"Chapter 7"

"Chapter 7" was published on April 10th 2021.

### Description

Chapter 7 follows Bunny as he travels to the Nightmare Realm and meets the mysterious stranger in the Void realm.

CW/TW: Swearing, mention of drugs, mention of cigarettes, and mention of medication.

### Original

Here is the link to the original story, although it has been copy-and-pasted onto here for simplicity and nothing has been changed.

### The Story

*Date: February 2021*

*Time: Night, present*

*Place: The Mansion*

*...*

*Chapter 7*

*~~~*

“What the fuck,” Biocide said, taking a few steps back. She yawned and brushed her bangs out of her eyes before glaring down at me. “Say that again.”

“I said that I want you to send me to the nightmare realm,” I said. Biocide blinked a few times and glanced back into her bedroom before back at me.

“You high or something?” She asked. I laughed, but it became very clear very quickly that she wasn’t joking. I coughed and looked down.

“No, I’m not high, thanks. I read in your journal about the Nightmare Realm and I need you to send me there,” I said. “But I need you to not wipe my memories. I need to know everything that’s happening to me.” Biocide sighed.

“Bunny, I swear to fucking god the only reason I’m doing this is because it’s 2 in the morning and I am going to murder you if you don’t leave me alone, so have fun.” Biocide growled and closed her eyes as she pressed her hands together. Suddenly, my world went black.

~

I awoke in a bed in a bedroom I didn’t recognize. I stood up and looked around the room, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror hanging on my bedroom wall. I was thin and pale with curly blond hair and green eyes. I looked more or less like my usual self, at least. I quickly changed out of my pajamas, which were baby blue with rabbits on them, and searched for something that I might wear, but my closet was full of normal people's clothing. I grabbed a hoodie and put on some shorts, and laced up my sneakers before exiting my room. I lived in an apartment it seemed and there was a woman laying on the couch scrolling social media on her phone and watching a sit-com on the t.v. in front of her. I tapped her on the shoulder and she looked up at me with a smile.

“Oh, good morning Robert. Have a good sleep?” She asked. The woman had black hair in cornrows and she wore a gray tank top and sweatpants.

“Uh . . . yeah.” I nodded and looked around the apartment, feeling uneasy for some reason that I couldn’t place. The woman raised an eyebrow at me and sat up.

“Hey, you okay? You’re acting weird, or at least weirder than normal. Did you forget to take your meds this morning?” She asked, standing up and walking over to the kitchen and pulling a small vial down, and tossed it to me. “You know the doctor knows best for you, so you have to do what she tells you to do.”

“My meds?” I asked, picking up the small yellow container full of pills. The label read Benzodiazepine.

“You know how bad your anxiety gets sometimes, so you’re on those pills. Did you suddenly get amnesia overnight or something? Fall out of bed after a nightmare and hit your head too hard?” She laughed and leaned on the counter. I set down the pills and looked up at the woman.

“Yeah, maybe. Let’s say I did get amnesia- who are you?” I asked, and she chuckled.

“Wow, committing to the act are you?” She laughed. “I’m the princess of a far away land that I fled from due to being attacked by the neighbouring countries because we were at war. I came here and fell in love with you, a handsome yet lone stranger who’s secretly a multi-millionaire, but you can’t reveal your true identity or else you’ll be attacked.”

“Wait, really?!” I asked, perking up. The woman laughed loudly.

“No, I’m pulling your leg. I’m Anastasia, your roommate. We’re both just average nobodies and as far as I’m concerned, that’s fine.” She laughed. My chest suddenly felt tight and it was hard to breathe.

“I-I’m a . . . nobody . . .” I stammered, clutching my chest and staring down at the floor. “T-That can’t be . . . I’ve worked too hard . . . and to just . . .”

“Woah! Hey! Robert, what’s going on?!” Anastasia gasped, grabbing me by my shoulders as I fell to my knees. Before I knew and could stop it, I began crying. Anastasia began panicking and ran around the apartment and grabbed her phone, quickly calling someone. I wept because . . . because this was a nightmare. I couldn’t be forgotten, nobody, because I worked too hard to be someone special. This isn’t how this was supposed to turn out at all. Not at all. Not. At. All.

Anastasia ended her call and helped me up off the floor. She grabbed her purse and we left the apartment and she led me down and out of the building to her car. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I do remember being led into another building and upstairs, until I ended up in a pure white room as I laid on a table. I sat up and blinked a few times, finally coming back to consciousness.

“Hey, Anastasia . . . where are we?” I asked. She looked up from her phone and sighed in relief.

“I’m glad you’re okay at least. I didn’t know what to do, so I brought you to see the doctor. She might be able to help you with whatever you’re going through.” She shrugged and slumped back down in the chair that she was sitting in. A few minutes later, a woman entered the room we were in and closed the door behind her. She was tall and had long blonde-white hair and red eyes, and she wore a doctor’s coat over a collared shirt and her shorts.

“Ah, good afternoon Robert, Anastasia. So you were brought here due to . . . a mental breakdown, I’ve been told. Is this correct?” She looked over at me and unsure of what I should do, I nodded. She nodded back and sat down at the computer and furiously typed on the keyboard for a few seconds before looking back over at me. “So, Robert, can you tell me what happened this morning?”

