Chapter 4 - The hard headed-bull is a Nyctophobic

In the middle of noon, both babies sit cross-legged cutely on their bed doing meditation.

Their cuteness is overflowing with the fluffy white robe they wear, and how serene their face is similar to some old masters who do their own best expertise. Yet somehow, there is also some sort of rivalry between them in the picture that made them even cuter.

Exhales~

Martian breathing becomes finer as he finds his own relaxation in his meditation.

"Sigh... finally." Bertrand opened his eyes as he could feel Martian breathing have changed, 'Mad at a small joke and not hearing any advice and wasting five months of life!? Hell! How more hard-headed this bull can be?!'

Inhale~

exhales~

Once again, Martian breathing changes or rather, he ceases to make sound, neither while he inhales the air nor when he expels it, just like how the dead were.

"Goo goo goo~ Hades must be happy, someone sending himself into hell." in glee, Bertrand put his hand at Martian head and closed his own eye, "Let's see how you gonna coup with the darkness that you loved the most."

Opening his eyes, Martian suddenly found himself hovering in the dark world. All around him is darkness. In this place, there is no source of light, except a gargantuan glowing baby in a cute cross-legged position like buddha, "Wait?! Is that, ME?"

[Kukukuku...I can feel it! Someone is so scared and will piss on his pants at any second.]

Out of nowhere, Bertrand's voice is sounding inside Martian head.

"How can you? Wait! Wetting pants? Me?" perplexedly, Martian pointed his finger to his face while staring around him.

"It's just dark space and with another me glowing like Buddha…?" Martian stopped and savouring his own words "Damn! Now it sounds crazy! Where in heaven is me?"

[Kukuku... You are scared shitless, aren't ya, Martian? I can feel it... your pants must be wet right now?! ]

"What is wrong with your rubbish? There...There is no way I would be scared of this. and.. and hell, I will never piss on my pants!" Martian voices are stammering and wavering. "Just.. just tell me wanker, what I need to do next?"

Quite~

"Damn, he and his pranks games!" Martian began feeling nervous and restless. He keeps looking around, yet merely darkness and a glowing baby are what all he can see, "Yawn… better just wait for the idiot to end his dry prank… you pranking me, right?"

Quite~

"I swear to burst your balls when we met again! You better talk before…" Martian threat gets no response and makes him more and more anxious, "Bertrand, I'm fucking Nyctophobia! I swear to god you better…. Talking right now… pretty please…"

[Did you just say please?]

"You can hear me?" Martian body warmed up from the fury for being played, "How I can get out of here?!"

[I-I c-an't Hear… I'm sorry reception, seems terrible. You will get ejected in an hour, so please enjoy the darkness…Ciao!]

"What?! wait, wait, please wait!!" Martian gets so frustrated for not getting any response and being left hanging, "What a dick he is!!"

In the real world, Bertrand rolls around the bed and crazily laughs till he is in tears, "Goo goo goo~ that face is so priceless... Goo goo goo~"

Bam!

"Arrg!!" while he was crazily laughing and rolling around, Bertrand right foot hit the headboard of his bed and sent a stream of stinging pain to his brain. Bertrand quickly hugs his right knee and keeps blowing at it in the hope the pain will subside quickly, "Why does karma always have a short fuse on me?"

"Sigh... it must be because of him." Bertrand sighs as he looks at the serene face of Martian, who was still in meditation, a big contrast from the same face he has just seen and laughed at.

Throb! Throb!

Bertrand keeps feeling some prick in his heart, "Yeah, yeah, I know I will help him stop stabbing my heart with guilt."

Inside the dark world, Martian is hugging his knees. He didn't dare to make a move. The cute glowing baby looks like a bloody Chucky in his eyes.

[Ahem… You there? Seems the connection is back up…]

Martian was still engrossed in his own desperation, having yet registered Bertrand voices.

