Zeki didn't know what it meant to go against Cain, but he found out.

The Horror took a single step but disappeared midway through the motion before its foot even hit the ground.

'What?' Zeki's mind shivered. 

"Behind you, Clown."

The entertainer turned his neck to see Cain coming out from behind him; he was attached to him! 

Cain planted his two hands on either side of Zeki's head.

Before the Dreamer could do anything, Cain lifted his arms, and with it, Zeki's head popped off like a wine cork.

Blood sprayed, painting the floor below them a nice crimson.

Holding the head up, Cain played around with it like it was a toy.

He smiled insidiously, "Now, do you understand?"

Cain manipulated Zeki's head like a sock puppet, "No, I still need punishment."

Zeki then found he could speak freely after Cain's manipulation. He was bewildered.

"How am I still alive?!"

"Because I haven't allowed you to die."

The clown's eyes dimmed, 'What have I done...'

Cain didn't read Zeki's thoughts, but he roughly understood them.

Taking the decapitated head off his hand, he threw it like a baseball. Upon contact with the floor, Zeki regained his body as if he had never been injured.

"You will now go through hell, repent."

Cain once again disappeared. After he did, the lights in the underground space flickered off one by one.

Yet, Zeki still held resistance against the Horror, "I don't care what you are! I will never yield! Return, foul creature; you won't take my city! You can't have my home!"

The Horror didn't respond. In the darkness, Zeki's anxiety only increased, and his mind became agitated.

Spending more and more time in the dark, Zeki heard many different sounds: scampering, clicking, grunting, and footsteps. They all came from everywhere, creeping behind him, coming right to his face.

Yet, they all faded just as his heartbeat peaked.

It was torturous. It became even more so as Zeki felt bugs crawling on his skin, as he felt hands brush against him, as he felt hot breath against his neck.

His senses were in delirium. He couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. Perhaps even reality as he knew it was false. Perhaps since the beginning this was all some sick nightmare. 

Everything became dark, everything became unknown, everything became incomprehensible.

Murmurs, whispers, laughter. It was all echoing and infectious. Zeki found himself copying the voices, copying their hideous and infectious madness.

Then the pain came. He felt his flesh rust; he felt it peel, and the blood that came with it; he felt the grafting and stitching as something as it replaced his own skin and flesh.

"Done!"

The lights came back on. The first thing Zeki did was to look at himself, the bugs were gone but..... seeing himself, he became despondent.

Cain's laughter echoed, "Need a mirror?"

A mirror came before him, and Zeki saw himself fully.

Eyes bulged unnaturally out of his head, one comically bigger than the other. His skin had patches of fur, gray, with boils. His clown mask was ripped apart, his mouth covering that side of his face was using his tongue to hold up one of his many eyeballs.

His legs and arms were completely switched with spider legs and insectoid limbs of different shapes and sizes. He looked like he belonged in a circus.

Seeing himself, seeing what he became, no one could handle seeing themselves like this. They were no longer themselves, yet they could feel this horrifying flesh as their own.

In that moment, Zeki almost broke down.

It was then a pinkish glow came from his chest and covered his entire body like a membrane. In seconds he recovered to his previous state.

"How intolerable. You aren't a very fun clown."

Exasperated, Zeki caught his breath, "I'm not a clown. I am an entertainer. I absolutely hate it when people call me a clown."

"Well, too bad, Clown."

Not staying passive any longer, Zeki imagined a giant mallet and rushed towards Cain. With a swing, he felt resistance and smirked. Yet as his swing came to completion, he found it was only shadows he swung at... shadows with substance, gathering together again.

The shadows leaped at him, binding him and holding him down.

"Now, as it has been fun, I need to kill the Dream Lord and take my prize. You are interesting, but not so interesting that you can take up my precious time."

Cain walked in front of Zeki and stopped. He lifted his hood to show himself.

Zeki found Cain to look exactly like the other Cain he knew very well, almost to the last miniscule detail. Only, on this Cain's forehead was a bulging red third eye.

Peering at that eye, Zeki felt his life flash before his eyes.

He returned to his childhood.....

His father was a court jester, and his mother was one of the maids to the queen. His father was laughed at and prodded by the King and Nobles; eventually, his acts of entertainment led consequently to his death. It was a sad and pitiful death at that.

Zeki felt like that moment lasted forever; his father died in front of him, yet he still held a smile while looking at his son. He was a true jester, a true entertainer.

But Zeki didn't smile, no. He had enough, of the years of watching his father act, of the powerful getting bored and using his father's life to relieve it. 

That night he took a knife and silently slit the throats of everyone in the castle.

From then, he escaped and spent years traveling; those times seemed to fly by, like the wind. It was only when he found himself roasting in a desert that he found himself in the Dream Realm.

