Chương 23: Trash

June had pulled the APC for hundreds of kilometers and finally saw a city; there was a big castle in the center and large walls around it. A goal had appeared. And with it relief; relief is infectious. June collapsed. His body had been going for almost 2 months without stopping. His tenseness was the only thing keeping him going, the only reason he didn't stop for a break. He had long gotten used to the beast's antics and its hold on his mind; he learned how to sleep while walking and how to sleep with an eye open.

It wasn't enough for a Dreamer to sleep like that continuously. Hallucinations plagued him. June kept seeing the sky turn into a fleshless grin; he saw two disjointed eyes stare at him, and he heard it billow in laughter, tease him, and press him into the ground. He wasn't sure if he was experiencing some form of phantom pain; his hands hurt, but he discarded them long ago. They were pointless; they were trash.

His legs elongated to cover more ground, his arms were repurposed solely for pulling the APC, and his jaw had fallen off from singing. To be more exact, he tore it off. June was going insane slowly; he pushed himself beyond conventional and dreamer limits. The singing of random words became ghostly humming; blood didn't flow through all his body at times, his heart was too small to pump to his elongated flesh, and his limbs of burden lost their color and began a deathly white.

He willed enough blood to flow so that the muscles had enough to contract and release to complete their task; he did not need to look pretty; he needed to save the cohort. One of the vines of vein grew through the latch in the roof, and so did several more. An eye sprouted over Julian and Shade. She was still in a coma; Julian did his best to take care of her. Even though Julian was appalled by June's appearance of burden, he still made small talk with June.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. It was the only thing keeping June from fully losing his mind. The pale beasts' elongated legs were double-jointed; they resembled a bull's legs. He would have looked like a minotaur if not for his deathly pale skin, lack of jaw, and bloodshot eyes; his arms have become vines from the bicep for efficiency's sake; nothing else existed past them. The blood that flowed from his eyes was briskly reabsorbed.

He was once average, then he became beautiful, and then he became an angel of death. His arms fanned out like wings made of vines. And his stare was distant, almost as if he saw through ones soul. June had indeed collapsed in a sense; bones jut into the ground to keep him upright. He was unable to separate himself from the APC without ripping through the muscle, and it took him days in the first place to even spawn enough veins to hold the lump of steel.

June didn't dream anymore since becoming a Dreamer; he simply fell in and out of worlds, but even in his collapsed state, he willed himself to remain until he saved Shade and Julian. He didn't really know the cohort well, the dead ones at least, maybe the living ones too. The boss is the one June looked up to. June saw the boss and Eric spar often; they were the only Dreamers that June knew other than Grace. The boss's main weapon of choice was a tower shield almost larger then he was; it was a heavy one.

He used it to cleave monsters in two, which was a sight to see. Well, June only saw the aftermath when he was helping dismantle said corpses. His shining suit of armor made the boss feel like a real hero, a fantasy hero who could blast any monster or evildoer away with one blast, not to mention the boss was nearly three and a half meters tall. He was the first role model of June's that he knew personally. His second role model, or technically his first role model, was someone who made videos online.

Their videos were always there, even on the days he felt unloved, even on the days he was alone, or the days when something had happened and nobody would listen to his troubles. He valued them both, but now the only one alive is the one making videos. Eric or Erica, the Cougar lady, was a bit odd herself; she and Tinkerer were childhood friends, basically siblings attached at the hip. The bone bow she had belonged to her husband once; her husband was also Tinkerer's older brother.

The two seemed like they had their scars, but they still prevailed despite them. They said they were heroes in their hometown. June looked up to them; they were kinder to him than his own siblings. Cougar had her own quirks, given the nickname, but she taught June how to shoot a bow; she even gave him snacks she hid from the boss from time to time. Tinkerer and June had hit it off immediately. Tinkerer was also a mentor to June; he taught him how to use some of the common gadgets used in Nightrealm.

He even taught June how to use the more eccentric tools and methods of craft. June even got some of Tinkerer's spare tools and gadgets as a gift too, but they were crushed when he died.

"Tinkerer" was a nickname June gave; he should have asked for his name. June regretted not asking the boss his name too. June felt like trash. What kind of person wouldn't know their saviors', mentors', friends' names? Why didn't he ask for his friends' names? He woke up after a minute. And continued towards the city.