---

Anthony rushed forward to check on the girl and elderly man, gravelly sand kicking around him in his haste, yet Jaenona’s voice calmed him as he neared.

“Sleep is all that ails them.”

They were breathing; he sighed in relief, casting his eyes around for answers.  There were no footprints in the sand; it was as if the pair had simply fallen out of the sky to collapse where they laid.

What did meet his gaze was the deep mist, hiding a primal fear, writhing just beyond sight, and when he looked at the ocean again, he noticed a deep crimson tint just below the deceptively clear surface, an unheard pulse within.

“What is this place?”

A melancholy expression took Jaenona as she moved to meet him, stone fragments continuing to fracture away from her tanned skin, and her fingers dug into the gravel-like sand to let the grains rise into the air rather than fall when let go.

Anthony’s eyebrows furrowed, watching them vanish above.  “How…”

“We are at the Wall of Sleep… one of many edges of the Outlands.  Resist, Anthony!”

Her galaxy-like shimmering eyes darted to the sea, and a familiar voice touched his soul as he followed it to see the ruby tint floating to the surface, dyeing the mist around them red.

“Anthony?”

Saliva drying in his throat and lips parting in disbelief, a woman stumbled out of the thick fog, water dripping down her slick skin.  “Amelia?”

Everything vanished from his mind upon seeing his fiancé—the thought that he’d buried her not too long ago evaporated as if plucked from his brain; the sound of her voice, her expression, there wasn’t a flaw—and in this unusual dream, it was one of the few things he could latch onto.

Her light brown eyes darted around in confusion, arms wrapped around her shivering shoulders.  “Anthony, where am I?  I…  I can’t remember…”

Seeing the pain in her face and voice, he stumbled forward; it was so difficult to walk on this beach for some reason.  “I thought you…  No, I’ve had trouble remembering, too—wait…”

He slowed as she waited in the ankle-deep rising and falling tide, giving him a pleading look; yet, an itch in the back of his mind brought his thoughts back to the unusual situation, and again, a smiling girl with bunny ears popped into his mind—no, not a bunny—a hare, which was an interesting distinction that his brain fixated on.

“Jaenona, what…  Jaenona?”

Anthony’s vision drifted to the three he’d left—no one was around—the crimson mist closing in as he scanned the obscure beach; none of this was right, and a shiver ran down his spine as Amelia called to him again.

“Anthony—w-why can’t I move?  Help me…”

The draw of her voice was a weight against his chest, never had he hesitated to respond to his love’s cries; when she was in pain from cancer, he’d hold her hand for hours and read her novels to try and pull her mind away from the agony, yet, seeing the woman that had filled his dreams for years again, he knew something wasn’t right.

“Your cancer…  Rachel…”  he muttered, suddenly realizing who the girl and elderly man were as if a bubble popped in his mind; Nora White and Philip Park—Rachel’s grandfather’s American name.

The conversation he’d heard earlier involving the rabbit girl and demonic woman caused a flood of memories, inquiring eyes receiving answers as they fell to the candy cane he now held in his hand.  “This isn’t…  No, Amelia is…”

Soft, wet fingers touched his, drawing Anthony’s focus to Amelia’s trembling lips and irises.  “Please… don’t forget me!”

“Amelia—no, I…  Why…”

Memories starting to fade again with the gentle, warm touch of her skin against his, he noticed the candy cane turning black and instinctively stepped away, only for her to reach out and grab his wrist.

“No, Amelia—this isn’t…”

The shimmering ruby mist surrounding him in a frenzy, a quiver struck his heart as his fiancé leaned in to kiss him.  “Don’t you love me?”

“Resist, Anthony!”

A fraction of a second before their lips met, Jaenona’s hand pressed against Amelia’s chest to throw her into the crimson fog; she dispersed into it, and then he caught a glimpse of the cuts across the otherworldly entity’s smooth skin, now leaking silver liquid.

Cheeks flushed, her hidden chest heaving, Jaenona forced a pained smile.  “You mustn’t… listen to the madness of the Crimson Tide—it is all-consuming, and I cannot save you from its pull if you enter its riptide.”

