Jack was left behind after his new royal robes were removed. Leslie went to check on her duties to the Silent Scream, Emily dashed off somewhere saying she was still hungry... Jack had a strong feeling the direction was to the crypts below, while Eris was largely silent, as she only said a few words of parting before going to her room.
[What's wrong with her???] Jack shook his head as his office door opened at his intention.
He floated to the front of his Office, and with his intention, the door swung open, and as Jack was to pass through... He couldn't help but stare into what was supposed to be his Office and beyond.
Looking out into the yellowish space of some otherworldly metropolis... Jack couldn't help but continue to look into the sky at the blackened stars that shined down in the presence of twin suns that hung low over a black-veiled but spired city with many tips pointing to the tawny-colored skies above and bulged domes...
Surrounding the gloriously ruined city was a placid lake, with a moist wind that Jack could even feel... Such sensations were almost all but lost to Jack until this moment his door opened to reveal the contents of someplace that should not be his office.
The archway beyond the lake laid figures that lumped and sloshed through the winding roads that swirled around the towers like the wax ways of a hive... Dripping from every roof and shingle came a think amber liquid that coated the buildings in a stickiness reminiscent of honey, but even this sweet concoction could not hide the smell...
Jack without the ability to understand taste or smell, could only say that he detected in some strange way... The odor of this place... The sickly-sweet smell of decay. The one that draws by on long days of rays of the sun beating down on the corpse that lay by the side of the road from mistakes quickly made. Almost like the smell of bread that laid too long on the shelve that began to germinate life that isn't so pleasant, that sweet smell that would fight the very thing it was... Decay.
How could Jack know where he was, and out of instinct, how could he not float back, as he was indeed still floating.
However, as he floated back, the walls that should be to contain him within his castle where... Not.
Gone was the winding corridor he just treaded... The Obsidian floor that was to be known, and the bony inlaid walls...
All that remained was a door frame, and a door still open.
[Fuck this...] Jack floated over and grabbed the knob of the door and slammed it shut, with a dull noise that echoed in his surroundings, unlike the dank sounds that adored his royal home.
Jack looked to the side hoping to see as the door slammed, the disappearance of this yellow xanthous place... Yet he remained. Still in front of the closed door, still surrounded by fields of yellow dandelions that all drooped with a curved depraved shape, not facing the twin suns but set toward the ground.
"Haaaa~" Jack floated around the door frame to look again across the lake to the languid shapes that moved through the city. Over the Gateway into the city, at the top of the facing showed a pallid mask with two black eye slits. It was smooth overall... No expression.
Jack floated over the shore of the placid lake, that had the undertones of a sulfuric spring. Coming closer, Jack found that it wasn't as placid as he thought. It boiled and popped, but as it did, it caused no rippled on the surface.
[Well... That settles it... Not in Kansas anymore... Where the hell is my toto?] Jack joked in his mind, as he tried to rationalize how he came here. Noticing a diseased tentacle rose out of the water, it whipped in the sky, before capturing some large black bat-like creature that darted from the autumn colored forest to the sides of the lake. The rotten appendage of some cephalopod coiled around the struggling bat, before it was dragged under the rancid lake's surface, as the surface returned to its ever still tension, minus the boiling pops.
[...Yoggi... Where the fuck am I...?] Jack called in his mind, but unlike the laughter that usually came... Jack was met with silence.
After many minutes of contemplation, Jack floated high over the lake, much higher than the Bat, and flew across to the City in the distance.
*******
Jack landed, of sorts, on the opposite side of the lake. It was only now, that the forms he made out before appeared before him in clarity. These slime-like creatures slumped and walked... Tan in color, and with skulls for heads, almost like the games Jack seen slimes in games before, but each wore clothes and appears as if they had no bones to keep them upright. This might have been the reason for the oddest of gaits, as the slunk from leg to leg, and staggered with a drunken swagger.
It was admiring one, that had a coat of think matted golden moss, did one approach Jack.
It spoke in a language Jack hadn't heard, but within Jack's mind, he heard it all the same.
"Have you seen... The Yellow Sign?"
Not sure how to respond, Jack decided to talk as he always had, and hope for the best... He didn't feel threatened to attack from this... Being.
"I have not. What is the Yellow Sign?" Jack replied.
The yellow slime man slumped over and walked pass Jack, as he Jack never stood there before...
Jack watched as he passed and continued until the slime man took a railing up to another level and disappeared into the bulb-like domed building.
"..." Jack shook his head, and floated deeper into the city, crossing the threshold ever deeper into this sepia-colored cityscape.
Jack flew up to another level of these mustard colored brick roads, as he landed at the edge, another daffodil colored slime creature approached, this time with a feminine persuasion.
"Have you seen... The Yellow Sign?" It asked in a tone that Jack could now tell was female.
"... Everything is yellow..."
This time the slime lady nodded her butterscotch skull, as black fluids dripped from the eye sockets within the gelatinous mass, a large leap, and she fell from the third layer of butter brick road in the sky.
Jack floated to the edge after being puzzled to see that she became a blonde smear on the city floor below... Her clothes dissolved quickly, as it seems she was made of some acid that sprung from its casing at her impact.
"..." Jack was more lost than anything... Again, from behind he heard,
"Have you seen... The Yellow Sign?"
"...you seen... The Yellow Sign?"
"...seen... The Yellow Sign?"
Jack turned his head to look over his shoulder, as his flaming eyes danced with an eerie color to see three more slime people, with their amber gazes reflecting back to him.
Jack turned to see these three that approached, in their two suits and one dress, as they slumped and lurched to him over the high spun brick road from the building that was erected to the side.
"...Yes... I have seen the Yellow Sign." Jack spoke, as his eyes flickered again, with an angry light, that failed to reflect on the passage of yellow surroundings.