“I-I woke up and I’m not really Robert- well I am but I’m a different one- and then I guess I learned that I’m . . . not known in this world and that kinda just . . . broke me,” I explained, choking back more tears. The doctor nodded and turned back to her computer and typed some more things into it.

“Have you been taking your meds recently? Perhaps these are some side effects of the new dose, so maybe we should lower your dose or switch you to something else. How does that sound?”

“It’s not the meds! I swear! I swear I’m telling the truth!” I shouted, and the doctor clicked her tongue.

“Doctor Saito, I’m so sorry about him today. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.” Anastasia said, sighing. Dr. Saito stood up and pulled Anastasia over to the corner where the two of them whispered about something, and I saw this as my chance. I got up and bolted from the office, running as fast as I could to get as far away from them as I could. They ran and yelled after me, but I was faster and using my skills, I quickly evaded them. It wasn’t surprising though, considering that I was raised to be able to outrun the police and anybody else who might chase me, so I was quite fast. I stopped to catch my breath once I was a few blocks away from where I just was, and I slumped down onto the concrete. I hit my head a few times in frustration as I tried to remember what I needed to do. I was looking for the three remaining members trapped in here. The ones that only Biocide remembered and that were locked away sometime in the beginning. I crossed my fingers and reached down, finding the small folded up piece of paper that I’d tucked away into my boxers. I didn’t know if I was able to bring anything with me, but I apparently could and I did a small celebration. I opened the paper and read over the worlds written in my own handwriting. They were anything and everything about the three lost members that I could find in the journals that I read, so I hoped it was enough to help me find them. I had no clue how anything worked around here, so I was honestly just shooting in the dark.

The first paragraph was about the first person who smoked and was often grumpy and tired. I don’t think that Biocide liked them very much because all entries that involved him were negative and angry. The second paragraph was about someone who, if I didn’t know better, would probably think was Corbin. He was shy and timid, but seemingly liked the occult or something like that. The third paragraph was about someone peppy and fun loving, but it didn’t seem like it was talking about Biocide herself. The three of them seemed to be very closely related or something of a similar manner, because they were always mentioned together and not very often were they talked about solely by themself.

I tucked the paper back into my pocket with a quick glance at the diagram on the back and began walking around. Somewhere in this Nightmare Realm was a specific place that was the weakest link in the entire world and only there could you escape the realm and enter another place that I honestly didn’t know much about because Biocide never talked about it. Thinking back on it, I probably could have gotten more information, but I wanted to progress as fast as I could, so I skipped over a whole bunch of stuff. I sighed and walked along the streets, watching the people walking around me as they chatted with their friends and family. On the screens plastered to the side of buildings were playing ads of a man with bright green hair and a dazzling smile as he advertised all sorts of things from pop to new stores and brands to clothing and more. Somewhere in my heart, I felt a sort of feeling towards him that wasn’t anger, but I suppressed it and continued on my way, looking down at the sidewalk.

Soon enough, it’d begun raining and I had to take shelter inside a local building. It was a small cat cafe and it looked nice, but there was something making my nose itch and my body feel weird, along with someone yelling at the poor woman behind the desk. The man was tall with slicked back ginger hair and large gauges in his ears and he was threatening to call the cops. The woman behind the desk had long curly brown hair and round shades and wore a frilly pink apron over her space sweater.

“Please sir, I’m telling you that you can’t do that. We are not liable for any injuries that may occur during a session here if the participants have a severe cat allergy that was unknown.” The poor woman looked near to crying and sounded desperate.

“Well it’s very clearly not my fucking fault! It was fucking unknown, and you should have to pay for his hospital bill! Do you hear me woman? I’m saying that y-” The man continued yelling, but stopped when I tapped on his shoulder.

“Do you think that you could maybe stop harassing this poor woman? Or at least stop yelling at her,” I said, suddenly feeling very afraid of this man’s death stare. However, it quickly changed into one of a friend and he hugged me.

“Oh, Robert, I’m so glad that you’re okay. I was afraid that I was actually going to have to use my own fucking money to make sure you didn’t, y’know, die or whatever,” he said, waving his hand at me. I think that was a compliment, but I wasn’t sure.

“Y-Yeah,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. I flashed a smile at her and she nodded something of a thank you and I unwillingly was dragged outside by the loud man. He opened up an umbrella, but then told me that I wasn’t allowed to walk under it so I was forced to walk beside him in the pouring rain as I got completely soaked. We walked together for a few blocks as the man continued blabbering on and yelling about stupid people and pissing off people on the street. I tried to shy away from him, but he was strong and hurt my wrist so I was dragged along. I managed to sneak away when the man was distracted by someone who I assumed was one of his friends because he stopped yelling. The loud man’s friend had an afro and was smoking something, but I didn’t care enough to find out and was just concentrating on escaping.

