Within the dark recesses of Rans mind, he watched as the dark void was shattering to reveal more darkness.
Like glass, the walls and floor broke before turning to specks of light fluttering into nothingness. The battlefield full of duplicate body parts and streams of blood followed closely behind. Even Ran and the doppelganger's body was slowly turning into glittering specks from the bottom up.
Ran watched as the doppelganger's body left faster than him. He noticed that the doppelganger had a smile plastered on its face that he hadn't seen before, and it made his expression even more solemn than before.
To be honest, he did not want this to be the result. Over the course of getting to know this so-called doppelganger this past hour or so, he personally watched him grow into his own person, however obscure it might seem. In the beginning, they were pretty much doing the same thing one-for-one, but it quickly progressed to where they are now—two completely different choices and its subsequent consequence.
After all, while the doppelganger was an exact copy of Ran, complete with his memories and personality, at the end of the day, he was an independent thinking agent. As they fought and conversed, he formulated his own thoughts and reflected upon his memories differently than Ran would. The more he thought, the more he diverged from Ran until he became his own person—he was no longer just a doppelganger.
As Ran ruminated on these thoughts, and had his mind swallowed by an inexplicable sadness, the chaos of the darkness coalesced around him like a black fog.
What had he done? He had killed someone completely! Because he never lived in the real world, killing him had removed all traces of his existence. The entire universe had Invalided him; no, Ran did. That's why he felt so awful. Ran even felt guilt because his mind had created and caged him, something that was completely out of his control. He was so young as well…
Even though Ran knew it would come to this in the end, especially since they bothered to say their goodbyes to each other, it still hit him like a truck. The black fog kept encroaching closer and closer until it started climbing his leg.
It had gotten all the way to his waist, yet Ran didn't notice. It wasn't until the fog was up his chest that he noticed something off. But it wasn't the fog, rather, it was the specks of light that were starting to dance around him. The light reflected on his eyes, catching his attention, and it was then that he heard a voice.
"Hey man, what's with that sulking face you have? I already told you not to worry, didn't I? Even if you kill me a hundred times, I'll still be here."
Hearing the young man's voice, which was exactly his own, Ran smiled a little. It was his voice, but it was almost unrecognizable; the emotion and cadence it spewed unlike that of his own. It sounded so smug as well, he couldn't help but smirk in response.
"Anyway, why are you always bringing yourself down? We both knew this would happen, and I'm still here. So don't you dare shed a tear for me, I won't hesitate to come back and call you a crybaby! Wait… I'm you, so does that mean I'm also a crybaby? Fuck! Forget what I just said..."
The disembodied voice even cracked a little as it spoke, making Ran really feel the emotion behind those words.
And finally, as the specks of light descended upon him, and casted away the back fog, the voice spoke one last time.
"But, if you really feel so bad about what ya did, then you just have to remember the phrase…"
Although the voice of the young man didn't finish and said the phrase, Ran already knew what he had been talking about.
"Never forget."
That was the phrase—merely two words. Yet to Ran, it carried with it a significance unlike any other.
He finished the young man's sentence by saying it out loud, and as he closed his eyes, his body turned into specks of light.
However, once Ran left, the voice began speaking again.
"Oof, so this is what it's like on the inside huh? I can finally enjoy paradise and all the raspberry pies I want. Wait, can I still get fat if I don't have a physical body? Guess we'll have to find out."
"I don't get the giant tree though, it covers too much sunlight to get a nice tan."
Then it paused before it spoke frantically.
"Oh shit, this thing is still on? Whoops… hopefully no one heard that."
…
Gasp!
Ran woke up greedily gasping for air, his whole body full of cold sweat. He had been laying down and when he opened his eyes, a face was staring him down. Not only that face, but a bunch of others as well.
Everyone was looking at him as they surrounded him in a half-circle.
"What?"
Having so many people staring at him like that was a bit uncomfortable.
"You've been asleep for like half an hour, and everyone was worried about you."
Ann poked his cheek as she spoke to make sure he was alright, though it did nothing of course.
Fluffy too came up and licked his face a bit to express her concern.
"Eh? It's been half an hour? That's not what he told me…"
Ran trailed his speech as he fell into deep thoughts about what had happened while he rubbed Fluffy's head, but everyone was surprised by his words and thought that maybe he had hit his head on something. He's been knocked out for a while now, who could he have spoken to?
"He? Who's that?"
Ann pulled on both of his cheeks this time, but it still did nothing.
