Kitsune in the Shadows

Chapter 69 – A Fox’s Nightmare

My eyes suddenly shot open, although through no will of my own. Somehow, I was already standing.

I wasn’t in the wagon like I had expected, yet this place wasn’t unfamiliar to me. It was actually somewhere I knew very well.

…

It was my room. The one from back in Casgolau. There was my bed, my wardrobe, and even the scratch marks on the floor from when Umbra would run around. There was nothing else it could be but my room.

How did I-?…

My first instinct was to try to call for Mom or Ava, but no matter how much I tried, my mouth refused to budge. I brought my hand up to try to force my mouth open, and surprisingly, there was no resistance; although, even as I held my mouth open, I still couldn’t make a sound.

If I can’t call for them…

I made my way to the door, opening it slowly.

…

I don’t know what I expected, but it just was the rest of the house, exactly as I remembered it… almost…

While there was nothing strange at a glance, there was an unsettling feeling in the air that seemed to be dangling over me.

I walked into the main room, where we would eat every day, but as I did, I noticed something a little unusual out of the corner of my eye. It was the window; there was something about it that just wasn’t quite right.

The outside world… it… wasn’t really there. I could see it outside of the window, but it was like the scene had just been painted onto the glass itself. With each step I took, it became more and more obvious.

Something wrong…

Very wrong…

I spun around, looking back down the short hallway I had just walked down. It almost looked like I remembered. All four rooms were there, just like in the house, but at the end of it was an extra door that wasn’t supposed to be there.

…

…

As soon as I noticed that it was there, I couldn’t pull my eyes away. My feet started moving by themselves, carrying me closer, yet I didn’t resist.

As I stood in front of the door, I placed my hand against it, only taking a few seconds to steal myself before pushing it open.

…

That’s not…

It can’t be…

How?…

On the other side of the door was another place I recognised, but it wasn’t supposed to be there. It couldn’t have been there. It was an alleyway… The alleyway… The very one I woke up in nine years ago… with the same muddied cobblestones lining the floor, the same buildings from the shopping street on both sides… everything was perfect… except for the fact that it was here.

My mind screamed at me to close the door, to turn around, but my body didn’t listen. As soon as I stepped out into the alley, the door slammed behind me. The sound shocked me out of whatever trance I had been in and I immediately turned around in an attempt to go back, but the door was gone, replaced with the rest of the alleyway.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t given much time to think about what I should do as the once silent alleyway was suddenly filled with the clattering of armour and unintelligible yelling.

My heart dropped.

What?! What’s happening?!

Was it all-?

That thought was cut short as I started sprinting. The alleys were a maze, but that didn’t matter; I knew this place like the back of my hand… I had to… I didn’t have a choice…

My legs are longer now.

I-I can get away!

 I have to!

I ran and ran, yet no matter how much I pushed myself, the sounds continued to draw closer. The scar across my back was growing hot as if telling me what was going to happen… What had to happen.

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No!

Not again!

My legs were already burning, but it was nothing compared to the searing heat across my back.

Please!

Right as that thought crossed my mind, I felt the worst happen. My foot got caught on one of the cobblestones, and I was thrown forward. The world around me slowed, and the scar on my back somehow grew even hotter.

I wanted to scream, but my mouth still refused to open.

Why?!

Why again?!

I braced myself for the fall as I was left listening to the clattering of armour, the yelling… it was right behind me. It was about to happen.

*Thud*

I hit the ground.

However, it wasn’t the cold, hard cobblestone floor I was expecting. Instead, I had fallen onto a carpet that wasn’t there just moments before.

…

The sounds were gone, the heat was gone… the alleyway was… gone… as if it was never there in the first place.

…

I slowly got myself up off the floor and started looking around.

I was inside… at least that’s what it seemed like. It was a hallway, about the same size as the alleyway… or maybe a maze of hallways would be a better description? Looking off into the distance, there were all these branching paths, none of which I could see the end of.

The walls had become smooth, almost shiny, each of which was lined with a seemingly never-ending number of doors that all a single small window in, although they were completely blacked out, stopping me from seeing what was behind them.

Tentatively, I reached out for one of the door knobs and tried to turn it, but it didn’t budge. I tried the next door, and the next, and even the one after that, but none of them opened.

What’s going on?…

…

Looking both ahead and behind me all I saw were more doors, more turns, more hallways.

…

I did the only thing I could in that situation and started to walk. It was a strange sensation; each time I got to a turn, I just somehow knew deep down which way I was supposed to go.

At some point, the hallways slowly started to change; the once-barren walls started to become filled with unfinished sketches. Pages torn out of notebooks started to litter the floor. There didn’t seem to be much of a theme with the sketches. The closest thing would be this faceless figure that showed up somewhat often; however, each time they appeared, they were wearing a completely different outfit.

I just continued to walk, trying to ignore it all, at least until something caught my eye, something familiar. I immediately knelt down and grabbed it.

It was a notebook, just like the many others I had seen in this hallway, but this one was a little different to the rest. It was the very notebook that Raynelle had given to me two years ago.

It can’t be…

I started flicking through the pages, and sure enough they were my sketches, all of them.

Why… is this here?

…

As I stood up, the notebook just slipped through my hand and landed back in the pile of sketches as if refusing to let me take it away.

I don’t understand any of this.

