'To be honest I am quite hurt by these turns of events. Not physically of course. This also proves how much Yuna actually means to me and how childish I am when in regards to her. I couldn't even disregard a small lie.'

'Part of me wanted her to be more open with me. I am a bit selfish in that regard as I want to know everything about her and even more than that I want her to be safe and sound.'

'Why can't we go back to days when we were inseparable as siblings? That days when she took to heart every sound advise that I gave her? Have I gone senile and my words don't mean anything anymore? Or perhaps Yuna has people more important than me in her life?'

'I desire time to flow back, even though that would cause me to go through a lot of suffering again to make ends meet. But if that means that I could get my Yuna back, then that would be worth it.'

'But alas, such wishes are just one sided and unrequited. And, Yuna doesn’t wish for the same. I on the other hand could only advise her or scold her when need be. That’s the extent of what I could do.'

'But even so, I got this sinking feeling in my gut that I should probably do something more. And I don’t even mean it in the “figurative” sense. Rather my stomach seemed to be churning uncontrollably and my entire body seemed to have lost strength. Damn, I think its happening again.'

‘This is bad.’

'This has been happening to me a lot recently. I don’t know what this is but I have been getting this nauseousness from time to time. I can’t exactly describe what I am feeling right now. But I felt that my knees would give out.'

“Yuna, I am going to bed. Good night.”

Yuna seemed to have caught onto my staggering…

“Are you alright?” she asked seeming to be worried.

He could only flash a weak smile as I patted her head again.

“Just a little tired… I need to rest up a bit if you would excuse me.”

Saying so, he quickly left her with her lips pursing for unknown reasons, as he crashed onto my bed. A little push from his left foot to make sure that the door is closed shut, to prepare for what was to come. Aiden knew well enough that it won't be the most pleasurable experience.

This hasn’t been the first time that he had denied this weird sense of hunch that he had been experiencing. This churning feeling in his gut always stops whenever he does what it wants him to do. But if for some reason he denies it like in today's situation, then it is followed by a splitting migraine.

Aiden stumbled onto his desk for his medicines. He has had himself diagnosed and had followed his prescribed medication for a month now, but it wasn’t helping him much. But 'hope' like usual will always be a four letter word. It will mess with you until the end. So he couldn’t help but hold onto his medication as he gulped some down with cold water.

This hasn't been the first time Aiden seemed to be suffering from an unrecorded ailment. Aiden had been a frequent patient at the hospital ever since his parents had expired in a car accident. The death of his parents didn’t leave the best trauma behind and he had been experiencing ghost pains ever since.

Every time those pains returned, it was usually accompanied by a burning sensation in his chest. These attacks were quite frequent when he was a child. Because of its imaginary nature pain killers hardly worked so Aiden had to really a lot on sleeping pills to relieve himself of an attack in the middle of the night.

Years of medications had almost cured him of it. At least he thought so before it turned into something worse. At least that's what his doctor claimed.

According to his doctor, he was experiencing migraines as a direct consequence of building a lot of stress. His previous mental ailment perhaps got worsened because of his day to day life.

His doctor was honest by his trade and knew about Aiden’s situation having treated him for years to come. Aiden too trusted him being his patient from a young age for almost a decade.

But Aiden's trust in his doctor was even more so the cause of his worries. That’s because his doctor has also expressed his concern that this recent ailment of his could be related to him being a hunter. It could be because of him diving into dungeons.

Who knows what sort of ailment he had caught onto In one of those desolate places?

He had almost cured himself of his ghost pains that arouse from a trauma. He had made so much progress. It would seem absurd that it would worsen into something like this at this point of his medication. And it was so abrupt too.

That is why although a speculation, the words of his doctor carried weight.

Aiden had asked his doctor to proceed with the assumption that these speculations were true. Part of it was his intuition as someone who was experiencing everything himself. He could conclude that his “ghost pains” which mostly caused a burning sensation on his skin were quite different from this recent problem. Unlike his ghost pains, he felt as if he was being eaten from the inside whenever the symptoms of this new ailment emerges.

But anything related to 'dungeons' would mean skyrocketing the price of medication. His doctor was kind enough to not mention it but Aiden was aware of it. Dungeon's are a new kind of natural disaster that have been appearing albeit for only a decade. Most stuff related to them are still under research and aren't accessible to general public.

Needless to say, Aiden's doctor asked him to continue with his current medication and they would proceed accordingly.

"As if I was not in a mess already."

Aiden closed his eyes as he took deep breaths. He could already feel his head splitting apart as if someone was chopping it from multiple directions.

With his eyes closed, he could see a vision. But that didn’t freak him out. He had already gotten used to these things. It was a different matter that he couldn’t make head or tails of most of what he saw not to mention the splitting headache that he experienced which never allowed him to think with a sane mind.

This time wasn’t much different.

What he saw could be described as the most grotesque version of his sister that he had ever seen. She seemed to have one shorthand resembling that of a child and another long one resembling that of an adult. The other parts of her body seemed to be similarly adorned.

Aiden could at least recognize some of those features. It resembled those that he saw in his nightmare time and time again, so there was no way that he would have mistook those.

They were of Yuna as a child with clothes and skins burned the same way as his dream of that car accident. Those portions seemed to be limping off another version of Yuna he had never seen before. These lumps of flesh seemed to be wearing what resembled a bridal dress… pure white but soiled with crimson blood that gave her that horrifying appearance.

So, while the child Yuna was surrounded by Crimson fires, the other Yuna seemed to be soiled with crimson blood.

Upon, recovering from my original stupor from such a grotesque appearance, there was only one sentence he could utter even whilst suffering from a severe headache.

“What the hell is this?"

¹Back after a histus. Gotta rewrite the previous chapters. 😥