“What now?” Haruto asked, after calming down from all the running. Yukio shrugged.
“We should get going now, see those clocks? The small one within the larger one is a sixty-minute clock, the larger one is a twenty-four hour clock. Every sixty minutes, new monsters are released and the surroundings change.” Yume explained. All three of them looked at the closest clock, the small clock was at fifty-seven, and the larger one was at twenty-three.
“What happens once it hits twenty-four..?” Haruto asked.
“I don’t know… wait, look in the book, quick!” Yume said to Yukio, he was holding the book.
“Ok. …here it is.” Yukio held out the book quickly for everyone to see. Once they laid their eyes upon the book and what it said, all three of them became fearful.
“A powerful beast gets released every twenty-four hours.. and every one hundred years.. the blood moon awakens the five mirror realm beasts, the most dominant beasts. Dammit, we have to get out of here.” Yume read. As soon as they got up, there was a large glitch, it was strange, it knocked out everyone there.
“Guys..?” Haruto sat up. All he could see was an abandoned kingdom. Everything was destroyed. When he got up and took a step, he heard a crack. Haruto looked down, all he saw were bones.
“HOLY SH–” He slipped and fell on another pile of bones and wood. Except this time, some of the bones still had flesh on them. He got up immediately, it was utterly disgusting to him. ‘What the hell..?’ He cautiously walked around the kingdom. All he saw were dead soldiers and civilians, he wanted to throw up so badly because of the amount of dead bodies.
“Wh-who did all of this..?” He walked up to the largest building, he looked up, only to see the dead looking back down. The king was hanging from a high point, dead, dark eyes. Haruto kept on walking, trying to forget the sight of such a thing. He opened the gate to the building, and went inside. Luckily, there were many holes in the ceiling, so it wasn’t pitch black.
“Hello? Is there anybody there? Anyone alive..?” Haruto called out, hoping there were actual people alive, not demons. All he heard was cracking, with every step he took. He tried so hard not to look down. Instead, he looked up. It wasn’t a human, but it was dead. Hanging by strings, blood leaking down the strings.
“Who is that..?” Haruto inched closer to the creature, when he looked closer, it looked like a female. Her back was facing Haruto’s direction, so was her head. Her back looked like it had a large mirror shard, but it just looked like a large scratch. It seemed to still be bleeding. Haruto saw a sand clock, at the digits one hundred. The letters were blood red. That’s when Haruto realized what was happening.
“The blood moon.. the beasts were awakened..” Haruto became incredibly anxious. After that realization, he heard a creaking sound on the floorboards. There were chills sent down his spine, his heart began beating faster than it was before. Haruto ran as fast as he could to hide behind something. He put his hand over his mouth, trying to make no sound. The steps could now be heard, the creaking even louder. The steps became louder and louder.
“Bushida! Kuroki!” Haruto was relieved by the sound of Yukio’s voice.
“YUKIO!” Haruto came out from the hiding place, running over to Yukio to hug him. Yukio seemed to be very relieved as well.
“Bushida, I’m so happy to see you!” Yukio said. “Have you seen Kuroki anywhere? I’ve been looking for her as well.” Yukio asked. Haruto shook his head no. Again, they heard creaking on the floorboards, but this time, it was obvious that it was not a human. The two both heard a strange sound coming from the creature.
“Hide.” Haruto whispered. He took Yukio’s arm and ran with him over to his original hiding place. Haruto peaked his head around the corner, only to see a very large creature, much taller than him, it had large, black wings. White shoulder-length hair, ripped clothing, an old Japanese hat. It was terrifying, large claws. It got even worse when its head twisted around fully, revealing a mouth with sharp teeth. This description matched that of ‘The Puppeteer’. The lights flickered, and the creature’s position changed, it was crawling through the strings holding up the dead woman-like creature. It ripped off one of her arms, devouring it without a second thought. Haruto began breathing heavily, he was terrified. That’s when the puppeteer’s head faced his direction. Yukio leaned over, curious. Haruto covered his own mouth along with Yukio’s, pushing him back. Yukio understood why Haruto did it. They both heard the floorboards creak, much, much louder than before. Sweat dripped from Haruto’s chin. The Puppeteer’s long claws gripped the corner of the hiding spot, it began feeling around for anything. Haruto leaned to the left, slowly and quietly backing away from the claws. The creature’s claws scratched slowly across the wall, looking for something to kill and devour. The claws began inching closer to Yukio’s head, he was terrified, so scared that a tear ran down his cheek. That is until there was a bang outside, triggering the reflexes of The Puppeteer, its head turned towards the sound, and it took its claw out of the hiding spot. All the two heard were the screams of the unfortunate. Haruto looked over, looking at a clock. He nudged Yukio and pointed towards the clock. The smaller clock was at thirty-seven. The two still had some time to go, but while The Puppeteer was distracted, they could probably go under the floorboards and find an exit. Haruto felt around, and knocked quietly on some of the floorboards, looking for one that would be easy to pull up to go under. He saw one with a crack in the corner, he was able to successfully pull it up.