[No response? Fine then…]

"WAIT! Wait, wait, keep talking to me!" registering Bertrand's voice, Martian, quickly, stand up as if he found his messiah.

[Don't yell! I can't hear you, kukuku…]

"What a dick!" Martian fumes are back with Bertrand around to fuel them, and it's melting some of his fear of the dark away.

[I really can't hear you... kukuku... but I could easily guess what you do or what you gonna say like flipping my hand.]

"Yawns, that's bullshit! Quickly tell me what I need to do, in here or how to get out of here. Don't joke around, pretty please." fearing Bertrand will leave him hanging again, Martian humble down his ego.

[Tch.. no fun. As I said before, you are in your mind world. Did I say it? Ah, whatever, what you need to know is that It's not real. There is some exception though, those glittering balls around your gargantuan body are real things. They are balls of mana.]

Martian can see countless little balls of any colours glittering and hovering near his gargantuan glowing body.

"Yes, I can see them in a rainbow of colour. Then what?"

[Grab the grey one and bring it to the place between your eyebrows, the glabella.]

"Is it the third eye thing? Cool!" Martian is back to being himself as if he is excited over new experiences he will go through. Though the real reason was Bertrand presence that keeps annoying him makes his mind can't think of anything else, and in some sense calming his mind down.

[Go! Don't act like a scaredy-cat. I got your back, so don't cry like mama boy.]

Under reassurance that sound like insults from Bertrand, Martian gets himself flying to his gargantuan body and scanning around for the grey ball.

"No grey ball in sight. But there are a bunch of red balls." Martian stretches his right hand and want to touch a red ball in front of him.

[If I'm you, I will not touch that red ball, that one is fire mana. When you touch it, say bye to your right hand.]

Martian hurriedly pulls his right hand back. "Heaven! Why you did not just spew all that you know! I almost roast my right hand! Wait…" a realisation suddenly comes to Martian, "You not only can hear me, but you can see me too? All this fucking time?!!"

[Opss...will you believe me when I say no?]

"Fucking NO!" Martian's face becomes red when he pictures Bertrand having fun looking at how terrified his face and how scaredy-cats he was before. 'I need to find the grey one! And quickly beat this jerk!'

His blazing rage from embarrassment fuelling Martian to forget his own fear of darkness. He flew around all over his own glowing body. From the right cheek to the nose, goes up to the eyes, and then to the hair. Yet no grey one he can find.

"There is no grey one! You better not prank me and merely drop not available colour, so to make me busy goes around like idiot?! Spill it now! Is it another prank of yours?!"

[Come on, did I ever lie to you?]

Martian rolled his eyes and scoffed at Bertrand question.

[Ahem… Here is a clue, you may want to check the left nose hole… kukuku]

Bertrand quickly changes the subject and drop a nasty bomb at Martian plate.

"God in heaven! You already knew all along that the grey one is hiding in the nose hole? Wait, nose hole?!!" nauseousness come into Martian even at the mere thought of nose hole.

Though he is feeling nausea Martian still flies to the tip of the nose as he is afraid to be called out as scaredy-cats for months to come if he does not even dare go near the nose.

Urrrrp~

Ruuuurps~

Martian spectate that air and many mana balls are inhaled or expelled by the nose.

[Just go, you will not feel stink nor will be inhaled by the nose, but the image and the stickiness still there… beware… Kukuku…]

"If you, lying, quickly spill it or if I find nothing inside, I truly will kick your ass for real this time!" Martian threatens Bertrand while at the same time putting his feet in the air current and seeing if the air current had any effect on his imaginary body. "The air current just passing my feet like it never been there."

[Just go it's in the hair number four from the entrance, it's covered by your delicious white cream…. Kukukuku]

Ignoring the part of the white cream thing, Martian steeling his heart and flying into the left nose hole. The first thing that comes into his sight is a huge long black stalagmite like thing with some white slimy liquid covering it, "Eurrg... Eurrrgh.." Martian can feel his body shuddering and his stomach churning.

