1 year later

“Shin, wake up! Let’s go explore!”

‘Ugh. The little rascal always wakes me up like this.’

“Kell, we can’t anymore. We both died last time, remember?”

“Awww… Pleeeeeease?”

I pulled the blanket over my head and pretended to fall back asleep despite Kell’s insistent pushing.

THUD

“Ouch! No fair, Kell!”

The bed I was lying on suddenly disappeared, allowing my body to fall to the floor. Kell was floating above me, giggling to themselves as I stood up.

“I even made breakfast.”

I looked at Kell to deny their request once again, only to meet their signature begging eyes. I can never go against those damn eyes.

“Fine, fine! But remember our promise: we only go until we meet Bart again, then we turn back.”

“Yay!”

I sat down at a stool in front of the kitchen island to eat as Kell happily flew around the room. The food was always the same: fruit from the black tree I woke up underneath. At first I was skeptical about eating it, but I figured it was better than starving to death.

Every time I eat this fruit, I look at it and think it looks absolutely horrendous, and every time, I’m pleasantly surprised about the flavor of it.

It’s all black on the outside with what looks like hair covering its rough surface. It’s about as large as my fist, and on the inside holds a sweet and delicious pink, nearly white, flesh.

After finishing my meal of three Blackberries (name tentative), I make my way towards the exit.

“Kell! Sword!”

As I call out for Kell, the tent around me disappears, with a pale white longsword appearing in my hand, its only feature being a familiar looking eyeball in the middle of the guard, with a black gem for a pommel.

“Same way today?”

A confirming rattle sounds out from the blade, the eye still holding the same excitement from before.

‘At least they can’t talk in this form…’

My intrusive thoughts nearly took over for a second. I really enjoy Kell’s company, truly, but sometimes I wonder how much longer I can stand being around them.

As we continued walking, I recalled all of the information we had gathered from our previous adventures down this path.

What we are stranded in is some sort of man-made ravine, dug for whatever reason. The width of it seems to be around 20 meters long, and the depth… incalculable.

During one of our earlier walks, Kell and I tried flying out of the ravine using their tent form, but they weren’t able to reach the top. The fall back down was almost as scary as seeing their head underneath the bed over a year ago… That scene still gives me nightmares.

Anywho, we figured that before we train together to prepare for leaving this place, we should explore it a little so we don’t miss out on any treasures.

So far, the only treasure was our good friend Bart, whom we are approaching now.

“Okay, we made it to Bart. Let’s go back.”

POP

“No! We didn’t do anything! There weren’t even any monsters to kill!”

The blade in my hand turned into the floating child form of Kell that I was most used to, as they flew around me, protesting the promise we had made.

“Look at lonely ol’ Bart! We should stay here and keep him company!”

I could practically see the gears turning in their head as they tried to come up with a valid excuse to stay out here for any longer.

Before we continue, I should probably explain what, or who, Bart is. Bart is an overgrown, giant  skeleton that sits in front of a big mess of garbage down here in our ravine. Even though Bart is sitting down, his torso still reaches over double my height.

Past Bart is an ever-changing mass of a random assortment of objects that are thrown down here every so often. Sometimes we are even lucky enough to witness the shower of trash that rains down from above.

There’s all sorts of shiny objects past Bart’s body, but it’s scary. We’ve traversed the previously unknown before this, but this is different. It’s a little TOO unknown.

“Okay, let’s stay here for a little bit.”

With a sigh, I finally gave in to Kell, so we stayed there.

…And nothing happened. No garbage rain, no monsters, no lectures from Bart. Nothing happened.

I began to head back despite Kell pulling on my arm, trying to keep me there for just a few minutes longer. But I knew from experience that “a little longer” never ends unless I start leaving.

BOOOM

“Kell, are you alright?”

“...”

“Kell?”

“Puha! Yeah, I’m okay!”

The sudden boom was the impact of something large falling into the ravine right in front of where I was walking, throwing me backwards into Bart and crushing Kell.

I wasn’t too worried about Kell, seeing as they can change into all different shapes, but my stomach still dropped when I saw them disappear underneath the rubble in front of me.

They poked their head out of the debris, their vibrant white skin nearly covered up by the large amount of dust now filling the air.

“Now what?”

Kell tapped on the wall now covering our path, its sheer face looking down on us like Bart’s empty eye sockets.

“Well, if we can’t get through this, we’ll have to go the other way.”