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Scott looked around at his surroundings.
He saw rolling red hills, black squiggly lines against a blank background.
“At least I’m still sleeping…” Scott mumbled to himself.
It was odd seeing his mindscape not… blue. But maybe that meant the border was tamed somehow? Scott didn’t know. He just walked forward, looking to see what this dream had in store.
One of the hills in the distance had… a crater covering it. It wasn’t deep, but Scott couldn’t see the center of it.
Scott continued to walk. His steps felt float-y, he could almost fly across the hills.
It didn’t take that long to reach the crater, even going uphill felt like a breeze. Scott started to lose his floatiness when he stepped inside the crater. The ground was cracked like a desert. In the center, the most dented part of it all… was a person lying down?
Scott took another step, then another. He inched closer to the person, were they asleep? Or just… dead?
He finally reached the person inside. She stared upward with her arms folded. Her pink shirt and jeans were tattered, her round glasses shattered too… A blue game case was lodged into her chest. Her shirt was obviously stained red, but the fact that she wasn’t surrounded by a pool of blood was surprising. Or maybe it was because the ground was also red…
“A-Anna? Didn’t I…” Scott said as he bent down, but she still was blank. He then reached toward the blue game case, but Anna’s hand quickly jolted up and grabbed his wrist.
“You’re only gonna make it worse…” She cautioned as she threw Scott’s hand away. “D-do you know where I am right now? This isn’t a city…”
Were other people in dreams supposed to know that they’re not real? Scott just shrugged in response. “I… don’t know either.” He lied as he sat down next to her. “Uh, are you still mad at me for not liking anime?” He asked. “We did get into a whole fight over that…”
“Yeah, I’m still f*cking furious!” Anna grumbled. “But I can’t do anything about that right now, I can’t even…” She raised her hand up, but all it did was just… emit smoke. “My powers are useless here, but I thought I recovered! It’s been a long time too? Oh well, you put up a good fight.”
“If it still means anything to you, I played a few RPGs last year…” Scott mentioned. “They were alright. I’m still not focused on becoming an RPG guy though.” He shrugged.
Anna’s head slowly turned to Scott's direction, and she stared at him for a while too. “Maybe we should fight again.”
“I kinda don’t want to?”
“Well, not right now obviously…” She pointed to the blue game case. “But there’s always other things to deal with… you only change when other people want you to, right? Jeb and Terry, as far as I know.” Anna looked back up, but Scott flinched at the mention of those names.
“How do you… know them?” Scott tilted his head, fear creeping up with each word.
“You framed them for something as petty as a sports game . I thought real life sports fans were bad…”
“How did you know THAT?” He thought… he already said sorry to them. Jeb and Terry already apologized for what happened at Vegan’s Anonymous. Even the police stopped caring about Madden 18…
Anna sat upwards, her movement wasn’t staggered at all. It was like there wasn’t a huge plastic object poking into her guts. “You haven’t heard what THEY think of you…” She giggled. “Not even JUST Jeb and Terry, almost everyone else too!”
“No, they like me! At least… I think they like me.” Scott trailed off. “I’ve saved them from dying , and they helped me save the world! I think they would like me for that… We hang out a lot, we… uh…” Even though he didn’t move around a lot, Scott sounded like he was panting, like he just ran a mile.
All Anna did was just stand up from the ground, she didn’t even struggle. “Oh, but they just want to live normal lives. Did you forget that Jerry has a family? Or how Target Employee has to be like his brother… Their house is quiet because of you. There’s a bedroom that won’t be used ever again because of you.”
“But Target… Target treats it like it’s nothing?” Scott tried to shoot back, but Anna was really freaking him out. He was still on the ground, and she was towering over him.
“They just want normal, or at least whatever the bubble gives them…” Anna finished.
“B-bubble?”
“Oh, they don’t know about it either. But it’s weird in every way…”
Scott gulped, this was still a dream right? He tried to jolt his arms, he tried to blink rapidly. He even tried to slap himself in the face.
Anna shook her head like a wet dog, then collapsed to the floor. “What the HELL are you doing?” She asked, as if she didn’t hit Scott with… all of that.
“I… I need you to punch me. Remember when you shot me with a laser? Do that again!” Scott begged, he even switched to a kneeling position.
“Eh?”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to fight me again? Well now’s your chance!” Scott exclaimed. He even grabbed Anna’s hand and pointed it toward his face.
“ Yeah, but… I’m still out of it. I don’t even know where this place is…” Anna gestured all around the area with her other hand. “Why do you suddenly want to fight anyway?”
“I need to wake up! This is just some weird, f*cked up dream…” Scott explained, his voice almost screeching.
Anna’s eyes widened, but she had no words. The only other thing she did was… crack? Like she was made of clay. “Huh…?” Anna’s voice went hoarse. She tried to raise her head up, but that part of her body crumbled faster…
Soon, all that was left of Anna May was her clothes and the game box. There was also her hand Scott was holding. He dropped it to where Anna formerly was. The parts of her that crumbled turned into a blue colored liquid.
