"Nice to meet you, 0301"
Cage let out a small smile. "..."
Andrew then asked "How old are you?"
Cage thought for a moment then shrugged. He didn't know his exact age, all he knew was that he was around four years old. Following the shrug, he held up four fingers.
"Around four years old huh?"
Had Andrew known that he was in a coma for four years he would be shocked because that would mean he had learned a language in an incredibly short time for a kid. If Andrew could see his soul he would be even more shocked.
Cage spent about an hour listening to Andrew and his friend talk about random stuff, unfortunately Cage didn't learn anything in the outside world. They talked about the situation in the mine for the most part. Cage learned that over the past four years the beasts in the mine have been getting more active. Apparently, every few years the beasts in the mine fight for dominance. It was known as a wave, it was when hundreds if not thousands of beasts appeared. It was estimated to happen in around two years.
Hearing this, Cage felt complicated emotions. You would expect one to feel fear, but for some reason Cage felt a mix of excitement with the fear. Despite the mix of emotions, he realized he needed a goal to work towards.
'That geezer god, or whatever he was, said something about my soul reaching stage three to get my memories back. That should be a good place to start off with.'
Eventually, Andrew and his friend decided to stop talking and went to sleep. Cage wasn't physically exhausted, but he was mentally. He didn't know if it was from all the information he learned or the after effects of whatever he did in his soul-scape, but he guessed the latter.
Cage felt his eyes grow heavy. He just stared at the ceiling until he eventually dozed off.
-=-=-
He felt a sensation of falling and instinctively closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a small basic cabin on a couch. It was very cozy and felt nostalgic. It was a made up of wood as one would expect. Cage got up, facing the couch was a fireplace that had embers that were still warm. Above the fireplace was an old beat up fishing rod. Looking around the room he saw that the walls of the living room had an assortment of hanged weapons, all of which seemed to be well maintained.
Cage walked to the kitchen to investigate. A fridge in the kitchen caught his attention. On it, there were several photos. They were pictures of Cage and a woman whom he didn't recognize. Cage felt a sense of familiarity with her though. All the photos were very cute and charming.
The oldest one he could find was of a girl and a boy both wearing a school uniform with backpacks on their backs. The boy looked like Cage, but in the photo he was frowning. Every photo seemed to be a year after the next or of a vacation in between. As the years progressed, the boy began to smile in the following pictures. In what he estimated was high school, they began to hold hands.
After that photo was a large gap of time. To Cage, it seemed like no photos were taken. The second to last photo was both of them together again years later and they both seemed happier than the other photos combined. However, the last photo was acting like the gray static of an old television.
What was especially unnerving about the last photo was he was getting a faint sense of killing intent from it. 'I'm getting a sense of killing intent from the photo? how is that even possible?'
Turning to the table, Cage saw two plates that each had cinnamon roll pancakes with a single strawberry on top. On the side was some bacon and hash-browns. looking at it made his mouth water. He hadn't noticed at first, but there was a robot vacuum in the corner of the room.
'What? why am I in my old world?' Confused at first, Cage quickly realized that wasn't the case. 'This is a dream... I think. It's way too vivid to be a dream, but it can't be real...'
Cage had a lot of questions. He wanted to know what was going on.
Looking back to the food on the table cage couldn't help but wonder about the emotions he was feeling. 'Why are those cinnamon roll pancakes nostalgic? Is this part of my old life?'
He heard footsteps behind him. "Hey Cage, did you sleep well?"
Turning round, he saw a cute woman. She had hazel-nut brown hair that was tied into a pony tail. Her eyes were especially alluring, they were a dark shade of green and shone like emeralds. She was wearing a hoodie and track pants that somehow made her look cuter. She seemed to have just woken up before greeting him.
It was the woman in the photos. looking at her, he began to feel himself stir on the inside. 'Who is this person? She feels familiar and I feel a sense of affection and a lot of joy, but why is there also sadness mixed in?'
"nice! you made my favorite pancakes!"
Her eyes started to light up like a Christmas tree. She sat down and immediately began wolfing down the pancakes like they were going disappear in the next minute, although they probably were going to be gone in the next minute due to her appetite.
Cage sat down across from her and began to eat the pancakes as well.
Cage wanted to know who exactly she was. "Who ar-?"
Before Cage could ask the question, she cut him off and asked another question. She flashed a sweet smile, "Can you do me a favor and get me some orange juice?"
Cage's brain short circuited from the smile. It was just too cute and instantly melted him. He was confused but not opposed. He just nodded. "Sure".
How could he say no to that smile.
'This person is clearly close to me, She is definitely a key figure in my old life'. Cage guessed he was probably on the mark. 'Well whatever, I'll just ask her who she is after I get her the drink. This is only a dream after all.'
He went into the kitchen. Walking over to a cabinet, he found a glass instantly despite having no memory of their location. Placing the glass on the counter, Cage walked over to the fridge in the kitchen. He stared at the photos again for a moment continued with his quest of orange juice.
To summarize the fridge, he would call it a mess. It looked like a miniature tornado was in the fridge and spread the contents everywhere. He couldn't help but chuckle a little because it seemed like this was part of the woman's personality.
After scrounging for the orange juice for a minute, he bent down and fished his hand in to pull it out. The fridge light flickered a few times then became stable letting out a soft glow. Thinking nothing of it, Cage closed the door to the fridge. Cage went to the counter and began to pour the orange juice into the glass.
Out of the corner of his eye, he looked back at the photos. What he saw made him drop the orange juice he was pouring.
All of the photos on the fridge had the same static like the last one did before, except now the last photo was visible. It was a photo of Cage, alone. He wore a smile. He was smiling in the photo but it wasn't a happy smile, it was the smile of an insane man. He stood among countless corpses, all the corpses seemed to be maimed beyond recognition in many different ways.
They all seemed to have died by his hands. His hands felt sticky. He held up his hands, they were covered in blood. He was barefoot at the moment and felt a liquid touch his foot, It was of blood.
Turning around, The cabin was gone and was replaced with a gruesome sight. He was in a field that was dyed red. The field also had countless corpses as well. They were all similar to the photo, maimed beyond recognition. Clouds blocked the sky with only a small beam of light piecing through illuminating the middle of the field.
The only location clean of blood was the middle of the field where the light illuminated. Cage slowly walked his way to the middle, the smell of iron filled his nose. The blood went up to his ankles. Cage walked into the middle area. He tracked footprints of blood onto the grass. There was a woman tied to a chair, she had a pained expression. She had hazel-nut brown hair and dark green eyes. She was covered in cuts and blood. She had nothing on her except a silver chain necklace. She was sliced, defiled, and had a knife though her eye.
He only felt grief and rage.
A drop of water land on him. The drops of water only intensified, washing away the red of the field. Cage looked up to the sky and closed his eyes. Streams of water formed on his cheek.
-=-=-
Cage woke up in the medical facility. His hand was held out in the air reaching out to something he couldn't see. A tear crept down his face.