Because the floorboards were so large, it was easy to go into. Haruto and Yukio jumped down, and one of them moved the floorboard back in place.
“Now we just need to find an exit. Let’s split up.” Haruto whispered. There was some light down there so they were able to look around. There were quite a bit of crunching sounds from stepping on the bones.
“..I think I might… throw up..” Yukio held his hand to his mouth, the other hand on his stomach. While Yukio was resisting the urge to throw up, Haruto sucked it up and felt around, knowing that there were dead bodies there. That bravery ended when he accidentally touched an organ. The two both threw up, it was a very disgusting place.
“Yukio, look over there!” Haruto said in a quiet tone. He was pointing at a little hole near Yukio. Yukio began walking close to the hole, then he reached for the hole. Just to find out it was an illusion.
“BUSHIDA! IT WAS AN ILLUSION!!” Yukio shouted. Haruto gave hand signals to quiet down. But it was too late at that point. Haruto ran as quickly as he could to Yukio, pulling him by his arm through the illusion before the puppeteer struck the ground, the claws piercing through the floorboards. The sky was a dark red, clocks were everywhere. The two were out in the open, one of the most dangerous places to roam.
“Yukio, you have to be quiet next time, or there probably won’t be a next time if this happens again!” Haruto told Yukio. Yukio nodded in agreement, they both slowed down, trying to catch their breath.
“Hey, do you see that in the distance?” Yukio pointed out, it was hard to see because of the fog.
“Yeah..” Haruto squinted his eyes. “..It’s some sort of large building.” Haruto said. The two began walking towards it. ‘Wait, how long does the blood moon last..?’ Haruto thought. He remembered at that moment that Yukio had the book with all the information.
“Yukio, can I see the book for a moment?” Yukio nodded, handing the book to Haruto. He flipped through the pages until he found the information on the blood moon.
“5 FULL DAYS?!” Haruto accidentally yelled out. Yukio gave Haruto a dirty look.
“S-sorry. It just caught me by surprise.” Haruto apologized. They were both startled as they heard a roar in the far distance. Neither of them knew what it was, but without a doubt, it was bad news.
“C’mon, we have to get out of the open lands!” Haruto told Yukio. By the time they started looking, the smaller clock arm was at fifty-nine. Luckily, Yukio noticed.
“WAIT! BUSHIDA!” Yukio rushed back to Haruto, grabbing his hand. That’s when the clock struck sixty. The surroundings completely changed, Yukio and Haruto both fell into a pit.
“Now where are we..?” Yukio said while he was getting up. Haruto coughed up some blood.
“Bushida, what’s wrong?” Yukio helped Haruto up.
“My stomach... it’s hurting.” Haruto said, “Now that I think of it, the stab wound hasn’t been getting any better or any worse since we’ve been here.” Haruto explained. Though, the pit was awfully hard to see considering how dark it was.
“Yukio, do you know how to make a fire? Think it might be possible with all this junk down here.” Haruto asked.
“Yeah– my mother taught me how to do it quite a while ago.” Yukio responded. He began searching through the piles of metal, wood, bones, and a few other items. Yukio screeched, accidentally touching a dead human body.
“YUKIO! ARE YOU OK– oh. First time?” Haruto chuckled a little.
“You’ve only accidentally touched one once, ONCE!” Yukio pointed out. “Shut up!” The two began laughing over the matter, seemingly forgetting that they were in no position to be laughing. After the laugh, Yukio continued looking for some stuff to start a fire with.