 

* * *

 

Coughing with tears in his eyes, Anthony clutched at his pounding chest, the sensation of Jaenona’s soft yet strong hands leaving his body, and it was then he saw himself only a meter from the rushing tide.

Knees hitting the gravel, he tried to control the rasp in his voice; the red sea was in a rage, crashing liquid gradually settling back into the ocean to provide distance between them.  “What—was that?  It…  I felt like it was Amelia, but… but it wasn’t the Amelia I knew…”

Jaenona knelt down beside him, taking his hand to pull Anthony’s attention to the partially blackened candy cane he still held.  “Listen carefully…  Do you hear them calling out?  Do you feel its pull—the whispers of the Sinking Deep just beyond the veil?”

Breathing deeply, his fingers trembled at a wicked string of fate wove through him—the tolls of madness ringing just beyond sight—lulling him away from a nightmare; a different yet similar writhing evil he could not know, lest he be buried within, and he was called back through the captivating dream he’d walked.

Blurry vision opening to the partially destroyed candy cane—the blackness broken away—he shifted to see Jaenona completely free from her stone-like bindings, yet in their place were clear signs of a struggle.

“You’re hurt?”

A pretty smile lifting her rosy cheeks, Jaenona chuckled.  “You needn’t worry about my safety.  It is my burden to be the vessel by which you achieve our greatest goal, and not even those born of the darkness, nor granted sight from the Great Beyond, can survive the festering tide of the Scarlet Thorn.”

“I still don’t understand why I’m—no…  Rachel…  The Oscillation.”

First tightening until the candy cane broke in his hand, Anthony’s mind flooded with memories, hardening his brow.

Instantly letting go of the entity’s fingers to stumble back and glare at it, he swiftly ensured Nora and Philip were alright; they appeared to be in the same condition.  “What’s your game—you show me Amelia, now you give me back my memories—leading us here…  What’s the goal?”

Joyful expression becoming somber at his sudden change, Jaenona rose to her feet; the gravel sticking to her shins and feet floated into the sky while the darkness covering her chest and waist shifted around the sandy clumps.  “Anthony…  I am not your enemy.”

Her fingers lifted to trace the silver liquid freely flowing from the wound in her shoulder, the blood being drawn toward the ocean.  “I did not show you anything of the sort; that was the Crimson Tide, attempting to lure you like a fish to a light in the darkness… I led it away,” she whispered, directing him to the damage she’d sustained.  “It was unsafe for you to enter at this time.”

“Hmm…”  He couldn’t deny her honesty, which frustrated him.  “What about the other stuff?”

“I am only attached to you, Anthony, as my host, which I require…  The others, I do not know how they came to be here, nor their purpose.”

“Your objective?”  he hissed, spear forming in his hands as he took a defensive position between them.  “Quit being so cryptic, and answer my questions!”

Breathing out a long stream of air, she held her hands in front of her and stepped back a few paces, keeping just in sight without vanishing in the fog; there was misery in her he knew he couldn’t fathom, but he wouldn’t let himself be distracted.

“I care for you, Anthony…  My only dream is to hear the song of my youth… to shoulder the burden of moving through the Red Sea.  I want to return home… to feel the concord of chaos uplift me one last time.”

“If you care about me, why kidnap and lie to me?”

“Haaa…  Unfortunately, being injured while in this state… I risk attracting the Reapers.”

“Reapers…  Who are you talking—don’t leave me without—grrargmm…”

“You have a choice to make, Anthony…  Be well.”

She directed him to Nora and Philip, the elder beginning to stir, before the black smoke surrounding Jaenona thickened, and she was gone.  Of course, she wasn’t truly gone but somewhere inside him.  This wouldn’t be the last time he’d see the entity.

 

* * *

 

A hard lump dropped down Anthony’s throat while scanning the imperceptible veil that only gave a confined view of the beach he’d played on as a kid; once again, he could feel himself drifting in a pool of liquid, flowing around his skin to gently push him along an unseen current.

Jaenona had vanished, and all he felt was the frustrating confusion she’d left him with; he couldn’t sense any malice or deception from her, yet he’d been deceived into following her all the way here.

