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Assistant: Title: Velvet Escapades
        Author: liverstew liverstew 
        Chapter: 1/2 
        Summary: In a world stitched from dreams and sugar, identity is the first to melt. After a tragic accident leaves Hullabaloo's very own Mike Morton unconscious, he awakens not in the hospital, but in a surreal, dreamlike realm where everyone is a toy and nothing is quite what it seems. Now only known as Mr. Swifts, Mike must journey across the world and it's seven domains if he wishes to return home and not forget who he was. (Based on the upcoming whimsy series)
        Contents: Chapter 1: The Prophet of Yore
    

    


  

  
  
    
    The sky was the color of soft candy–pink spun with lavender, like the inside of a sherbet tin left out in the sun too long.Mike Morton opened his eyes and they clicked.Not blinked–clicked. Like buttons twisting in their holes. His lashes were thread. His face, made of velvet. When he moved, it was with the stilted flutter of a sock puppet. His hands–stitched. One of his legs creaked, ending in a strange wheel with clockwork spokes. Something rattled in his chest.And his mouth was sewn shut.He tried to sit up and nearly folded in half. A squeaky spring whined in protest somewhere in his joints.He was a doll.A ragged, button-eyed, hollow-chested doll.The wind whispered something sweet. A tune, maybe. In the distance, there was a tent-striped red and yellow like a melted candy cane. A ferris wheel turned slowly in the haze. Birds with party hats chirped lullabies.Then came the sound of sobbing. Sniffling. The rustle of heavy fabric.Mike turned and stumbled backward at the sight.A clown stood before him. A very sorrowful clown, a crumbled thing with melting makeup, gears ticking in its joints, and a sentient snail melted onto with wax on the top of his head. His eyes were buttons just like Mike's. One hand was clenched into the fist the other pointed a shaky finger at him.“Y-you-what’re you doing!-!” the clown said. His voice hiccuped between sobs. “You ruined the race!” Mike tried to speak. A muffled whimper escaped the seams of his mouth. The clown crouched, tugged a seam at Mike’s jaw, and ripped it open gently–threads unraveling with a soft pop.“There. Now tell me,” the clown wept, holding Mike’s chin like a mother with a sick child. “State your name.”Mike swallowed, though he had no throat. “I’m…Mike.”The clown flinched. A single tear dropped onto the puppet in his arms. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, you must understand, that name is long gone now, your name is now Mr. Swifts!” He slapped a patch on Mike’s chest, sewn from parchment.It read: “Property of Hullabaloo Circus – Mr. Swifts.”“I must win the race now.” He moaned as he straightened with a loud creak, he turned stiffly, and hobbled away on a leg that wheeled like a broken toy cart, trailing a thin line of blue tears in the grass behind him.“Wait!” Mike called, stumbling after him. His voice sounded soft and muffled, like a whisper spoken through cotton. “Where…where am I?”The clown didn’t stop. He waddled forward in jittery half-steps, dragging his wheel-leg through the patchwork grass. A puff of glitter escaped with every squeak. From behind, his silhouette looked like some sort of human-snail abomination.Mike caught up, his joints clicking and his limps uncoordinated. “Please! What is this place?”The clown turned slowly. One of his button-eyes had a crack through it now. “Leave me alone! You’re causing me to lose the race!” he repeated. “I’m very late. Everyone else must be finished by now. She’s going to be very angry at me oh-yore.”“Who?” Mike blinked. “Who is she? And–why do I look like—this?” He gestured wildly to his stitched arms, his soft body, the buttons sewed into where his eyes should be. “I don’t understand any of this, I’m supposed to be a person not a puppet!”The clown looked back at him, heartbroken. “Oh, Swifts,” he murmured, putting a hand up to his heart. “You still remember, don’t you?”  The words made the air feel colder. The wind stopped dancing. A carousel in the distance let out a groan, like wood stretching in its sleep.