"He? Oh, I meant my doppelganger. What? Why are you all looking at me like that? Wasn't everyone in the illusion as well? And had to fight their copy?"
Ran tilted his head as he was confused, but Ann refused to let go of his cheeks so his facial expression was warped.
"Well yeah, of course, but did we speak to them? I didn't."
Queenie asked the rest and they all shook their heads no.
"Did they speak to us?"
Again, everyone denied it.
"What? Did you and your doppelganger have a conversation over a nice cup of tea and some crackers?"
Ann joked a bit, but Ran nodded helplessly, astounding everyone. Even the toads looked at each other in jealousy, they wanted crackers too.
"Well, we didn't enjoy all that, though we should have, we were enjoying fighting each other too much. Alas…"
Rans expression once again turned somber, but it was different when compared to before. He had come to terms to what had happened, but remembering it had trudged up other memories, like the loss of his home. Now he has to reprocess everything or he'll get swept away again.
Yet, everyone pretty much collectively had question marks above their heads. What was with that expression?
For them, they entered the illusion, fought the doppelganger and won, simple as that. There were no hellos, nor goodbyes, or anything in between. To them, this was confusing. After all, it was merely an illusion, so the doppelgangers weren't real… right?
However, because his hood had been taken off, they could clearly see his face and couldn't help but empathize. They didn't really understand, but they were merely teenagers and thus were still sensitive to the cruelty of this world.
After a few seconds of silence, Ran lifted his lowered head, finding that everyone's expressions were gradually likening to that of his own.
"Sigh, I'm fine, I was just thinking about some things."
He then reluctantly stopped rubbing Fluffys head, pushed away Ann's pinching fingers, and stood up. He patted some non-existent dust off his clothes before continuing.
"Anyway, should we get going?"
Seeing that Ran regained his composure, everyone sighed in relief. No one wanted to lose a team member. Especially since he was the only one with an actual chance of finding (being) a way to leave.
"We already checked the door, and it unfortunately needs a key."
Queenie spoke up as she pointed at the door.
"Without it, we're really stuck in here. Maybe if we continue playing the game, we can unlock a key?"
"Really?"
He was intrigued by her conjecture, but he had already walked up to the door.
The keyhole was actually quite sizable; though Rans fingers were slim, he could still fit a full four fingers in there. Not that he actually did that though.
While he was thinking of a potential solution, someone spoke up.
"I know!"
Shirley was the one who spoke up this time. But her excited expression gave everyone a bad feeling. They tried stopping her by giving her signals, but she didn't even notice.
"Why don't you try your sword; it's what got us here in the first place!"
She was quite proud of herself for coming up with this suggestion, but everyone pretty much had the same thoughts. They just didn't have the courage or thickness of skin to voice it out. They were, even now, still trying to come to terms with how they were able to enter the tower in the first place.
So, when she said it, the rest thought of how bad Ran would take it, but no such thing happened.
Rather, his eyes lit up as he spoke.
"Oh… my… gosh! How come I didn't think of that!?"
"Thanks Shirley, can't believe I didn't think of that, ugh."
He slapped his forehead, as if astonished that he didn't think of it. He wanted to pat Shirley's shoulder to express his thanks, but because she was twice his height, he could only pat her thighs which were thicker than his head.
She blushed a little by his patting, but she didn't feel uncomfortable. Rather, she felt even more proud of herself and relished in his praise. And while she wasn't attracted to him, as she was a fish and had different tastes, she thought he looked more pleasing to her eyes. Not to mention he had a nice smell since he was part fish himself, though it didn't show.
Ran wasn't concerned about this at all though. He just shook his head at himself, disappointed, before summoning a replica of his sword.
Because of what happened with the doppelganger, he was even more sure that something was off with his sword. Thereafter, he refrained from summoning it and just used the replica for now.
He condensed it further to give it more solidity before slowly pushing it into the keyhole. Unsurprisingly enough, it was a perfect fit. He then turned it, and everyone could clearly hear the pins in the lock move until a click was heard. The double-sided door then unlocked and opened up.
While by now it wasn't as surprising, the group still felt an inexplicable feeling as they watched the door open fully. They really, for the life of them, could not understand. Was Ran the chosen one perhaps? They don't remember having a legend or prophecy of a chosen one, so they all just felt like they had been continuously punk'd.
Yet, once the door fully opened, the tower suddenly started shaking again with thunderous rumbling echoing.
Not only the tower, the entire underground cave was shaking.
Aw shit, here we go again.