Pondering his path, questions regarding Rachel with the bunny girl and demonic woman came up.  If that had been true, the first was probably Nia, but the other he didn’t have a clue, making him consider she would have met Rachel on her Cuba trip.

He wanted to deny everything he’d been through as some kind of illusion or manipulation—he couldn’t, though—it was burned into his mind and chest, and to deny it would be like saying the sun didn’t exist.

“Dammit…”

Keeping his spear in his hand, Anthony jogged to Philip as the man stirred in the sand, sending more of the grains into the fathomless milky heavens.  Still, from what he knew of this place, so long as the fog didn’t turn crimson, they were safe, and there was a real threat lurking nearby he didn’t understand, but he couldn’t deny it was unrelated to the paranoia he felt.

He was in some kind of combative realm of madness, and his fevered, fragile psyche disturbingly connected the dots as fast as it could; a shapeless horror slumbered in the mist, and to be in it was to draw it near.

With the visuals Jaenona gave him, they were at the edges of some kind of crimson sea, and a monster shifted in the void was attempting to stop him from leaving; he was already in the jaws of a nightmarish creature, and the thought of it using Amelia to compel him burned Anthony’s blood.

“Are you okay?”

Philip groaned, thin body quivering as his mind roused.  “Ack…  Eh…  Anthony?”

“I’m here.  Are you in pain—Mr. Park?”

He shoved him away, stumbling back with wild eyes.  “No!  No—you don’t get it!”

Giving him a bit of space, Anthony’s focus followed his unsettled irises to the cheetah girl.  “Nora…  She’s…  We are not safe!  No one is safe, Anthony!”

“Okay…”  Holding up his hands, his gut tightened as the elder neared the mist and instantly recoiled as if burned.   “You’re going to have to—stop!”

Not needing to tell the man, Philip circled around to curl into a ball, tears running down his inflamed face and holding his hands over his ears.  “I hear it…  It’s just out of reach…  Claws sinking into my ears—I can’t follow—I can’t!”

“Philip!”  Anthony prompted, moving over to try and jolt him out of his shock.  “You need to calm down if you’re going to explain anything to me!”

At his touch, the elder seemed to settle down.

“There… are you—”

“No!  Don’t let go!”  Philip pleaded, latching onto his hand.  “You—I can’t hear it when you—I see…  It makes sense…”

Waiting for him to regain his faculties, Anthony couldn’t believe the disciplined and tranquil man he’d been studying meditation under had become so skittish and terrified.  “Take your time…”

“I just…  We don’t have a lot of time—you don’t know—you can’t hear…  The concord of dualistic madness permeates Existence—the nightmare is already here—every life… every stone…  Everything is in the tide…”

“Focus, Philip…  Help me understand so I can fight our way out.  Do you know how we get back?”

“Right… right…  I apologize,” he muttered, palm pressing against his sweat-slicked forehead.  “It’s just…  No!  No!  You can’t go back!  Anthony, you don’t get it!  Two forces are attempting to consume us…  No-hehe—no, it’s impossible…  Medium…  We need a medium…”

“Mr. Park, you’re not helping me grasp what—mmgh—remember, breathe…  Just breathe,” he urged as the elder gave him a quizzical look.

“You don’t understand after—after coming this far…  No, something is protecting you from the madness…  I feel it flowing into me…  It’s taking everything I have to just… to not give in to the tide…  They’re all-consuming… calling to me.”

Recalling his spear, Anthony cupped his aged cheek to try and bring his quaking eyes to meet his glowing green irises.  “Focus on me, Mr. Park—I saw my dead fiancé—but I know she wasn’t real.  This isn’t…”

“Gah!”  Philip cried, liquid once again leaking down his wrinkled, flushed cheeks, and a shock ran through Anthony’s bones like electricity as he reached up to grasp his own face.  “No!  No!  No!  You really don’t understand!  They are real, Anthony…  They all are…  It’s them, but… but they’re caged—forced into the red sea!  That!”

He directed his head to the obscure cliffs behind them and not the sea.  “That… that surrounds us all!  This mist we see—the Abyss sends it—the dream to guide us…  We’re in the Outlands!”