“My name is Mike,” he insisted. “I was an acrobat–I fell–” The memory broke like glass. The wires, the stage lights, the gas lamps flickering in gold then a sudden, bright pain in the sky.“You were a star, Mr. Swifts,” the clown said. “But stars fall too, don’t they?”“I’ve got to be dreaming,” Mike muttered.“Of course,” the clown said with a tearful smile. “We all are.”There was a moment of silence between the two men. Then the clown extended a hand toward Mike. A small paper ticket peeked out from between his fingers. “I’ve already lost, I guess I could help you I’m sure. Come along with me.”Mike exhaled with a nod as he reluctantly grabbed the Clown’s hand.They walked in silence at first. Only the soft click of the Clown’s wheel-foot and the small sound of soft plush hitting the ground filled the space. The grass was squishy beneath them–stitched together with candy-wrapper clovers and old handkerchief petals. Above, the sky was bruising into a sleepy peach.Mike tugged back against the Clown’s hand. “I need answers, you’re not telling me anything useful. What is this place?” he said firmer now. The clown turned, slow and heavy. His makeup had begun to smear in the corners of his seams, blue streaks running down his chin like melting porcelain. “I already told you where you are,” he murmured, mournful as a funeral bell. “Hullabaloo circus.”“This doesn’t make sense! This isn’t the Hullabaloo circus that I know, nothing about this is even real! I want the truth.” The Clown’s button eyes flicked with something like pity. “You want the truth?” he asked, voice trembling like a broken music box. “Then here’s some truth: You fell from the sky, hard, right as I was in the middle of the Great Snail race–but that doesn’t matter does it now?”Mike swallowed. “So I’m…in a coma? Or dead?”The Clown winded and clenched his hand tighter against his chest. “Don’t say things like that!” he whispered. “You’ll make the sky cry.” Mike looked up and sure enough, little raindrops began falling like glass beads from the felt clouds. They bounced gently against the ground, chiming like tiny bells.“I don’t understand any of this.”“You’re not supposed to,” the Clow said. “Not yet.”Mike huffed. “Well, then who are you?”At that, the Clown stopped walking. The Ferris wheel behind them let out a long, mechanical sigh. The snail on his head gave a soft, croaky wheeze as if it, too, was exhausted. The Clown turned fully, bowed low with exaggerated flair, and said in a dramatic, sob-laced drawl: “I am a grand misfortune. The salt in the pie. The punchline with no joke.” He twirled around as a splash of glitter puffed out from the horn stitched into his back.“You, darling Mr. Swifts… may call me Weepy.”“...Seriously?”Weepy wiped a tear with the back of his hand. “It’s what they named me. I didn’t get a choice either.”
A gust of warm wind rolled over the hill, carrying the scent of burnt sugar and sawdust. In the near distance, the first circus tents came into view–bright patchwork things, swaying like breathing creatures. There was music now, faint and crooked, like it had been recorded backward on a wind-up box.Weepy held out the ticket again.“No more diddly-daddling,” he said. “I know who can help you and your journey.”“Journey..?” Mike questioned. He hesitated, the ticket shimmered like a mirage in the dying light. He took the ticket and the circus gates opened with a sigh.The circus bloomed like a fever dream.Tents twisted up from the ground like enormous mushrooms stitched from fabric and fog. Some were striped, others checkered. All of them swayed like they were breathing in unison. The lights overhead weren’t lights at all–just glass jars with fireflies that hummed old music–hall tunes and occasionally whispered gossip to each other.Mike followed Weepy through a tunnel of paper banners and velvet streamers, past a cotton candy stall that sold flavored clouds and a popcorn bucket that giggled every time someone reached inside. The scent of sugar and old wood filled the air.Then the music changed.It wasn’t the bright, bouncing kings, this was slower. Sweeter. Like a music box that remembered how to grieve. They stepped into a clearing beneath a chandelier of floating tea cups. In the center, turning on a cracked stage of mirrored glass, was a dancer.She was