In the morning, I was awakened by the soft rustling of leaves. When I opened my eyes, I saw the sun's rays shining through the scarlet crown of the Soul Tree and painting the world with soft pink tones. The view was beautiful and peaceful. It seemed as if none of the dangers and terrors of the Dream Kingdom could reach me there.
A gentle breeze caressed my skin, bringing with it coolness and the scent of fallen leaves. For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace.
After several torturous days of making my way through the labyrinth, fighting battles that no Sleeper should ever have to experience, and hiding so as not to be discovered by a stronger creature, I finally had a moment of peace. We killed the demon that inhabited this place, right where I'm lying now, as I finish waking up.
I feel a tingling sensation on the left side of my neck and turn to see what is disturbing my rest. My vision is filled with a golden yellow color. I feel the weight beside me and the warmth radiating from the body curled up against mine. The tickling sensation is the impact of her breath against my neck due to our closeness.
"Oh, it's just Cassie..." I think.
In the days following her terrible vision, she became even more clingy. In the mornings, it was now commonplace to wake up with her clinging to me. At first, her blatant closeness gave me minor heart attacks. As the days passed, I got used to it, so much so that I allowed myself to ignore it. But there was one detail that didn't add up: Cassie's unintentional confession about her feelings for me.
I tried to fool myself into thinking that maybe I had heard wrong. Later, I asked Cassie a few discreet questions to get her to tell me more about what she had seen, but she didn't remember very well. She explained that she felt overwhelmed when she woke up, her memories were confused, and her mind was a mess, so she didn't remember saying anything after I rescued her from falling into the sea. At that moment, I felt my heart calm down. "It was my imagination," I thought. But deep down, I knew the truth: I hadn't made it up, and that truth was becoming more and more obvious. Throughout the trip, I felt uncomfortable around Cassie when I saw her or talked to her. It was just a small stain, almost non-existent, but it was there. I felt uncomfortable because I didn't know what I was feeling or what to do when the situation escalated. This was new to me.
But I didn't have time to think about my feelings either. None of us had rested; we had to focus on surviving and getting to the castle Cassie had seen. That was the priority. I could think about other things later, although right now I had a moment of peace...
I moved my arm and brushed Cassie's hair away from her face. It was an almost involuntary reaction; I did it every morning. When my fingers touched her skin and her hair to brush it away, Cassie moved immediately and smiled.
"Good morning, Sunny," she said, pressing herself against me and burying her head in my chest.
Okay... this doesn't usually happen. I tensed as I felt her chest pressing hard against my body and her legs intertwining with mine. My heart was pumping blood so hard that I thought I was having a heart attack.
"Can you let go of me a little... please?" I managed to say.
In response, I only got a soft laugh and her squeezing me tighter.
This hurts...
Before I could complain again, the pressure eased and her arms withdrew. Cassie sat down next to me with a radiant smile, almost outshining the sun. I felt blinded by the light.
That emotion and that peculiar feeling I had felt several days ago returned, but this time there was a barrier, it didn't feel natural, something was holding back my feelings, slowly suppressing them, but not extinguishing them. Me... what was I thinking? Never mind.
I sat down, crossing my legs, looking at Cassie. I said timidly, "Good morning, Cassie..."
"Aren't you going to say hello?" said a third voice. It was Nephis, with a serious expression, or rather, her usual expression.
"Good morning, Nephis."
"Hi, Neph."
Then Nephis bowed her head slightly and asked, "Hey, do you remember why we didn't leave anyone on guard last night?"
Indeed, why hadn't anyone kept watch over the camp?
"Um... No. I guess we were too tired. Besides, we're very safe here. Why deprive ourselves of sleep?"
I frowned. I expected the Changing Star to scold us, but unexpectedly, she just shrugged.
"... I guess."
"Hey. That's not like her."
To make Nephis feel better, I pointed down and said, "Don't worry. My shadow would have warned us if anything had happened."
She seemed to have forgotten her question and went back to what she was doing before. Lately, the three of us had been easily distracted.
XXX
A few days passed. Sunny, Nephis, and Cassie spent them lazing around, not caring about anything in the world. Their tired bodies and minds needed time to rest. They slept until noon, ate delicious fruits, and sat around the fire, talking or simply enjoying the warmth. Sometimes they played or entertained themselves with other things.
But there was a small problem with all this. This problem had a name. Cassie wouldn't leave Sunny alone. It was different from previous days. Before, it seemed like she was just trying to be around him and take advantage of the right moments to get close to him, but now the situation had changed.