Anthony did his best to remain calm, using the basic breathing technique the Neidan Master in front of him had taught.  “Outlands… Jaenona said that, too.  What are the Outlands, Mr. Park?  How do we leave them?”

“Hah—hahaha!  Leave?”  Philip cackled.  “Anthony… we’re in the Outlands of the Red Sea…  We’ve always been in it!  We can’t escape—Rachel, Molly, my sons…  We’re all trapped in the maw—the epicenter—and now we’re at the edge—we’re at the edge, Anthony!”

“I just…  I don’t know what you’re saying?  What are we supposed to do if…  Are you saying Rachel is in danger?”

“Hehe…”  Philip shook his head, making Anthony more concerned by the second as he pulled back a tad to claw at his head, ripping his skin before drawing blood from his lower lip.  “Mmgm…  I need to return—I can’t last long here—not after he left.  Even with all I’ve done to get here—carrying Nora, and—and all I’ve suffered…”

“How do I help, Mr. Park?  Tell me what I need to—”

“Anthony, you must go the rest of the way!”

“To where?!  What am I supposed to do?”  Anthony yelled.  “None of this makes sense!”

“Remember what The Herald instructed!”  Anthony stiffened at the name that left his throat; The Herald’s chilling words, spoken by Nora returned.

“You wish to save this vessel, yet she teems with the resonance of the Mecroaf—humming seeps into your hollow mind, drawing you to the harrowing abyss to await her…

“Nora is the specter’s scar, so pure—a holy horror—a glimpse of obscurity…  Are you strong enough to transcend the summoned guise?  Alas, what is courage to The Sinking Deep?”

“Uncover the keys to the unknown and unlock the veil…  Learn from the lost what awaits you in the dark, and entreat the forbidden Realm of Dreams…  Pay the cost of a soul’s entry beyond the Wall of Sleep…”

“What…  What do I need to do to transcend?  I unlocked the veil to find Jaenona…  I followed the lost to get here, entreating the Realm of Dreams to reach these Outlands.  Why is Nora so important to these creatures—why do I need to go beyond this Wall of Sleep?”

Philip pointed at the red waves, drawing away while shaking his head with sobbing laughter.  “You must go beyond—I can’t…  I can’t survive any longer…  You are the only chance, Anthony—you must transcend The Wall of Sleep with Nora…  Enter the Sinking Deep—escape the Red Sea…  Find the answers!”

“Philip, I don’t—Philip!”

Fear gripping his gut, he lurched forward to grab the elder’s wrist as he scurried into the fog, laughing and crying for the veil to take him back to sanity; Anthony was too slow to catch his fanatical flight, fingers only meeting the mist, and Rachel’s grandfather’s voice faded away, leaving him stunned with the deafening sounds of the surf.

 

* * *

 

In the wake of Philip’s flight, Anthony pulled back to the center of the sweeping vapor, where Nora laid; its white, abyssal sheen gradually tinted a salmon shade, bringing a sharp sense of danger to his chest as he beat down to check the girl’s vitals.

Blood pumped through her veins, skin cold and clammy due to her Slime-like physiology; the most irritating and gut-wrenching part about this entire situation was the total ambiguity of what he’d been forced into.

“Dammit, Jaenona…  I know you’re there.”

Her charming, mournful voice caressed his mind.  “I cannot continue to hold back the Red Sea from around you, Anthony…  I have drawn the notice of The Madness due to my injuries.  We do not have long.”

“I get that, dammit!  I just want a few answers before I go through with this—and I get I don’t have much of a choice—are you forcing me to hurt Nora by taking her out of this… Red Sea—fog—or whatever this stuff is?  What will these Mecroaf do to her?”

The coloring fog closed around them as he picked the cheetah girl, her blonde and black spotted hair sliding against the sand to send a flurry into the veiled heavens; she was shockingly light, even compared to Rachel, in the brief time he had held the Lunar Hare on the night of their first kiss, and the memory gave him strength.

“The Mist is the call of the Sinking Deep that obscures your existence from the Red Sea and Specter’s Scar… that which all passes through, yet the path we are on is closing.  As to this entity, you call Nora…  She has the capability to change… to go beyond that which is known to the foolish and enlightened…  To bypass the fleeting glimpse of Death.  My understanding ends there…”

Of course it does, Anthony internally grumbled, goosebumps breaking out across his skin with the deepening crimson fog and rising tide.