beautiful.Porcelain from chin to heel, her limbs jointed like a marionette’s, she wore a black-laced corset with a leather bodysuit and a detachable train that followed the back. Her blonde hair tied up into a loose bun. Her headdress was made of navy gems and a black chain which decorates a silver plume connected with silver pendants.Her name whispered from Weepy’s lips with reverence. “Kroto.”The moment she saw Mike, she stopped spinning. Her heels clicked softly on the mirror floor. She stared at him. “You brought him,” she said.Weepy nodded solemnly. “He fell.”Kroto drifted toward Mike, her feet barely making contact with the ground. The glass below her hummed with every step. “You still remember your name,” she said, voice like fine China clinking in a drawer. “That won’t last.”“I–I just want to know where I am,” Mike said. “What this place is. What happened to me.” Kroto tilted her head. “This place is a seam. Between here and there. Between the stage and the fall. Between the dream and the waking.”“That’s not an answer,” he muttered.“It’s the only kind of answer this place allows,” she replied gently. “You are in a Dreamscape, Mr. Swifts. A place sewn together from broken things. Lost things. Things that were left behind or put away.”Mike frowned. “But I’m not a toy.”“Not yet,” she said.Weepy sniffled beside him.Kroto lifted a finger, porcelain, sharp, elegant and touched the tag on his chest. “If you want to get closer to the truth,” she said, “You’ll need to ask the all-knowing. The first dreamer and the man who remembers before memory.”“...The Prophet of Yore.” Weepy whispered.Kroto nodded. “He lives deep in the forest, past the patchwork hills and checkered fields. He sees what has not happened yet and what will always be.”“But be warned,” she said, voice dipping lower, “some truths cannot be put back in the box.”Mike’s fists curled.“Then I guess I better find out what’s in it.”Weepy smiled solemnly, and Kroto offered Mike a delicate ribbon–faded fold with tiny swirls etched into its threads. “For the road,” she said. “And for luck. It’s from my homeland, it will protect you on your journey.”Mike tied it around his wrist, it felt oddly warm. He gave Kroto a faint smile. “Thank you.”The circus shrank behind him like a dream slipping back into sleep.Mike trudged forward across the stitched hills, the golden ribbon around his wrist fluttering in the wind like a warning. The sky above was fading into a dull mauve, the clouds stretched thin like candy floss left out in the rain. Ahead, the forest loomed.But of course, this was no ordinary forest.The trees were impossible–spindly trunks made of stacked books, their paperbark peeling like old letters. Some branches curled into teaspoons. Others wept thick, glistening threads instead of sap. The canopy above pulsed gently, as if it breathed.And just as Mike stepped onto the path leading in, someone squared, “H-halt!”He blinked.Standing beyond a crooked wood signpost was a man made entirely of porcelain. His uniform was cracked china, painted with delicate ruffles and trimmed with gold tape. One of his legs wobbled slightly at the knee. His eyes were shy glass beads, his sword no more than a shovel, and his cape was made with a beautiful blue velvet.He cleared his throat with a soft ping and stepped forward, blushing furiously. “You–you c-cannot pass, good sir.”“...Excuse me?”The porcelain knight looked at the ground. “I’m sorry, it’s my job. My name is um–Half-Elf Knight. I guard the forest where the Prophet lies. And no one’s allowed through without–um– a riddle pass. Or a sanctioned prophetic appointment. O-or an acorn.”“An acorn?”He nodded quickly. “A gilded one that glows, they’re the Prophet’s Owl’s favorite snack.” Mike sighed. “Look, I don’t have a riddle or a glowing acorn, but I was sent by someone from the circus, Kroto. She told me to come here.”The knight’s cheeks turned a shade darker. “Kroto sent you?” He twitched. “Well… that’s–that’s different. She’s very elegant. She never speaks to me.” He leaned in, whispering, “Her ankles are perfectly sculpted. Not chipped at all.”Mike cleared his throat.