A saturated blue.
A… border blue.
The liquid started to stain the crater, making it become a dark blue. It spread throughout the field of hills. Even what could be considered the sky.
“Oh, not again…” Scott buried his head into his hands.
The pool of blue looked like it was boiling water for a few seconds, then it started to rise…
What came from it was a person, completely covered in blue. Scott could see a vague outline of glasses on his face, but that was the only thing that stood out.
“Are you just gonna ignore her words?” The… thing asked, it sounded just like Scott. “There’s a lot of truth in what Anna was talking about.”
“Anna also tried to kill me for not liking anime! I don’t think she’s someone you’d go to for advice…” Scott refuted, he tried to run in the other direction. Off the crater and into a new hill, but when he reached the edge, something blocked him. He couldn’t see it, but something was definitely there.
Scott walked to another spot. An invisible wall still blocked him.
“Think about how you met your friends. They either hated you, or you just used them to fulfill some stupid task…” They stated as Scott turned back to him. “Even if you think you apologized, that feeling isn’t the same for them. No one can just… emotionally recover from murder in the blink of an eye. That murderee gala was just the bare minimum.”
All of these things about hidden feelings… it just made Scott’s brain spin around. “Then why don’t they just say it to my face?”
Another outline appeared on the thing’s face, they were smiling. The kind of twisted smile that’s seen in horror movies. It stretched across their face, was that even possible? The thing took a few steps toward Scott, he tried to lean back against the invisible wall, as if that would do anything…
“The bubble revolves around you! Every bad thing is short term because of you !” The thing poked Scott’s chest. If it weren’t for the wall behind him, then Scott would’ve gone tumbling down hill. “Everything’s practically tailor made, so anything bad towards you? It’s not even there…”
Scott was trying to process that information all at once. “What about monsters? Or people like Steel Wool? Or even the f*cking border?!” He gestured to the entire area. “Those were threats! Why hasn’t this… bubble done anything about that?”
“Well, you view them as adventures.” The thing shrugged. “A simple story, almost like an episode. You have fun trying to defeat them, your friends don’t.”
Was this really all true…?
Scott tried to shake off what the thing told him. Dreams always have symbolism, maybe this thing just represented… self doubt. Anxiety? Maybe a combination of those negative feelings that swirled in his mind.
This would just be a funny dream Scott could tell about his friends later, they would laugh WITH him. They would… what else would they do?
…No. This dream turned into a nightmare a while ago. He still needed to wake up. All of those wakening tactics earlier didn’t work, he just needed something quick. A quick burst of something.
Even if the thing in front of him didn’t know how to shoot lasers out of their arms… they could still touch Scott. He was still reeling from the poke in his chest anyway.
“Um, would you crumble too if… we’re just in a dream?” Scott panickedly asked. He really, REALLY wanted to get out…
“Anna May is FAR weaker than me… I already know what’s going on.”
“Then, you know how I asked her to fight again?” Scott tried to remind them.
The thing nodded.
“Could… you do the same?”
Something new formed on their face. Now it was an outline of… eyes. They looked exaggerated, their eyes looked… fake. Paired with the toothy grin, the thing’s face sent a shiver down Scott’s spine.
“I’ll do something even better!” The thing’s hands lunged toward Scott’s neck, wrapping their hands around it like a snake. Their hands felt cold and moist.
Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea…
Scott’s breathing felt stuttered as the thing walked forward, the invisible wall was gone…
All of the hills were gone too, and the thing was going towards… a cliff.
Scott struggled against his grip, he tried to pry his hands off. “I-isn’t… this… REALLY… extreme?” He tried to shout, but he had to take a breath with each word. His feet were dragging across the floor, the thing didn’t seem like they were being slowed down.
“No, you won’t have to force anyone into harm’s way anymore! The bubble can focus on someone else! Someone just a little more competent…” The thing giggled.
Scott tried to open his mouth again, but all that came out was hollowed out gagging.
“Your friends won’t have to deal with danger, they can finally use the bubble how they wanted!’
With those words lingering in Scott’s head, he suddenly felt the ground disappear. He looked down.
Below him, was an abyss. There was no way of telling how deep it was.
Scott turned back to the thing’s face, it still hasn’t changed. This would be the last thing Scott would see.
The unnerving face of someone who was made up of a human’s remains. A creature that sounded just like Scott.
“Well, you’ll see Chet again. That’s something to think about!” The thing’s smile stretched across their face as they let go of Scott.
He didn’t even bother to scream. Scott felt the wind pass through his hair and clothes.
It’s… been a good run.
—--------
Sunshine peeked through Scott’s curtain, and the sky said good morning again.
His alarm clock next to him blared repeated beeps .
But Scott laid still in bed, more dormant than ever.
His chest wasn’t even moving.