"The hair number four." though he feels nauseous, escape is out of option. Martian fortify his heart and hypnotise his mind that it all is nothing and it can be done fast, and quickly get out from this world to beat Bertrand out.

"There it is!" Martian found the grey ball at the root of hair number four right near the ceiling. But half of the ball was covered by a white slimy thing. "Just take it!" with a yell and his head looking at another way, Martian grabs the grey ball and feels a sticky and slimy thing, tickling his hands.

Whoosh

Martian quickly flew out of the nose hole. His face all folded with many veins bulging. He keeps his head up while his hands are down.

"It's the black dent on glabella?" Martian quickly flew to the glabella where he saw a black dent before without waiting for the answer from Bertrand.

[Yes, just put it in the dent. Don't ever you dare touch me without washing your hands after this!]

"Don't worry, I will leave all slimy things, and it's factory reserved for your skin lotion!" curt Martian.

Martian put the grey mana ball to the dent and then quickly, go away and flew around while shaking off the slimy thing from his hands.

POP!

The grey mana in the dent suddenly bursts and bursts greyish mist. The grey mist is then being absorbed by the dent little by little.

Silence~

"Now what?" Martian found nothing happens even after all the mist already inhaled by the dent.

[Put your right hand on the dent. But beware! Don't touch anything else besides the door. You aren't a kid nor a mentally challenged man, so don't act like an idiot and stay safe.]

"Bah! You are the mentally challenged one!" after some scoffs, Martian put his hand into the dent, and his world went black.

Shwoom

Martian imaginary body disappeared from the glabella.

Shwoom

Martian suddenly appears in another strange place. Where shiny light keeps passing him by like a shooting star. "Whoa, It's so beautiful~"

Though the shooting star looked so beautiful, Martian didn't dare touch any of them. Even without caution from Bertrand, any senseless people know those shootings can't be trifled with.

Zoom~

All the light from the shooting star goes away, and only a dark world is left behind.

"Where does the door be? " seeing nothing but darkness, again Martian become restless.

Tsss~ tsss~

Out of nowhere, some hissing sounds of fire are sounded around Martian, and many torches are lit up.

"Where in heaven is it?" incredulously, Martian looks around and finds himself actually is inside an empty room. Nothing can be found other than a wall, torches, and a door.

"Is this the door he said?" the door Martian found is jet black created from an unknown material. There is no engravement nor decoration on the door, other than two golden circles with a hand dent in where the door handle should have.

"So I need to put my two hands here? Bertrand never cautions me anything about the door, then it should be safe. I hate to say it, but he will never put me in danger, even if I'm the one who has killed him... He is such a strange guy."

Without thinking much about it, Martian put his hand on both dents.

Shwoom

The jet black door suddenly ablaze in red molten lava colour.

"What?!" caught off guard, Martian kept retreating till the wall.

In no time, the temperature of the blazing door keeps getting higher. Many golden lines like cracks start to appear one after another on it like craking earth before the exploding of the active volcano.

"Heaven!" Martian quickly sit down on the left corner of the room with his back to the door. He made a ball of himself by tucking his head between his knees, "Cursed you, Bertrand!!!"

BOOM!

Martian can hear the booming sound of something exploding in his ears, and with this sound, the blazing door is opening by itself.

In the real world outside, right after the blazing door is opening, Martian cross-legged body suddenly levitates in the air. Raging fire keeps coming out from his glabella and covering his entire body. As time goes by, the raging fire keeps getting bigger and turns the room into a burning hell.

"heh heh…" Bertrand chuckles at the fire show created by Martian. He threw his ablaze robe aside and revealed a left shoulder without an arm. His sparsely shiny black hair blew around as he looked at radiant Martian inside the raging fire, a radiant smile appears on his face, "He is old enough, and yet he still loves to play with fire."