“Right—right! I-I’ll be brave now,” the elven knight said, snapping into a sort of trembling attention. “Even if she did send you, I-I’m supposed to stop you. I’m not supposed to let anyone pass unless the Prophet of Yore calls them directly.”Mike groaned with annoyance. “Okay, so how do I get the Prophet to call me?”The knight blinked. Then smiled sheepishly. “Oh uhm I’m not entirely sure. He doesn’t exactly have a mailbox, per se." He hesitated, glancing over his shoulder toward the trees that shimmered like deep water. Then he looked at Mike again and fidgeted with the hem of his cape. “...But if you promise not to step on any of the whisper roots and not to pluck and page-leaves from the grammar willows, I–I suppose I could escort you a little way inside.”Mike arched his brow. “That easy, huh? You’re not very good at your job are you?”The knight frowned, “I didn’t choose this line of work, I prefer to be in the underworld but I swear I’m a more than capable knight.” Mike smiled for the first time since waking up. “All right,” he said. “Lead the way, Sir Half-Elf!”The knight turned with a soft clatter of ceramic joints and began hobbling up the path. The forest creaked softly as they entered, as if reluctantly accepting their arrival.The forest murmured.Not with birdsong or breeze–but with voices. Quiet, layered, overlapping like a hundred pages being flipped at once. Some trees shivered when you passed them. Others sighed. Mike walked beside the Half-Elf Knight, who was trying very hard not to trip over a wandering root that scuttled back under the ground when noticed.“So,” Mike asked, glancing sideways, “where are you from?”The knight jumped slightly. “Oh. Um. I–I guess I was hoping you wouldn’t ask.”Mike raised a brow.“No, no, not because I mind!” the knight said quickly, fidgeting with the corner of his cape. “I just find it troubling to explain.” he cleared his throat. “I woke up in the middle of a fountain made entirely of gold and marble. Gilded fish, gilded lilies, gilded pigeons. Even the sky looked like it had been polished.”“That sounds…expensive.“And loud,” the knight mumbled. “The sun never shut up. It kept humming scales, oh how I hate the sun.”  Mike chuckled under his breath. “And who rules that place?”“They call him Golden Ratio because everything he touches turns into gold. The king of the dead has a nasty scar because of it” the Half-Elf Knight said with a dramatic little wave of his porcelain hand, like he was tired of just saying the name. “Very shiny. Very charming. Extremely bratty.”Mike blinked. “Bratty?”“Oh, the worst part,” the knight said, exasperated. “Dramatic entrances. Everything had to sparkle. Always quoting himself. Constantly rearranging the skyline to make it more ‘aesthetically proportionate.’ Once he made everyone repaint the clouds because he didn’t like the ‘shade of melancholy’ they were casting. Mrs. Everlasting Dreams and Mr. Tracing Lights was not happy about it…”Mike snorted. “He sounds like a d@mn nightmare.”“Oh, he is,” the knight agreed. “But he gave me this job–guarding the Prophet–so I suppose I owe him some thanks. He said something like, ‘Porcelain should be near wisdom, not war.’ Then gave me this sword. I love it.”Mike gave him a sideways look. “So you’re a knight… because of a golden drama king who likes clouds a certain way?”The knight nodded proudly. “And because I asked nicely.’Mike stared at him a moment longer, then chuckled. “You might be the weirdest part of this place.”The knight beamed. “Thank you.”Ahead, the forest began to change. The trees curved into arcs, bending toward a clearing that pulsed with light. The whispers turned rhythmic, like a hundred people breathing in unison. Shadows sharpened at the edges.Mike slowed, suddenly tense.“Is this it?” he asked.The Half-Elf Knight swallowed and nodded. “The Prophet of Yore lives there. He sees time like a string. And dreams like maps.” he paused. “Just… don’t lie to him. Not even a little, he knows when somebody lies.”The clearing was not a place.It was a breath. A moment caught in amber. A heartbeat held too long.The forest parted gently, its trees leaning back like curious onlookers as Mike stepped forward into the circle of moss, mirror, and fog. Overhead, the sky twisted, stars blinking faintly against daylight, spelling out constellations that rearranged themselves as he looked.