The Realm was only in its young stages, and many things were chaotic. The Nightmares still held much of what the city would be today.

Zeki found his imagination to be limitless and joined the Dream Lord; he spent centuries fighting the Abyss. He reached the top and became a Master; he got everything he wished.

But he was lonely. The Dream Lord wasn't his friend but his Master; Zeki didn't have any friends. To everyone he was just a clown, he hated that. So, during this time, he created Gilbert. Zeki had created Gilbert in remembrance of a pet fish he had when he was young, the servants killed it for fun. 

This time though, no one could kill Gilbert. 

Once again, time seemed to go by faster, Zeki held onto Gilbert and soon found joy in humor and his life once again. He became an entertainer in his own way and began to feel peace at last, but it only lasted for so long.....

'My life... hehe, it was worthless. I spent most of it fighting, but now I'm at the mercy of this... thing.'

Zeki continued to stare at the eye; he felt himself slowly floating up. He felt his soul becoming serene.

He felt at peace.

He felt his end. 

"Do you think this is the death you deserve for wasting my time?"

With a wave of his hand, Cain backhanded Zeki and shattered the clown's jaw. Watching the clown fly into a pillar.

"I am unable to control the eye most of the time, but I'll make an exception for you."

Cain lifted Zeki, from his arms, a multiple of others grew out and secured the clown. Forcefully opening his eyelids, Cain forced Zeki to look again into his red mesmerizing eye.

This time, all Zeki saw was despair; he had been shown thousands of lifetimes, and in all of them, he died pitifully like his father. Nothing ever went his way, and he would end up going mad and being killed by some righteous hero.

Over and over he lived, over and over he died. Thousands of lives, thousands of deaths.

Burned at the stake, killed by a child, had his throat slit. Every time he would grasp at some substance of life, then he would lose it all again.

Over and over, his hopes and dreams were shattered to dust.

His body began to convulse as his identity became muddled and broken apart.

Cain knew how to break someone. He himself had been broken once before as well.

Having enough fun, Cain threw Zeki aside like trash and left.

Just like that, Zeki was done and dealt with.

...

Time passed. 

In the darkness, Gilbert came out of his cave, his scales shimmering.

'Gilbert? Ha....ha..... that's...right...this one must be real...there was something good...in...it...at...least.'

Zeki coughed; blood spewed and stained his clothes.

"Gilbert.....Gilbert..."

Hearing his creator's raspy voice, the fish hurriedly nudged his master's brain.

"Haha.....I'm sorry.....I'm so sorry. I-I'm going to die...and you'll die with me. I don't want you... because of me... I want... you to live well... you're... my only... friend."

Coughing up chunks of blood, Zeki directed his eyes downward to see the lower half of his body gone. Cain must've had one of his many hands rip it off before he threw him aside.

Gilbert continued to comfort his Master, it was beginning to turn pinkish.

"I'm... I'm glad you were my friend... the journey... with you... made it... worth it..."

Crimson tears began to fall from his cheeks, and the clown mask on Zeki's face slipped off and showed his true appearance.

His face was a literal mask, a crystal clear one hiding a miniature nebula behind it. Inside the nebula, one could see Zeki's thoughts. Right now, memories of his many performances struck his mind, and moments he had with Gilbert.

"At least... at least I... became a performer... an entertainer... I succeeded in that, right? Did I entertain you Gilbert? Did...cough...did I make you laugh?"

The fish was already weak; its fins turned to a pinkish liquid as it floated to the surface.

Zeki's fish tank cracked, and water began to leak slowly.

"We... at least... did something... we held... it back... for a time. That's enough... right? I'm...a hero......right? Gilbert? Gilbert?"

Zeki adjusted his eye inside the tank. Gilbert was floating upward, upside down. The rest of his body quickly turned pink.

"This is it huh...even you died first... maybe... I can meet you if there is an afterlife. You can be there right...Gilbert...."

Zeki's thoughts became sluggish; he felt the darkness around him growing.

'Mother...father... will I meet you too... I miss Father's jokes... Mother, I miss your hugs...ah, it's so bright...'

A pinkish gem came out of Zeki; it floated upward but soon disappeared.

It left him behind too.

'Ah...the light is gone. Where did the light go? Don't go... don't go....'

Zeki's eyes turned glossy, and his thoughts stopped. The entertainer who lived for a millennium died. He died defending his city; he died defending his morals, and he died defending himself.

In the end, all he felt was misery and regret. Yet in that misery and regret was peace... there was an end he had been waiting for; an end he had been waiting for....for a long time.

He could now rest; he could now sleep.

The best Entertainer in the whole Dream Realm.

Perhaps.....even the best Entertainer in the Universe.

Zeki, The Entertainer.

Fin.