The cover over his eyes dissipated. He was awoken by the sensation of water running down the side of his head.
The world was twisting and turning.
Pulsating in blacks and whites with waves of pain washing over.
Saluim had dropped to the shop floor, and the water fountain seemed to be waking him up from that collapse.
His vision was like a liquid mirror. Resembling a body of water that had been interrupted, sending rippling changes through it.
Te-Ata was suspended over him, trying to bring him to his senses, her voice was faint, distant, cold.
"Mum?"
He couldn't even think straight. A layer of fog had spawned, blocking any recollection of the recent events.
In his hall of memories, stained glass of abstract art shattered. One by one, more were breaking. The memories slipping away.
"Where are we, mum?"
Smiling softly, he was glad to see her at least. Amidst the confusion, the figure of someone he loved was comforting.
Until it wasn't.
She spoke. "Who are you calling mum?"
That voice—No. That's not—
Saluim's eyes widened, though the blur remained. That wasn't the voice of his endearing mother.
She was gone.
In her place, the worn and grainy voice of an older male. Although he couldn't see properly, he could tell it was the ice cream server.
Forcing himself to come to his senses, he threw his body upward, turning all the shifty imagery into a blurry mix. In that blur, something changed. The light seemed to quickly fade, same as the heat of the summers sun.
Sounds disappeared. There were no people chatting and eating. No television with sports playing on it. And no grumbling man in a wheelchair either.
He blinked. And what he saw was so weirdly cinematic that the shift in environment didn't even shake him.
Huh?
He had questions, but he was locked in a trance, taking in the scene.
Beneath him, a road made of smooth bitumen, reflecting tiny little white dots. Along it, metal barricades were set up, perfectly spaced out in their repeated pattern of nuts, bolts and metal.
The fog from his mind had followed him here, now more real than before, it was surrounding him. Stretching into and across the road.
It was cold, but not too cold. The kind of temperature you could say was both inviting, and weirdly suspicious.
The wind whistled gently, making the curls in his hair waddle around. Such a beautiful wind you'd only find in Viking movies or cinematic shots of a lonely desert.
And the sky. It was an almost radiant black. Like its bloom was reaching out to him in its own absence.
"Where..."
The scene was surreal and confusing. And as if to build on it, the voice that was speaking to him was gone. He was alone.
"Where am I?"
Lifting himself up completely, the wind licked his hair even more. And that wind was the only thing he could hear. The only thing telling him he was awake.
Surprisingly, even with absence of a celestial body, everything close to him seemed lit well enough to comfortably move around.
From where he had awoken, he was facing the edge of the road. Behind its barricades, the abyss.
On his left a straight that stretched beyond the fog. Hidden away. And on his right, a hairpin that hid even more beyond its edge.
Pick your poison, I guess.
He went with the side he felt most comfortable with. The right. It gave him more cover if anything was hiding here. And he really didn't feel like walking into the endless fog on a straight road was the greatest of ideas.
His steps were careful and quiet, but being the only other noise, they seemed to boom across the black road, announcing himself to anything hungrily waiting for an invite.
Meeting the curve in the road, he saw a weirdly placed bed, pressed against the barricades. Approaching it, he noticed that it was dressed in clean white sheets. The wood was shiny and new. No weather or time had touched it.
And in that bed, a delicate girl was sleeping. Small, young and wearing a pink dress. Clung to a soft teddy bear.
Not suspicious at all...
In an unfamiliar world, there was no telling what friend or foe was, and Saluim needed some answers.
Plus, his footsteps would have already brought anything that wanted to take a bite out of him. So, speaking should be safe if kept to a minimum.
"Hey, excuse me," cautiously giving her a slight shake, in hopes of waking her up, "young lady, could you please wake up?"
She was easy to disturb. A light sleeper probably.
The little girl lifted her arm, breaking the hug with her teddy to rub her eyes. At the very least, she seemed human. She was showing the effects of returning from a dream like anyone else would.
For a moment, their focus' met. Her eyes wide and glassy, full of youth. They just stared at each other. Then she broke.
Her listless face changed. It grew with worry, fear, confusion. And all of it was directed at him.
Oh no.
First, she leaned away—scared. Then she grew teary, her lips trembling. And finally, she broke into a cry.
Her sobs and wails screeched louder and louder with each second.
Saluim, confused on what to do, tried shushing her, which only made her more worried, and even louder than before.
"Hey, hey, hey! Relax, I'm a friend!"
She wasn't listening—only crying louder, louder. Desperately calling for her mother through the fog. Hoping to be saved.
"I'm lost like you! I need your help—"
Reaching out to her, he was interrupted. From the abyss, giant white teeth rose. The maw of the beast was large, and any color it may have had was drenched in shadows, blending perfectly with the black backdrop.
And then it shut. Swallowing the girl, the bed, the road, everything where she had been, just cutting short of Saluims hand.
"What—"
Dread filled the air in lapping motions. His hand was shaking.
No—His everything was shaking.
He was just a normal, young man, graduate of high school and confident older brother. Staying composed was beyond his capabilities after witnessing that.
Fear and guilt bubbled inside of him.
What was I supposed to do? Could I have saved her?
His only answer was the scraping sound of metal. It was getting closer and closer from around the corner of which he came.
Fuck—You've gotta be kidding me.
His head grew louder, in a fight for volume with the metal screech.
I'M NOT CUT OUT FOR THIS!
WHY AM I HERE?!
MUM?!
TAKE ME BACK!
His thoughts did not break through the fog though. Even after letting himself regress to a hopeless son, he was still there, defeated.
And his growing fear beckoned the approaching danger, egging it to get closer, until the figure of a woman came. She was short in stature, wearing nothing but white. Her hair was long and black, it danced in weird shapes, hiding a face behind it.
The metal sound? An axe. Easily bigger than the woman's body. It should have been too big for her. Too heavy to carry—Yet she did. She dragged it with zero effort at all across the ground.
Shit.
Through bloodshot, teary eyes, he knew something was coming for him.
He was in danger.
He needed to run.
I need to run.