At the center of it all stood a man.He was beautiful in a way that made Mike hesitate. Not soft or delicate, but deliberate–like every part of him had been chosen by something ancient with very specific taste. His hair was pale, and ivory silver, loosely slicked back like strands of unraveling thread. His eyes were sealed shut together. His skin gleamed like porcelain dipped in moonlight, faintly cracked along his collarbone and jaw like a statue worn by memory.He raised his arms to greet Mike, voice rich and echoing like a hymn hummed in reverse. “Welcome, Mr. Swifts,” he said with the faintest, knowing smile. “Welcome to the forest.”Mike swallowed, eyes wide. “This is your kingdom?”The prophet nodded slowly, like gravity answered to him.The Prophet stepped closer. His beauty didn’t fade with proximity–it intensified, sharpened, like the moment before a blade touches skin. “You’ve asked a question wrapped in many names,” he said gently. “But you’ve earned it, haven’t you? Falling from the sky. Waking in velvet. Following the thread.”Mike’s voice shook. “What do I have to do?”The Prophet lifted his hand. Threads of light unraveled from his delicate fingers, dancing like spun silk in the air. They shaped themselves into floating images–seven strange lands: one burned like a candle, one glittered like a chandelier, another wept black ink. “There are seven rulers,” he said. “Each godlike. Each burdened by their own desire. They hold pieces of the answer you seek.”Mike stared at the kingdoms. They moved when he blinked.“They each hold a key?”“A key. A memory. A weight. You must visit them. Learn what they’ve hoarded. And survive their games.”Mike looked down. The mirrored floor flickered–a boy in a leotard. Stage lights. A wire. A fall.“...And then I wake up?”The Prophet’s face narrowed with softness. “Perhaps. Or perhaps you remember what you are.”Mike clenched his stitched fingers. “I’ll do what it takes.”The Prophet smiled. It was not a mortal smile. It was the kind of smile people wrote about long after forgetting why it scared them. “Then take your thread,” he said, and held out a long spool of gauzy ribbon, covered in symbols that flickered only when Mike exhaled.“Follow it to the first kingdom. The Furnace. Seek the ruler they call…” He paused, amused. “Lava cake.”Mike blinked. “Lava Cake?”“Don’t laugh,” the Prophet said. “Desire wears many names.”Mike turned the ribbon over in his hands. The symbols on it shimmered faintly with every breath, but seemed to rearrange themselves when he tried to read them too long. “...Lava Cake,” he said slowly. “That’s really his name?”The Prophet of Yore chuckled, a soft, spiraling sound that didn’t quite echo but did linger in the bones. “It is the name he’s chosen for himself,” he said, folding his long fingers behind his back. “Or perhaps the name chosen for him. In this place, such distinctions are irrelevant.”Mike raised a brow. “And who is he? What’s he like?”The Prophet’s golden eyes swirled fast under his lids, like he was watching something Mike couldn’t see. “Lava Cake is… playful,” he said, with care. “Flamboyant. Sweet as syrup and twice as sticky. A man made of cinnamon and fire. He throws parties that last weeks. He bakes cakes that sing. He’ll greet you like an old friend and spin you in circles before you remember why you came.”“So he’s…friendly?”“He is fun. But do not confuse fun with kindness,” a pause. “Lava Cake has a temper. When his sugar burns, it burns. He can be cruel in the way all bright things can be when they forget the shadows they cast.”Mike shifted uneasily. “So, what… he’ll try to trick me?”The Prophet’s mouth curved in that same uncanny smile. “He’ll try to charm you. He may even succeed. Just remember, Mr. Swifts: delight can be its own kind of trap.”The air grew warmer, subtly, as if the thought of Lava Cake summoned heat from some distant oven. Mike nodded, tucking the ribbon into the small seam of his coat. “Guess I’ll have to keep my wits about me.”“If you can find them,” the Prophet murmured, almost fondly. “This place has a way of hiding what matters most.” He lifted a hand again. A doorway unfolded from nothing–just a seam in the air, zipped open like a coat. Beyond it, the horizon rippled with heat. Red hills. Candy-colored smoke. Lighter far away and echoing.Mike watched the ribbon twist in his hands, still catching glimmers of symbols he couldn't quite read. The doorway glimmered ahead, heat rising behind it like breath from a hidden furnace. He looked back at the Prophet, “I wanna know what I’m going into, what exactly is he going to do to me?” he asked. “What’s Lava’s game?”A faint mirage of a frown passed across the Prophet’s too-perfect face. “Lava Cake doesn’t chase,” he said softly. “He invites. He flatters. He offers you everything you never dared to admit you wanted.”Mike’s jaw tensed. “Like what?”The Prophet stepped closer, his presence both warm and cold, like moonlight over fight. “He’ll offer you adoration. Love. Comfort. Fame, if you ask. A warm bed. A stage with your name on it. Laughter that never ends. He is the god of pleasure and longing–he listens for the ache beneath the surface, and he answers it… ever so beautifully.”There was a small pause. The Prophet of Yore stood perfectly still, hand folded behind his back, robes of broken time and lace trailing softly over the mirrored grounds. He held quiet patience, like he had all the hours in the world.