Hayato opened his eyes as if he had just woken up from a bad dream. He got up all of a sudden, but only his trunk since it looked like his legs were numb. His breathing was unstable and he could feel the sweat running down his body, making him extremely uncomfortable. He always hated it when he woke up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat.
'What the hell did I just dream?' he couldn't remember at all. Actually, he had doubts about whether he was sleeping or not. He didn't feel rested at all. Instead, he felt cold and exhausted. Even his eyelids were heavy, threatening to close again.
Hayato put both hands on the ground to support his trunk. He was so sleepy and tired that he felt like falling on his back again.
Once he touched the ground, though, he felt something different. It was as if he sat on a grass field. However, this grass was different. It was white and silky. So silky that it felt like that grass would tear apart into millions of pieces only by touching it.
'It doesn't smell like grass either. And this white color... it's just so pure that I feel like it will get dirt by the touch of my fingers, even though they are clean.'
Suddenly, he thought it was outrageous that he lied and slept on this grass field. It was nearly an act of heresy, he adulterated the purity of that place.
'But, you know, at the same time as I feel like an outsider, it looks like this place was made only for me.'
The sky above was as blue as ever. Lonely clouds hung around, their forms resembling works of art made by human hands, not formed randomly. And, as far as the eye could see, only grass. Raw white grass.
Hayato blinked a few times, then looked in front. For some reason, something drew his attention there.
A knife was laid on the grass, a few meters ahead. Not a normal knife, but a stained knife. The crimson color painting its blade was the only vivid color of that place, except for the sky.
"I am not...", he said, unwillingly. His mouth moved on its own. He began to sweat more and his hands trembled.
He heard a meowing, but too far away. It was getting closer and closer, though.
"I am...", his shallow breathing stopped him from finishing his phrase. However, he felt like it would only get worse if he did not say it.
The meowing got louder... and louder... and louder.
The crimson of the knife expanded as if it was leaking from it. It formed a pool around the knife and dyed the grass red. The mere touch of that liquid made the grass change its pure color.
'Stop it, stop it, stop, stop, stop, stooooop! Weak, useless, corrupted! It's corrupting it! It's corrupting!'
'Why am I thinking this? What is happening? Where am I?'
Now, it looked like the cat's meow was right beside his ear, hurting his eardrums, making his mind tremble.
"I am sorry. I am sorry. Damn it!" he shouted, holding his head with both hands, carving his nails on his skin. "I AM SO SORRY!"
A tear ran down his face and fell on the grass. More tears came afterward. Not normal tears, but red ones. Tears of blood.
The grass field gradually got dyed red. But not only where the knife was, not only where Hayato was crying. The whole grass field became crimson as if the earth was bleeding.
Hayato's mind was still fixated on the object in front of him.
"I am not... I am not the one who holds the knife. I am not."
"Felix?"
He, then, opened his eyes again. This time, out of the dream for real.
He felt his body all wet, but it was not sweat. He was still in the middle of the rain, after all.
'Maybe that's why I felt so cold in my dream, huh?'
However, that detail was far from what really concerned him. After all, his whole dream was strange. Not an ounce of it was normal.
'I am starting to feel like I am going crazy. That should be it, right? I mean, there is no way that a sane person would have a dream so real and so strange. I didn't smoke anything today, too. Although I am out in the rain and cold, I am still not feeling sick, I have no fever. Being in this situation, assuming insanity is not unreasonable, right?'
Hayato's legs were numb just like in the dream, but not for an unknown reason. After running so much, then throwing up after teleporting as per usual, he felt weaker than ever before. His head hurt so much that he felt like punching it until the pain disappeared.
'Punching would only worsen it, though... Am I really all right?' he sighed, facepalming for a second.
Looking around, he found himself on the rooftop of an inn he had stayed the night a few weeks ago. It was the tallest inn he had ever been to. For some reason, on the night he stayed there, he went to the rooftop to reflect on... on random things. In the end, knowing that place was useful.
"Anyway, it's a rooftop in the middle of the damn rain", he muttered to himself. "It's not the ideal place, though it's reasonable to some extent."
At this point, Hayato didn't really mind the rain, though. He could very well get sick, but at this moment such things little mattered to him.
He watched the raindrops falling for a while, resting. His dizziness and nausea slowly faded away, though the exhaustion remained, even increasing as time passed by flying.
Hayato heard a lot of times that time seemed to pass too slowly when you are in a pinch. He himself felt something similar when suffering in his previous world.
'For some reason, though, time is going so fast right now... So fast... It's cruel, you know? I don't have much time left and yet it goes away in the blink of an eye. What am I supposed to do in this situation?'
This strange perception of time only made him more uneasy, anxious, and cornered.
'Even in another world, my demons follow me. That dream was a reflection of this, probably. My past struggles and traumas will be with me until the day I can settle things with Him', he clenched his fists as tightly as he could, trying to soothe his stress.
Hayato stayed on top of that roof for another hour or so. At least, until he felt like he could walk again. After a while of resting, his legs were able to move. Thankfully for him, he could get away from there without being noticed. He had to enter the building again, walk through each floor, then go past the receptionist.
Since she had seen him there before, she didn't mind him in the least. Hayato didn't have a strong presence, so the fact that she remembered his face was a very lucky thing.
Unfortunately for him, getting out of that building was not the hardest part. In truth, finding somewhere to stay during the rest of the day was the issue. He didn't have much money with him and the streets would be filled with guards searching for him. Moving around carelessly was out of the question and teleporting again would only increase his tiredness.
'What a stalemate, huh?' at this point, his shortcomings didn't frustrate him anymore. Even his mind went numb after so much pain.
Since he needed to be careful, he spent double the time crossing the city to a remote location. Like every city, that place had its slumps, the poorest part. Although it was more dangerous, the guards didn't have the same advantage there as they had in any other region of the city. Having such a place was a life-saver for Hayato, particularly because some taverns had inns on their second floor.
He spent a long while trying to find a suitable place while avoiding the dangerous people of the slumps, but he could do it.
Surprisingly, the place he chose was one of the most expensive he had to pay for. And, honestly, his room was a dump, simply terrible. However, it had a bathroom, hot water to bath, and they served one meal. For someone as desperate as he was, that was more than enough.
Hayato barely saw the time passing as he did all he needed to do until he was ready for bed. He slept without further ramblings, but a light sleep. At the slightest sound, he would wake up. It was really bad when taking into consideration that a storm was going on out there.
In the end, he didn't sleep well, but the morning came very fast. In a second, he was up, though still sleepy and exhausted; but ready to keep taking steady steps forward, to a future he was uncertain and afraid of.
But the new Hayato would face this future. No more running away.