I slipped down an alleyway and sighed as I took shelter from the rain underneath a tarp hanging off of a building. I pulled out the piece of paper from my pocket and carefully read the instructions on the back of the paper before tucking it away in my pocket before it got too wrecked by the rain. I took off running again, trying my best to find the specific place I was looking for. I started asking people on the street for directions or a map or something like that for help, but nobody was really helpful at all and mainly just ignored me. Tired and exhausted, I ducked into another building to catch my breath and hopefully dry off a little bit. There was a desk at the far end of the room, but nobody was sitting there. I shook my head like a wet dog to try and get off some of the water. I wandered around the building for a few minutes until I saw someone holding a bunch of papers and walking fast.

“Hey! Hey! You! Wait!” I called out, and they turned to me. They smiled and walked over to me, clearly abandoning whatever they were doing before.

“Hey, Hey! You, wait! Hehe, you sound funny,” they giggled and smiled a very toothy grin. They had curly brown hair and wide round glasses that sat on the brim of their nose.

“Please don’t mock me,” I asked quietly, my voice cracking in the middle which caused them to laugh more. “I need directions. I’m trying to find some place that looks like this,” I said, pulling out the damp paper from my pocket and pointing to the scribbled drawing of a strange doorway.

“Hmm,” they said, stroking their chin. “It seems that you might be lost, oh dear Alice. I’d love to help, but I’m late! I’m late! I’mlateimlateimlate!” They giggled as they ran off in the direction they’d been going before. I huffed in annoyance and stuffed the paper back into my pocket, turning and leaving the building and entering the pouring rain again. By now, I’d probably been running around for at least two hours and was honestly getting very tired from all this hopeless searching. I slowly began making my way down the street, trudging along and kicking the water in the puddles as I went. The crowds of the city were narrowing as people hurried along under their umbrellas or into cars or buildings to escape the rain. But not me- I was there all alone in the pouring rain as I searched for something that I was convinced didn’t exist at this point in time. The worst part is that I asked to come here and endure this horror, thinking that I could overcome it and that it wouldn’t affect me at all. I was so high and mighty that I forgot that I wasn’t perfect and that I did have flaws, secrets and fears that I hid away from the others. Nobody knew me and I was a nobody. No one was stopping me on the streets to get my autograph or to alert the police of my presence, no one was gasping and falling for me in every direction I turned. I found a safe, secluded alleyway where I sat down and began to cry again. I pulled my knees up to my chest and let the rain water pour all around me, soaking every single bit of my body that hadn’t been touched by it yet. I sat there for who knows how long, until I felt their soft hand on my shoulder and no rain on my back. I looked up to see a woman with a kind smile and curly black hair and- hold up . . .

“Biocide?” I asked. She nodded and held out a hand to help me stand up, and I did. She was holding an umbrella over top of us to stop the rain and she held out a blanket which I wrapped around my body to help conceal any warmth I had left.

“You’re trying so hard to do the impossible that I actually kind of feel sorry for you,” she said with a small laugh. “I never do this, so consider yourself lucky. On the opposite side of town is where you’ll find the portal that you’re looking for. You’ll need to avoid main street to avoid the people you’ve already met, but there are plenty of back roads that you’ll be hidden in, okay? I believe in you Bunny,” she said before giving me a small kiss on my forehead, and then she disappeared into thin air. I grabbed the umbrella that fell and looked around for her, but she was nowhere to be found.

“Thank you Biocide,” I whispered up to the sky and began heading towards where she told me to go. I followed her advice and ran through the back roads instead of along main street because I saw the loud angry man again and felt fear, so I ran very fast. Soon enough, I reached the other side of the actually very small town, and began looking around for the doorway. I pulled out the paper from my pocket, but it was now so soaked that the ink was running and the paper fell apart in my hands, but that was okay because I didn’t need it anymore anyways. I felt better than I did earlier and the weather even started to clear up as it stopped raining and I set down the umbrella on the ground. Looking around, I eventually found the door hidden at the back of an alleyway. It was large, made of purple and black rigid material and small particles of something floated around it, almost as if it was magic, but it was probably just dust or something.

I walked up to the door and examined it closer than I had before. There were small holes in the door, but it looked like there were distinct pieces that you could slide around. I tested this, and it worked. The small weirdly shaped pieces of the door moved as I instructed them to, and soon I was able to make a picture of them. It was dark, but you could very clearly tell that it was a spiral of some sort. Once I aligned the final piece, a large key hole appeared and I silently cursed myself. I looked around and, cursing my oblivious idiocy, finally noticed the key-shaped necklace I’d been wearing the whole time. I unclasped the key and held it up to the hole, and as if it was magic, the key began to grow until it perfectly fit the keyhole. Mustering up some strength, I twisted the key until I heard a click from within the door which led to a door handle appearing. I gulped and grabbed the handle and pulled. When it didn’t work, I felt like an idiot, and then pushed on the door, to which it obliged. I stepped through the door and was instantly teleported to a dark room illuminated only by the large pastel spiral that formed the ground. I looked around the setting, trying to see anything, until I noticed the person standing on the other side of the room, who turned to look at me.

“Hey,” he said, waving. “It’s about time that you got here. I’ve been waiting for you.”