“There are seven kingdoms, right?” Mike asked. “Lava Cake is just the first.”The Prophet gave the faintest of nods. “Then tell me about the rest,” he said. “Please. I want to know what I’m walking into.”“Very well,” he murmured. “But remember: I can only describe what each wants to be seen as. The truth of them… you must discover yourself.” He lifted a long, delicate hand. Threads of light stitched through the air, forming seven symbols that pulsed faintly above them in the pinkish sky.“After Lava Cake,” the Prophet said, gesturing to a gilded swirl-shaped emblem, “you will find your way to the second realm ruled by Golden Ratio. He rules with great precision and excess. Gold sings and statues weep. He’s utterly obsessed by beauty and the price of it.”He moved to the next symbol: an ouroboros wrapped in roots.“This is the forest of the Prophet of Yore. This place. My land. It folds in on itself. Time repeats, forgets, and rewrites. Memory grows on trees here and lies sleep in the soil. But you’ve made it though. That says something.”Mike frowned. “Wait–I already did this kingdom?”The Prophet smiled faintly. “Some journeys begin in the middle. Some start with goodbye.”He continued.“The fourth kingdom belongs to little Miss Pomegranate Plate. Her land is glass and mirrors, full of etiquette and venom, where every tea party is a war and every compliment is a blade. She collects people. Especially the ones who speak too freely but I must admit, she is a cute little thing.”The symbol for her kingdom shimmered like a cracked teacup with blood in it.Mike shuddered.“The fifth," the Prophet went on, “is the skyward domain of a couple–Everlasting Dreams and Tracing Lights. They rule the night and day, wielding the sky with great elegance. Everlasting Dreams cause the stars to twinkle and Tracing Lights set the sun, they live in the heavens and it’s a great deal getting there.”A symbol showcasing the sun and moon flickering above them, glowing with starlight around it.“The sixth…” The symbol of a calavera rose above them. “Soul Catcher.” The Prophet’s tone warmed, like he was talking about an old friend he never quite trusted. “Don’t be fooled by the name.” he said. “Yes, he makes deals with the dead. Yes, he can return things lost. But this realm?” he chuckled. “It’s always a celebration. A party for those who refused to stay buried. He’s free-spirited. Joyful. Dangerous in the way firecrackers are–brilliant, sudden, and a little too close to your face.”Mike blinked. “So he’s fun?”“Delightful,” the Prophet confirmed. “And if he likes you, he’ll offer you a crown of confetti and the keys to memory’s back door.”Mike nodded slowly, unsure whether that was a threat or a promise. “And the last?”The Prophet turned to the final sigil–a single dream eyelash curled around a keyhole.“Vajytte.” His voice dropped to something sacred. “She is the goddess of dreams. The last thread. She doesn’t rule in the traditional sense-she weaves. Through everything. Her domain is scattered across all the others. You won’t find her until the end… if then.”Mike looked up at the glowing sigils, each one now fading slowly into the velvet-pink sky. “These are the seven,” the Prophet said, folding his hands once more. “You must visit them. Face them. Gather what they know.”“And if I fail?”“Then you’ll become part of the story,” he said softly. “And stories, Mr. Swifts don't always get endings.”There was a beat of silence. The sky overhead rippled like silk, the seven glowing symbols fading one by one into the pink dusk. Mike looked back at the Prophet–this beautiful, shimmering man who seemed stitched together from memory, prophecy, and sorrow–and frowned.“...Can I ask you something else?”The Prophet tilted his head, his veil swaying gently in the wind. “Of course.”Mike stepped a little closer, unsure why the question felt so heavy in his chest. “Who were you? Before this? Before all… this dreamworld and riddles and time magic?”The Prophet tilted his head toward the ground. Not with anger but with memory, or the absence of it. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “No one does, that’s why your case is so curious.”Mike blinked.“Everyone who wakes up in the Dreamscape forgets who they are.” the Prophet continued. “We wake up in this world with no memory, just a new name and a role we’re given.” He looked down at his hands, where light bled through the cracks in his porcelain skin. “I suspect I was important once, loved even,” he said. “But memory is a fragile thread. Pull too hard, and the whole tapestry unravels. So I stopped pulling and now I live a life of eternal solitude.”Mike’s breath caught.