In your Dreamz, Pt 2

It should have been obvious. We knew how this worked by now. He'd gotten us down to a tee, and so of course he'd want to eliminate us one by one. We were unstoppable as a team. Lucy would have easily been able to get Lou to calm down there. She'd known him since she and Lou were little kids when they often played word games together during recess. According to her, it was cute. To him, embarrassing.

Still, we knew how this worked. He was probably gone by now.

"Soon." We said. We'll be back for you."

We moved on, deeper into the castle of The King Of Nightmares, which was starting to make a little bit more sense.

At this point, Rasha, Yorrick, and I took on a position we could really only use when it was the three of us- Tower Defense Mode.

Yorrick was so good at sniping between us, especially since Yorrick and I had initially trained together since we were little kids, that he was able to predict my own movements, and shoot down any blind spots I had in my own Sword and Shield defense. The only other person he could do that with was Rasha, the only other person who knew me before I'd been named Hero.

As we worked through the castle, things settled into a rhythm. As Yorrick picked everything off from afar with his seemingly endless quiver, Rasha and I played Tower Defense, weaving between his arrows, making sure not a soul got even close enough to him to do anything. Everything else got shot in the meanwhile.

That was until we lost our Tower.

"Ugh, fucking finally." I rolled my eyes, looking at the door open in front of us. It had been around three minutes.

"Don't get too cocky babes." Rasha put up her hammer and kept an eye out.

"Yeah dude, don't get too- Mama?" Yorrick suddenly dropped his bow.

"Yorrick?" I looked back at him. The room was empty again. There was nothing but pillars outlining the walls, and a metal grate flooring, like all the other rooms.

"Shut up. Shut up." Yorrick looked up at the blank ceiling in awe, before tears started to line his face.

Rasha gave me that look, and I nodded. We both knew what was happening at this point.

Rasha tried grabbing the right side of his body, as I did the left.

"YORRICK!" I yelled. "SNAP OUT OF IT!"

"Mama?" he gawked like a baby, still looking up at the blank ceiling.

"Rasha, grab his legs. We gotta drag him!" I yelled.

"On it!"

As we tried to trip the guy, I felt the man, as close a friend as I had ever had, slap me across the face.

"Fuck you."

I still don't know why that hurt so much. I'd heard Yorrick call me so much worse. I'd heard him insult me over my own mother's grave, I'd heard him curse my very name, hell, I'd nearly been shot by him so many times now, and at least half of those were on purpose. We'd had fights over the years so much worse than this.

But there was something in his voice, this time. Something that I knew wasn't coming from a feeling of inner anger or regret. Something that didn't show a care in the world for anything that had happened over the years, that just broke me. My eyes widened, and I let go of the struggling Yorrick.

Immediately, Yorrick spun, gleeful and drunk as ever, kicked Rasha in the face so she'd release him, and he went sprinting gleefully into the abyss of the keep, in the exact opposite direction.

I just looked down, dejected.

Rasha got up, looked back at the entrance to the room, where we could still hear him gleefully shout "Mama?", and glanced back at my completely dejected face.

"He's never seemed that legitimate, has he?"

I gulped. "He was gone the moment he dropped his bow."

Rasha looked down at me, sat down, and kissed my teary face on the forehead.

"Alright, then. Let's just sit here, for a moment."

We sat there, on the hard metal ground, as nothing but the cold air passed around us. My sword lay in its sheathe, while her hammer and my shield lay on our backs. We just sat there, enjoying each other's company for the first time since entering The Ruminac a month ago. It was a serene moment, one we'd desperately needed in our relationship.

However, the moment ended eventually. We were in the middle of the most dangerous castle in the world, duh. It would take more than just a couple of words to defeat The King Of Nightmares.

So we waited. The door opened eventually, and we looked back at the entrance, from which the insane Yorrick had left.

"Soon." We said. "We'll be back for you."

Now down to two, we trudged forwards.

"We" turned into "Me" quicker than I would have liked to admit.

We could see the cathedral where we knew he laid. I could tell the difference between his birth and fated death, a lopped-off head at the feet of the Hero.

I lopped off heads with my own sword, and protected Rasha with my shield, as I was supposed to. She went ham with the hammer, as demons and demonesses attacked us with a fury I hadn't seen in all my training. With the two of us, though, we got through it. We always did. I made sure Rasha was alright, and we got moving through to the next room.

The next room was my worst nightmare. Well, it wasn't in the top three, but it was up there, definitely.

The room was a dome, pillars of light filtering through the first stained glass roof I had seen as yet. It was also the first room actually polished in marble, and which looked prestigious. Guards stood at each side of the massive, 20-foot high doors, their handles made for giants. However, it wasn't the doors that made it a nightmare.

My Mom and Dad were the ones who guard the door.

I didn't speak, but Rasha did.

"Mom?" she gulped. I knew it was an illusion. Of course, it was. There was no reason for it not to be. For one, I knew my mom and dad were both alive back in Mayman, the little district on the edge of Troubador City, one of the largest ports on the Ghertrician Sea. I also happened to know that I could take them on in a fight.

Rasha, though, was not so lucky.

*****

TO BE CONCLUDED