“Will you promise me one thing if I do this, Jaenona?”

Her voice became almost fragile, a tremor running through her being that transferred to him as he took one step into the liquid, and he understood her at that moment.  “I will pledge myself to any cause that sees my purpose through.”

Wading into the crimson ocean, he did the best to keep Nora’s head above water while moving further and further away from the hidden horrors at his back, twitching in the fog, things unseen attempting to find him in their blindness.

“Always be on my side—no matter what the Mecroaf says or what happens after this…  You will always do what is best for Nora and me.”

Anthony could practically hear her thinking before she quietly responded, “…With the Mecroaf as my witness, I give you my oath, I bind myself to you, in the pursuit of your interests, Anthony…”

Drawing in air as the tide pulled him in, he wrapped his arms around Nora’s chest and held her in a tight embrace, allowing the current to sweep him under.  His psyche faded, a rushing inner peace filling every corner of his being as they were carried through the Wall of Sleep.

 

* * *

 

Visions flitted through Anthony’s wandering thoughts, the sway and madness below bringing him closer to the home Jaenona dreamed to return to—Magthera awaited them—the place of twisting nightmares and divine aberrations.

Time was nonexistent—meaningless—a concept bending from front to start in One Eternal Round, not having beginning nor end, that which cycled as a crooked helix of untold madness, foretelling the secrets of the great abyss it encompassed.

A sinking, boundless specter of death that enshrined the decaying and transforming phantom at its core; an esoteric aberration that intrigued and horrified.  Lunacy brought shapeless form to speak only truth to those with ears to hear and show visions to those with eyes to see—the Sinking Deep sang their neurotic choir—the Necrosis Below, beckoning all to the amoebic omen of the manic visage that was the Mecroaf.

From days of old—a time unsung in the Red Sea—Jaenona joined those voices, molding, decaying, morphing to reach and touch all that was—to unify, or corrode—to transform, and to the crazed blight that infected the purity of their cause.

In Anthony's subjective sense of beauty and disgust, various versions of the eldritch figure took terrifying and lulling forms.

Flashes of monstrosities Jaenona had faced in her isolated existence bloomed in the maelstrom of the corrupting liquid, scarring her—forcing her to expand in an ever-growing abnormal manner to survive—and for an atypical entity such as her to be pushed to such limits spoke of the pervasive force that had been unleashed.

The soft crash of waves gradually gained volume, bleeding into Anthony’s fractured mind until the liquid sliding against his skin caused him to shiver—abruptly turning to his side, water jetted out of his mouth as he hacked and sputtered.

His vision going wild, light assaulted him with a rising and falling surf that met his gaze; ice flooded Anthony’s veins as he saw nothing but water above him, gradually floating away—an ocean filled the heavens—and no matter where he looked, nothing but a crimson sea raged.

Storms could be seen, roaring in various directions, and below him, a hurricane of clouds, pulling him in, casting a red sheen on everything as tornados and thick, aquamarine bolts split the atmosphere, causing eruptions of mist from the tidal waves—the world was upside down. 

Glancing around in a panic, all that met his ears were the cataclysmic forces, crashing against his psyche, and not too far away—barely visible through the hail of blood—Nora floated, now in her Slime state.

Anthony’s mind, heart, and time itself—all that he knew—halted, two colossal, eldritch entities emerged from the storming clouds, taking over the parting heavens.

Tens of thousands of stone-like limbs pulsated, each formed from sapphire and gold liquid, in rigid, time-lapsing manners as a vast slitted eye opened to bath him in shimmering light; its presence was titanic, and cyclones spun out of the ocean for it to effortlessly disperse them with its monstrous appendages.

His brain was paralyzed, body frozen, and claws dug into every atom of his being; the other impending threat exited soon after on the other half of the tempestuous sky, an entity of crustacean-like tentacles, white lightning dancing around its writhing mass and countless eyes beaming lilac lights across the ruby clouds, it emerged to make its existence known.

In the next instant, solid black tar—Jaenona—flared out of the Red Sea; an effulgence of crimson hooks ripping away from the liquid, spraying silver liquid into the ocean as she encircled Nora and him.

Anthony blinked for his surroundings to morph; they’d been transported away.  The titanic pressures faded, and darkness filled his vision of the new, obscured sky, pillars of jagged wood jutted out of the dark clouds to the unusual earthy gray ground below.

 

* * *

 

Floating in the heavens, Anthony’s focus drifted between odd entities that flowed through the air, blinking in and out of existence, changing shape and color with every spark, and the roots around the ground generated a bio-illumination that flashed and dimmed.

In the next instant, he was sitting in gray dirt without warning, fingers digging into the gray soil; struggling to rise, he saw Nora nearby, still seemingly unconscious in her Slime body.

Coughing and breathing in for the first time, he wondered if he even really needed to—he hadn’t tried since entering the waters—putting it in the back of his scattered brain, he stumbled over to her and picked the small blob up, finding it a little challenging to keep her in his arms.

Anthony swallowed and removed his shirt to wrap her in it.  Okay, I’m here, Jaenona…  Jaenona…  What should I do next?

Rubbing his forehead as it began to rain emeralds from the sky, somehow turning into liquid on contact with his skin, he scanned the landscape of thick glowing roots until he saw the woman.

“Jaenona?!”  Trying to keep balanced while carrying Nora, he ran to the eldritch creature in human guise, kneeling beside her to examine her mangled body.  “What…  How can you—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!  How can I make sense of this place—how do I help you?”

A soft chuckle came from the woman, darkness no longer covering her figure, yet when there was a hole through her breast, ruptures across her partially intact stomach, and missing lower half, he wasn’t concerned.

One eye remaining, a fraction of Jaenona’s face ripped away to show a network of weak, incandescent multicolored fibers, Anthony couldn’t help tears coming to his eyes.

He’d felt a sliver of her anguish and solitude that extended beyond the measurement of time in the struggling pull of an endless wasteland; the desire to finally make it home, only for her to die once arrived, and The Herald’s words reminded him there was a sacrifice required.

“Hmm-hmm…  I hear it,” she cried, her eye leaking silver liquid, a pained smile on her damaged lips, cracks cascading down her body as if porcelain.  “I made it to Magthera to die…  Thank you, Anthony…”

“No…  How am I supposed to navigate this place—I don’t know what…  Didn’t you bind yourself to my interests?!  How is this in my interest?  You’re the only thing that’s given me answers in this damn nightmare!”

“I am sure the Herald will send another…  I have fulfilled my duty…”

“Screw that!”  Anthony yelled, desperate to have something familiar if he had to go through with this.  “Tell me how I can save you—you’re a damn eldritch entity!  Like hell you’re going to die—what even did this to you?”

“Mmh…  You are kind, Anthony,” Jaenona mumbled, unable to do much beyond that, and he noticed a crimson light running up her veins.  “It is too late—I have been tainted by The Madness and… will be purged soon.”

“Tell me how!”

“Hmm-hmm…  What an obstinate creature you are.  Yet, as you order…  The only possible chance I have left of rebuilding myself is for you to take my eye and… and if you are not pursued by the cleaners—I may have a chance, but you should not concern yourself with something such as I.”

Anthony’s gut tightened as the ground trembled, and her last galaxy-like eye shimmered before rising into the air for him to take, the corruption swiftly overtaking her.  He carefully took the organ—it felt more like stone than flesh—before backing away in fear of the toxin destroying her; Anthony could do nothing but listen to Jaenona’s last words.

“Oh, how I’ve longed to feel the heat of Magthera against my spirit…  The Crimson Tide may have corrupted me, but not before I managed to hear the Song of the Abyss.  If I return… I will not be the same, Anthony… and I will need a host.  Farewell.”

He retreated with Nora, swiftly climbing up one of the trunks as the soil rose up to create an oscillating, golden cocoon to surround the tortured eldritch entity, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

I leave some insane corrupting ocean to have my guide sacrifice herself for me to escape…  And now, I’m back to square one.  Shit.

---