“But you help people. Despite everything, you’re still you.”The Prophet smiled, not sadly but with the weariness of someone who had heard that before. “You’re a good man Mr. Swifts. You still remember yourself, but it won’t last. This place has a way of changing people, it will sweeten you, rewrite you. Never forget who you are.”“I won’t, I promise.”Mike turned once more to the Prophet before stepping through the golden door. The light from the kingdom ahead flickered along the Prophet’s cheekbones, casting strange, beautiful, shadows. The man of mirrors and thread regarded him with something close to tenderness. “Mr. Swifts,” he said suddenly, his voice low and unwavering, “there is one last thing.” Mike paused, halfway through the frame of the doorway. The heat licked at his back. The scent of burnt sugar tugged at his senses. The Prophet stepped forward and reached into the folds of his robe, pulling out a small, silver whistle, shaped like an owl. It shimmered like bone under moonlight, delicate and cold.He gently placed it in Mike’s palm.“If you find yourself lost–truly lost– blow this,” the Prophet said. “My dear Brooke will come.”Mike looked down at it. “Brooke?”“My owl, I used to have many. Now I have one. She is my true companion.”Mike nodded, carefully slipping the whistle into the inner seam of his stitched coat. “Thanks.” The Prophet hesitated then reached out, just barely touching Mike’s shoulder. “Remember what I said Mr. Swift,” he said. His voice changed slightly–deeper, almost like he was speaking from somewhere farther away. “Don’t forget who you are, this world will show you versions of yourself you may want to become.”He paused.“But don’t let it take the truth from you.”Mike swallowed.“I made that mistake,” he murmured. “I don’t remember who I was or what I gave up. Only that it mattered.” For a moment, neither of them moved. The door glowed beside them. The forest whispered behind.“I’ll hold your words close to my heart.”The Prophet let his hand fall away.“Then may the threads guide you, Mr. Swifts. May you remain stitched together and If you ever need a place of solace, my domain shall be yours.”And with that, Mike turned and stepped through the door. The gold closed behind him like a sigh. And the Prophet of Yore stood alone in the mirrored clearing, staring into the space where a real name had once lived.The air changed the moment Mike stepped through the golden door.Warmth pressed into his skin like a slow, smothering embrace. The scent hit next–thick and dizzying, as if someone had poured syrup into his lungs. Toasted vanilla, caramel, roasted strawberries, and burnt marshmallows made his stomach ache, though he wasn’t hungry.The sky was a deep, simmering red glowing like an oven left cracked open. High above, yellow stars drifted lazily across the velvet horizon. But they weren’t stars. Not really. They were soft and swollen, their edges gummy, gently bobbing like distant fruit-shaped lanterns. Some twinkled. Some blinked. One burst like a sugar bubble, showering the world below in glittering syrup rain.Mike shielded his eyes with his sleeve.The ground beneath him was a spongey, pale pink path that gave slightly with each step. Sweetness stuck to his stitched hands. The wind tasted like melted candy.Rivers of molted chocolate wound through the land like slow-moving veins, steaming gently in the heat. Cotton candy trees loomed on either side, their trunks corkscrewed, their branches sagging under the weight of pastel fluff. When the wind shifted, it snowed sugar.In the far, far distance–like a dream glimpsed through glass–rose the carnival.It unfolded across the horizon like a pop-up book. Carousel towers spun upside-down. Ferris wheels blinked in and out of place, blooming like pinwheels and vanishing. Giant bows stretched from hill to hill, anchoring striped tens the size of cities. Neon-pink smoke curled from its core like breath.And there, seated atop its tallest structure, legs dangling, was a figure.Small from a distance. Covered in black armor molted gilded frosting melted over it like a wax seal. A golden crown laid lazily around his head, streaks of yellow ran down his cheeks. He didn’t move, but somehow, Mike could feel his attention.Watching.Waiting.Lava Cake.Mike took a step forward and the sponge cake path squished beneath him. The chocolate river hissed quietly, as if whispering secrets in a language made of cravings. A distant laugh rang out–high and lilting. It echoed, then stopped suddenly, like someone had turned off a music box mid-song.Mike swallowed.
He tightened his coat, feeling the weight of the ribbon and the whistle the Prophet had given him, both tucked safe and silent. The warmth pressed closer now. The landscape stretched wide, like it was daring him to cross it.And still–he walked.One foot into frosting.One breath into fire.Toward the kingdom where desire was king.'
User: Summarize the chapter based on the content provided, ensuring to follow the set format and emphasize key aspects within the specified length.
User: Summarize the chapter based on the content provided, ensuring to follow the set format and emphasize key aspects within the specified length.
Assistant: