Will poked the girls head before being greeting with a deep snore. He sighed and looked around the shop some more.
He didn't expect to see much else. All he saw were odd items to help with sleep and pillows.
Some of them were a bit unsettling though.
One kinda looked like a yellow version of the rat that tried to eat him earlier. Its tail was in the shape of a lightning bolt. He quite liked that one.
He then lifted the wooden border to get around to the back of the counter. The old wood let off a soft creak and felt damp.
The items behind the counter took a drastic turn to the occult.
A dream catcher made from human teeth and had the skull of a baby dangling from a piece of yarn to replace the web.
A book titled 'how to kill someone in their dream'. There was no author to the book no surprise to the boy.
He then continued his search and found more assortments of twisted items related to sleep and dreaming. It almost felt like he was in one himself.
Will then approached the back room. The rooms door was tightly locked with numerous bolts and noise makers seemingly put there to wake her up in case someone went snooping.
He looked back at the sleeping girl whose head was now oddly turned in his direction. He then looked at her waist and saw an assortment of different items he couldn't even being to comprehend. But there was also a small bunch of keys that draped along her waist.
Will looked around and saw an owl clock that hung neatly above the doorframe. The time was close to 7 in the afternoon. He questioned if he had really spent all this time in this shop or was it just an illusion.
As if to answer his question he instinctively reached into his pockets. He felt the old compass that had led him here and sighed. He really did experience all of that.
Like a Dam had suddenly been turned on he immediately fell to the floor screaming from the rapid flow of information. He threw up acid as his stomach had yet to be filled since the day began.
Pictures of him eating another human's brain tore through his consciousness and he began to hurl even harder. His breath was cut short. He knelt on the floor breathless and in extreme amounts of mental pain and anguish. All of a sudden a dark blue dress bottom appeared before his face and he suddenly felt extremely sleepy.
When he awoke this time he was in the shop again. He got out the hammock he was on and upon realizing that it still wasn't a dream he almost began to repeat his previous actions.
He then gazed at the area where Apathy sat and noticed she wasn't there anymore. His head swiveled towards the clock and it was just after 1 AM.
Will looked closely at the room and couldn't find a trace of another human. He then walked behind the counter towards the door and noticed it was unlocked. He cautiously pushed the door open.
He saw a witches' cauldron bubbling away and different ingredients hung on shelves. From his limited knowledge some of the ingredients seemed almost fictional. Like toys or gimmicks magicians and circus acts use to lure in unsuspecting prey to empty their wallets on the 'strange and unknown'. A two headed newt. Rainbow colored flowers. Baby hooves. To name a few he could recognize. He thin inched closer to the cauldron and looked inside.
There was a small item at the bottom of the bubbling broth. He couldn't quite remember what it smelt like but it smelt like something familiar mixed with something sweet.
The item at the bottom of the cauldron pulsated and glowed but occasionally pieces of it would dissolve and the glow would dim more and more.
He watched this process enchanted but the sticky black liquid that began to form after it dissolved seemed to repulse him. It was as if it was something disgusting that he shouldn't touch in a million years.
He stumbled back and put some distance between him and the cauldron only to end up in the arms of a woman and hear the familiar yet weirdly unsettling voice of Apathy.
"Now…Now little one, its ok you're safe. And we don't belong to the same realm so there's no point in me killing you yet."
"Realm?" Will questioned. He was simply met with a smile.