Instead of dwelling on it, I continued to walk down the hallways, following my instincts. It wasn’t much longer before the sketches stopped appearing. Instead, the hallways started to be lined with mannequins, much like the ones I had seen at Ana’s store. However, the clothes that were on them were nothing like I had ever seen; the colours, shapes, and even the materials they were made of seemed alien to me.

Again, I just kept on walking; however, with each step, something seemed to change. One step, a stitch on one of the dresses snapped, another step, some of the decorations from a different dress clattered to the floor, another step, some of the dresses fell apart completely, collapsing onto the floor in a heap. It was as if each step I took was tearing this place apart.

I started running, trying to ignore the noises made as things continued to fall apart, focusing only on my next step. Eventually, the dresses stopped appearing; each wall was lined only with even more doors and bare mannequins; sometimes, even the mannequins themselves were broken.

…

At this point, I couldn’t even put together coherent thoughts; everything that was happening was just so strange that I stopped questioning it.

However, it seemed that I might have decided on that just a little too soon.

The doors and mannequins both eventually stopped appearing, and the carpet slowly smoothed out into a single shiny sheet that was ever so slightly wet. All the colour in the room gradually vanished, and all the branching paths that I saw in front of me converged into one.

…

The air felt heavy in my lungs, and there was a strange smell that burnt the inside of my nose, but still, I continued to walk… I continued until I finally saw an end to the hallway… a wall with a single door and nothing more.

Somehow, it only took a moment before I was stood in front of the door with my hand up against it.

…

I… don’t think I should be doing this…

It’s not right…

I don’t… I don’t want to do this…

There was just something about it… it was different to all the doors before… just touching the handle; something was telling me that I didn’t want to know what was on the other side… yet once again, my body didn’t listen. I simply turned the handle and…

*Click*

It wasn’t locked.

…

I pushed it open.

…

Behind that door was something that inexplicably shook me to my core.

…

It was a staircase.

…

But as my eyes looked at each step in turn, it seemed to just keep going down, deeper and deeper, as it trailed off into nothingness.

No.

I don’t know why…

But no.

I can’t do that.

Anything but that.

Then, as if sensing my fear, something came up from out of the nothingness.

An ear-piercing scream that froze me in place.

What was…

I…

This isn’t right.

The scream was familiar… eerily familiar… yet I didn’t recognise it. But that didn’t matter as, once again, the same scream came up from the staircase, only much louder.

No. No. No.

I tried to take a step back but just ended up falling to the floor instead.

The scream came again, and again, and again. It was echoing up the staircase, echoing through the hallway behind me.

I tried to cover my ears, but it did nothing. The scream echoed inside my head. I couldn’t get away from it. I wasn’t allowed to get away from it.

Please stop.

I don’t… I can’t…

I could feel it… the fear… this… terror that was in the scream.

My heart kept beating faster and faster, each breath becoming shorter and shorter. At some point, my very thoughts were drowned out by the incessant screaming.

“Found her!”

A voice!

That voice somehow cut through all the wailing and gave me something to hold on to, something to distract me.

I propped myself up and immediately looked around for where the voice came from. Fortunately, it didn’t take long, as behind me, just a few steps away, stood a nine-tailed fox, their eyes seemingly an endless abyss.

Is that-?

No… it can’t be… it wasn’t her voice…

The fox slowly approached me before settling in close, wrapping its tails around me. As it did, the screaming finally stopped, the walls fell away, and the staircase vanished, leaving nothing but a familiar dark void.

“Kierra!” A different voice called out.

Ovia?!

My ears immediately perked up, but before I even had a chance to turn around and look, I felt her arms tightly embrace me as that familiar chill wrapped around me, helping me to quickly calm down.

“I’m sorry, I-It was a maze in here. I couldn’t f-find you,” She spoke quickly, “It’s just a n-nightmare. I-It’s okay now, It’s over. I-I’m here now.”

Instead of saying anything, I just buried my face in her arms as I felt tears start to well up in my eyes.

Just a nightmare?…

…

But… it felt… too real…

“I guess I should leave you two to it,” The fox got up, leaving me leaning up against Ovia, “I will be expecting a reward when you get back though.”

“T-thank you, Rya,” Ovia said as she squeezed me a little tighter.

“You can take your time. I’m not rushing you or anything,” With that last comment, the fox disappeared completely.

Who was that?…

…

Shouldn’t I also thank them?…

…

“I-I was surprised when you suddenly said g-good night to me,” Ovia started talking to me almost immediately, “I wanted to s-say something back, but you had already fallen asleep. S-so I entered your dream but couldn’t find you… so I asked for some help…”

“…” I tried to say something, but my mouth still wouldn’t open.

“A-ah um… you don’t need to say anything,” She carefully lay me down so that my head was resting in her lap, “Just r-relax… we can t-talk when you wake up!… But only if you w-want to…”

Ovia then wrapped her tails around me, just as the other fox had done moments before. I quickly grabbed onto one of them and held it close, hoping that Ovia would be able to understand me even if I couldn’t speak.

Thank you… Again…

…

And… sorry…

For not saying anything…

…

Even if… I still can’t bring myself to tell you everything…

…

Thankfully, nothing else happened after that in my dream. It was simply a peaceful time spent with Ovia until I eventually had to wake up and leave her once again.