“Would this be useful?” Haruto held up an arm bone.
“...I guess so, let me take a look. There are surprisingly not as many bone piles down here. It’s the opposite of what I was expecting if I’m being honest.” Yukio answered, taking the bone from Haruto. Yukio inspected it.
“I might be able to use it to start a fire, but we’ll need something flammable. If we can’t find anything down here, we can just use my jacket.” Yukio explained. Haruto nodded and began looking for any flammable items. After thoroughly looking through the junk, Haruto found absolutely nothing.
“Find anything?” Yukio asked while holding a large rock and the bone that Haruto found.
“Nope.” Haruto responded. Yukio gave a thumbs up to Haruto and a small smile.
“Don’t worry about it! We probably shouldn’t waste anymore time searching when I can just use my jacket.” Yukio reassured Haruto. Yukio took off his jacket, wrapping it around the bone. He began making the rocks clash, causing sparks, eventually setting the jacket on fire.
“And… done!” Yukio held up the DIY torch. The two noticed a tunnel once the area was lightened by the torch.
“Want to go in?” Haruto asked.
“There isn’t any way out, so why not?” Yukio said, leading the way. When they ventured further into the tunnel, there were more and more piles of bones as they went further.
“Should we turn back..?” Haruto asked.
“We’ve taken quite a few turns, I don’t know if we’ll even be able to find our way back.” Yukio pointed out.
“Fair enough.” The two continued walking. ‘How long have we been walking for…? Feels like it’s been at least an hour.’ Haruto thought. It was at that moment that they stepped into a place they shouldn’t have been.
“Hey look! It’s a more open place! Apparently we reached the end of the tunnel.” Yukio said happily.
“What’s that?” Haruto saw a piece of clothing covering something, and a sword poking out of a mirror, the sharp point facing the tunnel area. Haruto slowly walked towards it, taking the sheet off.
“W-what the..” Haruto stepped back, dropping the sheet. It was a demonic creature, but it was impaled with the sword right through the area of the heart. Or multiple, Haruto didn’t know if gods and demons had more hearts than a human would. The creature had a scar on its back similar to the female creature Haruto saw before finding Yukio, except this time, it had only one large shard.
“Who’s that..?” Yukio asked.
“Wait, get out the book. I saw another one with a similar back scar.” Haruto said.
“OK.” Yukio pulled the book out, first checking the general mirror realm beast information.
“This, right here: ‘Each mirror realm beast has one-five mirror shards on their back. This represents who had been in the mirror realm the longest, but does not show who’s the strongest. The only way to become a mirror beast is to kill a previous one, the shards will then become more like a scar. Alive and active beasts have shards that look as if you can fall into it, most usually have corruption’.. what even is corruption..?” Yukio read. As he turned the page, an arrow was shot, piecing his hand. Yukio dropped the book, backing up. Haruto quickly turned, looking for the enemy.
“WHO’S THERE?!” Haruto yelled.
“BUSHIDA, WATCH OUT!” Yukio pulled Haruto down to the ground, dodging the masked person trying to kill Haruto. The person had two medium sized swords, they began swinging them towards Haruto’s neck. Luckily, he dodged it.
“WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT?!” Haruto tried to knock at least one of the swords out of their hands, but he unfortunately failed, resulting in a cut on his wrist.
“Crap..” Haruto already felt tired, even though he didn’t do much. Yukio, on the other hand, pulled out the arrow, attempting to stab the person with it.
“BACK OFF– WHOEVER YOU ARE!” Yukio shouted. As Yukio was trying to attack them, he got pushed into the mirror, quite literally.
“YUKIO!” Haruto jumped in, going after him. At that moment, he had just gone through a time and space passage to another realm. Haruto slowly opened his eyes, noticing that the place looked a lot like where he just came from, but it didn’t look or feel as eerie. More empty and dead.
“Yukio..” Haruto said as he sat up. “YUKIO!” Haruto shouted out in a panic.
“Jeez! Relax! I’m right here.” Yukio reassured Haruto. He became much more relieved.
“Do you think Yume might’ve come through here?” Yukio questioned.
“I think the real question is.. where are we?”
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–CHAPTER 6 END–
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