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'Am I in a dream?'
My eyes were gently and steadily opening up, my clear vision gradually stabilizing as I felt my head leaning on something hard.
'Have I already slept and woken up? This quickly?'
That's quite odd.
I was aware that many people had similar experiences to where they would just fall asleep, only to suddenly wake up a few hours later, feeling as if they had just slept.
A sleep devoid from any dreams.
It couldn't exactly be described as something pleasant to not hold any joyful dreams, but at the same time, it was neither something to take on negatively, at least from my personal perspective.
Still, I preferred dreams, since they would just keep me entertained in my sleep, as if I was watching a favourite show on television or such.
But what was even more surprisingly is that I didn't feel the headache I felt when I suddenly fell asleep either.
Though ... I felt a weird sensation. An indescribable sensation of apprehension that something was incredibly off about where I currently was, the rhythm of my heart unusual.
I couldn't grasp my hands around what exactly this indescribable feeling was, but decided to shake it off for now.
I blinked my eyes once as if clearing up any sticky sleep at the corner of my eyes that somehow stuck my eyelids close.
'To think I wouldn't dream even after everything that happened today, what kind of brain do I have to not even properly dream?' Internally I thought.
However, despite saying this, I reached my hands out trying to sit myself properly. My hands wandered in the air for a few seconds on a harsh terrain, my forehead furrowing as a sensation that felt off reached my hands.
".... I'm not on the train? Hm?"
What?
Then am I really dreaming?
Ok, I take back my previous words. Lets check this dream out, what it has in stock for me.
As I moved my hands across the terrain, I paused my fingertips for a moment as if trying to identify what I was feeling for a moment.
A slippery feeling that was rough yet sticky at the same time was conveyed to my brain. I felt it was something that I could grasp and suddenly pulled it in curosity.
"Hrk—cough, cough—hk!"
Immediately, I roughly wiped my hand across my face in disgust as I felt something falling on my face and eyes, the loathsome sensation of particles falling on my features triggering my abhorrence.
'I can't see anything, shit. Why isn't it coming off my face? What is this?'
I slightly opened my right eye trying to look with tears at the corner of my eyes, blinking my lashes as the material clung to them stubbornly.
My hands trembled slightly as I saw what my hand was holding with. With confusion seeping into my eyes, I turned my head to looked at the side, as if confirming what I was seeing, and furrowed my brows.
"A tree root? No, I don't remember tree roots being red at all."
My heart rate spiked.
In a fit of panic, I tried to straighten my body from my position, but tripped and fell over myself, falling back to my initial position.
Back on earth, although I didn't fear anything in particular, I had an interesting case of claustrophobia when I was younger.
Although it one day miraciouly vanished as I was growing in age, there had been a few instances where sudden unexpected situations had triggered such states.
And this one was an excellent example of that.
"...H,Hello, is there anyone there? Can anyone hear me !? If anyone can hear me, please help me. Hello!"
I tried to call for help, but all I got in return was silence. Not even the empty howls of the air, as if it was non-existent in this hellish landscape.
I tried standing up yet again, but the vision before me when I looked at the sky was completely different than anything I had seen in all my life, whether back on Earth, or even in the new world.
I couldn't muster any words as my eyes merely stared at the sky without being able to utter a single word.
Where am I?
My feet, starting from my lower ankle started slightly shaking, before my legs gave out completely, and I sat on the ground.
I leaned against the dirt wall behind my back, my eyes gradually adjusting to the dark as I steadily looked around me.
From the four directions I was surrounded by four dirt walls approximately in height around ten feet each, roots protruding normally. The only thing visible to me was the sky, no, the abnormal sky.
Yet, I could easily determine, this place was anything but normal.
The roots were a sticky bloodish-red and sweetish orange slightly pulsating, stickily clinging with mucus to the dirt walls as if it was their zealot protector from any evil, from any endangerment.
His gaze subconsciously shifted to the sky.
The sky in turn-
"Why ..."
He was unable to form a sentence.
"Why is the sky black and orange?"
The sky looked liked it was a fragmented map of a location without destination, something that even imagination could not come with. Replacing the familiar foggy cloudy or the gleaming ocean blue sky was an irregular sky that didn't seem to belong to any realm.
A sky that had two major colors; orange and black mixing haphazardly with each other as if they were two types of paitns that had spilled into one container.
