew right above her head and split into pieces as it hit the hard wall.

"You could've killed me!" she screeched at The Puppeteer.

"Why the fuck would you give me a rock and ask me to eat it?" he yelled back.

"Both of you quiet down!" Pecan had stormed in after hearing the crashing of the rock.

"Pecan! B-but he could—," she didn't finish.

He grabbed both her cheeks and began to pull them apart. "How many times have I told you to not pull these kinds of jokes on the people staying here?" he asked sternly, "OH HE COULd'Ve killed Me, well guess what? You probably would deserve it, providing the fact that you were trying to feed a rock to a summoned!"

"I'm sowwy…" she said still having the cheeks stretched, "I'll nevwer dew it agwain"

"Good," Pecan said, "AND YOU!"

The Puppeteer was now full of fear. He had crawled into the darkest and furthest corner in his cell fearing retribution from the dangerous man in front of him.

"You're free to go."

"What?"

"You're free to go. Did I not make myself clear the first time?"

"Yes you did. Sorry sir. I'll leave right away." he scrambled onto his feet and walked out the cell only to be bitchslapped by Pecan.

"And that's what you get for almost killing my subordinate."

"Yes sir," The Puppeteer quickly responded, "I have a quick question. How do I get to Aubergine?"

"Aubergine? Oh just take the teleportation circle in town square and you should be able to get there." Pecan responded this time in a normal voice.

"That's kinda the problem," The Puppeteer said, "I don't know where anything is. I've been in this world for 1 whole day."

Pecan looked at him with cold eyes. He then took out his holdus. "There's an app for it. You should have one of these right?"

The Puppeteer took out his own holdus and found the app. "Oh sorry, thanks dude."

"While you have your holdus out, we might as well register each other in it."

The Puppeteer felt no reason to argue and scanned both Taria's and Pecan's holdusi and they scanned his.

"Alright then I'll be going."

The Puppeteer quickly left the station and into the bright sun.

"Ah," he exclaimed aloud, "This feels really nice."

Chapter 10: Dreams END