Nephilim

Both Marek and I ran out as fast as we could into the hallway. Tall humanoid demons with lanky arms were gathering up around Hanako, preparing to attack. They looked exactly like the guys we saw back at the tower.

-Lesser Nephilim identified! Tagged; Foe-

I spawned my wings, trying to intercept the Lesser Nephilim before they could get close enough to attack, but I just ended up stumbling into their way and taking a hit for Hanako.

SMACK!

“Ouch!” I shouted. Even though this might have been a dream, I certainly felt that pain.

Summoning my spear, I retaliated, coming just a little short on actually landing an attack. That was when I realized I needed to make the spear longer to compensate for my new height.

With a few quick strikes and slashes, I wounded some of the demons, distracting them just enough to get little Hanako out of there.

She jumped onto my back, and I grabbed Marek by the hand.

“Come on! We gotta run!” I shouted.

He stumbled forward trying to keep pace with my strides. I had to slow down or I’d be dragging him along down this fancy hallway.

We needed more speed. At this pace those demons would surly catch up to us.

“Alright, I’m carrying you!”

I swept him off his feet, he was light enough for me to hold across my arms.

“Ah! Wait! I don’t like this!” he shouted, his face turning pale. "I think I'm going to be sick..."

Now with both of them secure, I jumped up and took to my wings to fly down the hallway, but I just did a little skip and almost landed on Marek.

“Dang it!” I shouted. “How come that stupid drug is affecting me in a dream?”

If I couldn’t take flight, we were done for.

It didn’t make sense. Dreams are supposed to defy reality. Humans could fly in them if they wanted, even without wings. It was absurd to think an Exceed couldn’t do the same.

SCREW IT! If this was a dream, I could do anything I wanted!

As belief in my abilities started overtaking my mind, washing away the doubt, my wings started to tingle. The tinglier they felt, the easier it was to move them. I could once more take to the air.

“Yes!” I cheered, flying down the hall crazy fast.

The walls were widening, stretching out in unnatural ways to form a cavern shape.

Stalactites grew down from the celling, resembling chandeliers of light. The walls looked like someone stretched wallpaper over a rocky surface, decorated with ugly paintings and old oversized furniture. Everything started to become strangely cave like.

“This is definitely not a naturally formed cave!” I shouted.

“My house is no cave! What is happening here?!”

Figures were stepping out of creepy paintings on the walls, growing bat wings to chase after us. I assumed they were more of the Nephilim.

All those demons were right on our tail. I couldn’t see a good escape route, so I just had to keep going forward.

The house cavern twisted and turned a few times, slowly going downward into a deep pit.

Just at the very bottom of the pit, I saw some light. It looked like a moving painting of a whirlpool, splashing down chunks of watery paint from buckets.

I decided to aptly call it the Warhol-pool.

“Down we go!”

I had to keep in mind my speed as we flew down. The g-force would be horrible on those two if my speed wasn’t in check.

Regardless, we had to hit that Warhol-pool fast. It looked like it was starting to close up.

Of course, my entire plan hinged on it actually leading somewhere like a portal…

“I hope you guys know how to swim!” I announced just before diving all of us right into the colourful water. It closed up seconds later.

~☆☆☆~

Twists and turns, we were carried down a terribly dark tunnel by a tidal wave of paint!

“Aahhh!”

Everyone screamed as we were jettisoned out of the Warhol-pool, right into an ocean!

Water broke our fall, but I scrambled quickly to gather little Hanako and Marek from underwater.

Marek had already grabbed Hanako, so I swam us to shore. All the while, paint began to spread across a beach in a very colourful display.

“Hanako is alright.” Marek claimed, coughing up a little water. “I made sure she got out first.”

I forgot he was a good swimmer.

Marek and Hanako were recovering on the sand, it didn’t look like I needed to treat them at all, just give them some time.

“Goodness, what a water slide.” I huffed out, squeezing the excess moisture from my hair.

We were all painted in many colours. My white hair looked like rainbow spaghetti. But luckily this was acrylic paint, so it washed off pretty easy.

I took the moment to look around at where we were. It was dusk. We were on a beach, just next to a dry desert land.

There were lights off in the distance, like a city. Walking there wouldn’t be too difficult once everyone was on their feet.

“Why are we here?” Marek asked. “What have you done with me?”

His scornful look shot daggers through me. I’m not used to seeing him so angry.

“I’m sorry.” I teared up. “I just wanted to help you!”

Now I felt sad, because he was mad at me. Did I really do the right thing by taking him with?

“Wahhh! Ahhh!” I cried!

He mellowed a little, looking regretful of his anger.

“Er…um…Don’t cry, no?”

*Sniffle* “I won’t cry if you promise not to yell at me again.” *Sniffle*

He let out a loud grown, then looked at Hanako, who was giving him a pouty stinky eye.

“Sacre bleu…” he mumbled. “Fine.”

*Sniffle* “Okay…”

When all was fine between us again, I pointed out the obvious light on the horizon. We needed to head that way, even if it might have been a bit dangerous. It was worth scouting out.

“I thought that was a mirage.” Marek commented. “Is it safe to head that way?”

“We really don’t have a choice.” There weren’t any other points of interest to go for.

“Can we trust the people there?” Marek asked. Hanako tried to take his hand, but he was startled by her sudden grab.

Then she came over to me and held my hand instead.

“I don’t know, but I don’t see anything else around here that looks like civilization.”

The direction we’d come from no longer had an endless fountain of paint dumping into an ocean. And any other direction just looked like desert lands as far as the eye could see. I didn’t feel like spending the next forty days wandering hot sands, or getting lost at sea, so it was pretty clear where we needed to go.

~☆☆☆~

It was awkwardly silent as we walked toward the desert city. It Gave me a good amount of time to consider the situation.

Since I'd found Marek, clearly in a younger and scrawnier state then normal, its likely that this was his past self. Probably at a point in his life where things weren't great. I don't know if this was actually him, or maybe this was just some sort of dream version only meant for me to see, but he certainly was pretty realistic.

And as for Hanako, seeing as I found a past version of Marek...I think it's pretty obvious who this really was...Indena.

It was hard to believe that this timid little doll was Indena, but there was no mistaking it. She almost died in a blizzard, like when Indena was younger, and has nearly all the same facial features as her older self. Maybe it was just me, but I was a little worried what corrupted her to be so vulgar...

And following the same examples Marek and I went through, Indena was found at a rough point in her life too. I think we were all dealing with the hardest points in our lives, reliving them in dream form.

So, since I found the two of them, it's a fair bet to think that the others would eventually show up too, dealing with their own nightmares.

Was it morbid curiosity to wonder what Uncle's hardest point in life was? What about Mella? And we could probably assume Yamin was here too.

There were a big problem though. If I hadn't shown up, what would have happened to these two? Indena was about to die, and who knows what Marek would have done by getting black out drunk. Assuming they both survived to reach the future where we met, what happened to save them, and why didn't those entities show up when they needed to? 

How did we even end up here anyways?

All these issues had me scratching my head.

Last thing I remember...that sickly demon guy who fell out of the darkness pod was using some sort of power against us.

If I were a betting girl, and dad always sad I should never gamble, my money would be on that guy having been the demon lord. He probably threw us into this dream world where we had to face our worst memories.

He didn't look so tough. I bet I could sneeze and he'd blow away. At least now I know for sure who the head honcho was. I just hope I can save everyone before these nightmares do us in.