The colors in the sky ever-slight shifted, white and other colorful dots of color amidst them shining in the sky with differentiating brightnesses, as if their place of award was constant shifting between first, second, and third places.
He looked down to the floor he was sitting at, staring intently at it for a few seconds.
"... The dirt is red?"
'What in the world ...? The dirt is red? Back... back on earth, I've heard that dirt turns red mainly when there is a large content of iron oxide. Could it be ... ?'
He leaned forward to the ground and brought a handful of soil to his nose, rubbing it slowly as he smelled it, before brushing the dirt off his fingers.
'No, it doesn't smell like rust at all. Damn it, I should have expect this, what kind of location did I expect this is this to think that something resembling that on earth would exist here?
He let a mocking smile.
His thoughts paused for a moment as they lingered with caution at the red roots which he did not dare to approach.
"But .... Why is it red then?'
A certain thought popped in his mind, before he attempted to shake it away. Yet it was not as simple to remove certain thoughts as it was to have them
Noel's breathing turned irregular or at least he tried to properly breath, but his heart was beating too fast for him to properly regulate it through slow breathing.
'Fuck. Does this mean I will die at this rate? Trapped in this place that I got no idea where it is?'
His vision started blurring, and he held his chest tightly as his heart rate increased exponentially in panic as he realized the location he was trapped in was semi-impossible to escape.
'No, no, its a mere dream. I'll wake up the next moment now at anytime. Haha. Yes, of course, how could I forget this is a dream? But ... the pain feels as if ... its not just a dream'
His lie was unable to convince even himself.
His hands gripped his chest and tightened.
Evidence he tried to bluntly deny.
'My chest hurts so much.'
Four walls of Incredibly high walls of dirt surrounding him.
'I feel like I'm going to die here'
Sigs of decayed and dry soil than that near the surface.
'I'm not done yet.'
A grave.
'No, no, no, I can't have a panic attack here. Not here. I can't die yet.'
Stop feeling fear, you idiotic dumbass.
Stay calm, calm down ... fuck, I said, Calm the fuck down!
Noel closed his eyelids as he felt his salty tears streaming down his eyes. He took a few deep breaths and ran his hand through is hair before he took a deep breath.
He opened his puffy red eyes as he felt a minor headache assaulting him.
"... Ok, then. Let's get to work. First things first, how should I climb?"
He paid it no heed and stood up a bit dizzyingly, before looking at the height of the walls as if measuring how he would climb out, and steeled himself.
His fingertips touched the walls, before he gripped a nearby root and wrapped it around his hand. He grimaced at the sticky feeling, before letting out a bitter smile that did not match his tear-dried face.
He gave it a firm tug, confirming it was firmly rooted, before he tried to clim-
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Noel suddenly opened his eyes and rubbed them tiredly, before he paused.
His heart was calmly beating, as if nothing had happened.
'What ... just happened? Why am I here again, back to my original position? Wasn't I trying to just climb the walls?' He thought in confusion.
Noel stared at the sky for a moment, blinking rapidly, before he raised his fingers and touched underneath his eyes.
"My eyes are ... dry ... no sign of tears?"
The tears that had stained his face had disappeared as if he never had cried.
Noel sat up quickly as he looked around him and at the sky.
'I remember I was just about the climb the wall, and then suddenly found myself here. What the hell just happened?'
He sat for a moment there, looking into empty space, before his eyes widened.
At a sudden question, Noel quickly sat up, and moved his hands through the dirt, looking for the root he had held.
His hand moved rapidly through the dirt where he had thrown away the root he had first pulled, yet, it was for naught.
He stood there for a moment in confusion before he turned his head to a particular wall and squinted his eyes.
He found a similar root to the root he had pulled embed in a wall.
In a daze, he reached out his arm and attempted to lightly pull it out, making it come out with his gentle pull.
'... Everything ... everything really went back to how it was the first time I appeared here' He mused.
He opened his fist and flexed his fingers, staring at them for a moment, lost in thought.
He had too many questions, and none of them seemed to be solvable.
Thinking anymore would only plague his mind even more to no result. It was, in short, utterly unproductive. Still, it's not like he was one to talk after all the panic he had went through in his first phase.
'Is this really just a dream?'
His doubt was gradually growing exponentially.