Chereads / I am a snail. / Chapter 76 - Day 22.98: Mental World.

Chapter 76 - Day 22.98: Mental World.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Thousands of bursting bodies sounded out as I stared at the Frostfangs feasting. Digging in without holding back, their siblings screamed while in a mad scramble to get away from them - easier targets. I stared at them with utmost jealousy. Although I would never eat my siblings however delectable they were, I disgusted yet somehow excited as I watched.

No, it isn't a sick fetish okay? I was hungry just hungry and I liked to eat - leaves... but more recently everything. It's not like I was in control of my body. Yup. It was completely reasonable.

What? Shouldn't I have spent my time better instead? To find a way to free me for example?

I'll get to that soon.

What? Listening to me being stuck to the webbing for so long is getting boring and you're wondering if I ever got out?

Well, sir, I have a story for you.

...

The gluttonous voice called out within my head. Squeaky and high pitched, I could have sworn it sounded female... I never noticed before until it stopped nagging and I stopped ignoring it for once.

Weird.

...

'Yeah?' I asked. 'Can't you see I'm staring intently at things being eaten and I'm completely not aware of my situation right now? Clearly, we are not waiting for our enemy to power up while we stay still... trapped and waiting to be eaten.' As I tried to be sarcastic to defuse the situation we were in. I'll be honest with you. I was growing more worried by the second.

the gluttonous voice started as if it didn't understand what sarcasm was <... Shouldn't we be doing something? I mean I'm all for watching other beings eat, but why don't we find a way to eat them instead?> the voice asked.

'You're right.' I replied as it was completely correct. Except I really didn't know what to do at that point.

it continued.

'What shall we do...' I started to think. 'Struggling won't work... biting won't work... mucus won't work..'

it asked as if it read my mind, but it could. I guess our thoughts mirrored each other... I mean it was a part of me and I was a part of it so it made sense.

'Seems so. Let's just give up and be sucked dry.'

'Joking... just joking...' I said. Horrible, dark humour to lighten the situation. The Frostfangs were growing stronger while we were twiddling our thumbs while we watched. Not that we had thumbs... Oh, I wish I got my thumbs back. I mean what? I'm a snail. I have no thumbs.

...

We both paused for a moment while we enjoyed the view of a massacre. A peaceful yet warranted massacre of life and death. Screams of death and the scent of bodies filled the air as it continued.

Bodies flew everywhere in a mad scramble. Lives were reaped, but I didn't care. I was unphased and I continued to stare - like a sicko.

The room suddenly got colder as streams of mist entered the room from the floor. Drifting upward, it swept over the floor and covered the dried up corpses with a veil. Like a blanket of dirt over a grave, they were buried within the mist.

I continued to watch the mist and became mesmerized once more like the two times before.

'The Mist.' I repeated within my head as I felt an ounce of what I had felt in the previous experiences.

The mist.

'Hey.' I thought as I broke the silence. 'I think I have an idea. But I need you to protect us as I try.'

...

I closed my eyes and the surroundings faded.

I wanted to go back and I was back-back to my mental world. My dreamland? No, it wasn't.

The moment I returned I was met by a familiar, yet, unfamiliar room and I was at its centre. Luminated from above, I looked upward for the source of light. There seemed to be a hole. Like a portal to a world of light, a faint light streamed in from above me and lit up the dark world around me. Light streamed down against my body.

I looked around. Nothing but darkness, damp moist darkness.

I tried to inspect the floor. Surprisingly, the shadow that I was expecting wasn't there. I was shadow-less.

'Weird.' I thought as I took in a deep breath. Like I had some hidden tutorial stuck within my head, I had a feeling of what I knew what I needed to do. Feeling the cold feeling, the white particles appeared back into my mind as I imagined it.

I willed it and it appeared - the white mist.

Chilling and dazzling, it began to stream down from the ceiling as it sparked with the light.

'Where did this mist even come from?' I wondered as I finally had time to ponder the question.

As I told you before, my first experience with my mental world came about when I used it to think of plans to defeat the Spiked-shelled snails days ago. Like my mind was overclocked, I was able to focus on whatever I wanted to and think about things at high speeds... but that world... that world had only been a world of darkness back then.

On day 22, it became different... it was colder, damper. And now had another inhabitant... the white mist.

...

'Could this have to do with my cold mastery?' I asked as I continued to watch it fall from the ceiling in snakes and drape-like structures before swirling around and dispersing across the white floor.

I looked at it once more. The same feeling that I had felt before. I knew that I was on to something, something that had to do with the mist, but what?

A way out of my predicament. I knew that the mist was my ticket out of my bindings... but how... what... why? Intuition?

I focused all of my attention on the mist.

Sliding up next to it, I let it run over my body. Like a cold shower, the coldness spread all over my body. With my two eyes open as I wide as I could, I watched all of its subtleties as it fell across my body. As it fell, it draped over my body. Yet, again... as if it was repulsed, it streamed down my sides as it flowed around and chilled around my body.

'Why won't it touch me?' I questioned once more as I continued to stare at the mist. It just didn't make sense to me how it only flowed around me. 'Is there something I can't see?' I asked as I continued to stare.

I waved my head through the mist as a test. Moving swiftly, I forced it to touch me. And I observed: tiny specks of white touched my body and disappeared into oblivion as a thin layer of condensation remained on top of my skin.

'It's not that they can't touch... it's because that something on me is repelling it.' I concluded. 'But what?' I questioned further.

Thinking as hard as I could, I tried and tried as I couldn't find an answer.

I sighed and breathed out. The mist in front of me swirled from the heat of my breath and disappeared almost immediately.

'Is it...' I started before as I had an idea from the interaction, but before I could make an attempt at the answer my world shook.

Something was happening outside.

...