She was trying to get his attention by any means necessary, and this was really annoying and even stressful for Sunny... and cute. But mostly annoying. She tried to have conversations that went nowhere or asked him questions she already knew the answers to.
"How are you?" "What are you doing?" "How was your day?"
It wasn't that the questions bothered him, it was that she asked him the same things over and over again. He was getting tired of it. On top of that, he couldn't get any privacy because wherever he went, she followed him. The island was big, everyone could have their own corner if they wanted to, but he barely had any privacy to go to the bathroom.
"I'm annoyed... but it's not that bad," Sunny thought.
Anyway, he constantly forgot about that annoyance.
They had moments like when he woke up hugging her, his heart always trembling because of Cassie's actions. But that inexplicable barrier was still there, suppressing any train of thought about his inexplicable feelings, making him forget about it after a few moments.
Right now, he was sitting looking at the horizon. Cassie was holding his hand, their fingers intertwined, leaning on his side. Sunny had his head tilted on Cassie's as he admired the view. They spent hours watching the sunset together, which was initially the sunrise. Every so often, Cassie would ask him questions, and he would answer her simple questions with simple answers. It was a loop they had been in for hours, but neither of them noticed.
Sometimes he would look at her and feel an inexplicable need to be closer to her, even on top of her, but not with desire, something different. But those emotions were suppressed once again. At first, he had thought that lazing around doing nothing would bore him very quickly, but surprisingly, that wasn't the case. He felt perfectly fine just lying on the ground and watching the branches of the Soul Tree sway gently, lost in a blissful reverie.
At times like these, he lost track of time and often realized that hours had passed when the sun was about to set. The concept of time in general had become strangely difficult to comprehend. Sunny wasn't entirely sure how many days had passed on the quiet island. He was fairly certain it was less than a week, but he couldn't remember the exact number.
But within this cycle of events, something made him worry. Nephis seemed to have reverted to the distant and unsociable person she had been before. Instead of chatting or relaxing with them, the Changing Star ended up spending most of her time sitting alone on the western end of the island, staring into the distance with sombre eyes. He had no idea what was wrong with her.
He told Cassie he was going to talk to her. She didn't like the idea, grabbing him to stop him from leaving, throwing a tantrum. Still, he almost convinced her, but managed to persuade Cassie to let him go. He would go alone to talk to Nephis this time. He spoke to her to find out what was wrong, but her answers were vague.
She mentioned going to a place that he quickly forgot. If she didn't know, he certainly had no idea either. All he knew was that he wanted to make her feel better. But how?
He frowned, trying to think of a solution. He felt like he was missing something very obvious. Something that would instantly erase Neph's suffering...
When he realized it, he froze.
"Of course! How could I have forgotten...?"
The answer was very clear. He just had to climb the Soul Tree and find a particularly juicy fruit for her to eat...
XXX
It was early in the morning when he descended from the Soul Tree. However, he did not bring any fruit with him. He approached Cassie, who was still asleep, took her by the shoulders, and shook her gently to wake her up. He didn't miss the irony that this situation was a reflection of the one in which Cassie had told him to remember the number five.
The blind girl slowly regained consciousness and turned to him with a sleepy and confused expression.
"Sunny? Why are you up so early?"
He hesitated, then said with a friendly smile, trying hard to act as if everything was fine. "Actually, I didn't sleep at all last night."
Cassie frowned. Luckily, she couldn't see the sorry state he was in, or the dried blood on his face.
He was about to make an excuse, but Cassie pulled him toward her.
"Then sleep with me," she said in a tired voice.
It was extremely difficult for him to break free from her embrace, but he had to stand his ground. When he did, he spoke to her.
"Listen to me, please," he said in a serious tone, getting the confused Cassie's attention.
"I decided to climb the Soul Tree and look for some fruit. But that's not very important. Listen... your Aspect ability allows you to see other people's attributes, right?"
She nodded, still confused.
"Yes. You know that. Why?"
She paused for a moment and then said in a casual tone, "Can you take a look at mine?"
After asking the half-asleep girl the right questions, he got what he was looking for.
"You've been hypnotized by the ancient Soul-Eating Tree demon, and it's turning you into its slave. Once the process is complete, there will be no escape."
As soon as he heard these words, it was as if heavy chains had been removed from his mind. Suddenly, his memories came flooding back, causing him to stagger. He opened his eyes wide.
He stared at her for a moment, his expression grim. Finally, he turned and walked away, thinking, "Over my dead body."