Chapter 46

Lily sighed as she woke up, her mind feeling hazy and body light, however it was the best she’d felt in years.

Even in a Fulldive game she’d been unable to fully escape the lingering sensation of pain, it always haunted her in some regard, though she’d always power through.

Now though? She didn’t feel anything, no haunting symptoms from the real world, no stinging sensation running through her lungs or numbness in her limbs.

All she felt was the sun washing against her skin as it pooled in from the window.

Slowly she sat up, confused as she looked at her hand, then the rest of the room to confirm this wasn’t a dream.

Then she noticed it, the stranger was missing, nowhere to be seen after supposedly being stuck together.

Had he lied about that for one creepy reason or another?

“You know I can hear your thoughts, right?” the stranger speaks up from a place that she couldn’t hear, it was as if he was whispering in both her ears at the same time.

“You can what?!” Lily practically shouts, springing out of her bed in surprise, expecting the stranger to have been there… but there was no one there.

“I can hear your thoughts because we’re connected.” he speaks again, now irritating her slightly with his matter of fact tone.

“What does that even mean?! You didn’t finish explaining that last night!” she huffs as she stands up and takes a seat on the bed once more.

“It means that thanks to this place I’m stuck in a non corporeal form, and you’re the person I’m stuck to.” with a snap he appears in front of her in a wave of light blue particles. “I can appear before you like this and interact with the world around me, but you’re the only one who can see me, hear me and physically interact with me.”

“...You’re joking, right?” Lily asks, now even more worried.

“I’m afraid not, you noticed how no one even acknowledged me yesterday, right?” He asks, now sitting on the ground.

Lily hadn’t actually noticed that, she was too caught up in all the things going on around here, but he wasn’t wrong.

Not a single person acted as if he was there, not even Night questioned why there was a strange man in her room last night.

“That’s true…” she replies a bit meekly, now starting to see he wasn’t lying. “Well, do you know how to fix this?”

“Unfortunately not, I’ve only ever been in your position before, never once have I been the one to be a spirit tied to someone else.” He sighs a little. “Thankfully though I can warn you about what can and likely will happen during our time together.”

“Well, that’s good at least, so what can I expect?” She hesitantly responds, a bit worried about the side effects.

“For starters you’ll begin gaining advantages from my soul, body and magic.” He takes a deep breath and points at her head. “I can already see it taking effect, your magic is passing through at a much faster rate letting your body heal old wounds that have lingered with you for a while now.” He then lowers his hand, pointing at her heart. “It has also allowed our link to bolster further, the longer it persists the more magic, memories and abilities of mine you will begin to gain.”

“Wait wait wait, your memories?!” Lily panics a bit, trying to process the ramifications of that. “But would that overwrite my own experiences? Would it change my personality?! Would I even still be me?!”

“Easy there, just calm down… you won’t lose yourself, not so long as you navigate this slowly and carefully.” He stops, thinking for a moment. “It’ll be like a melding of colors if anything, like slowly adding tinges of red to blue. So long as we keep the stream slow and steady you have no chance of being overwhelmed.”

“You seem surprisingly calm about this… wait, you aren’t surprised by what I asked?!” Lily asks, now even more concerned.

The Stranger sighs once more, now slightly pinching the bridge of his nose. “No, no I’m not, because from what I can tell you’re from a slightly futuristic world, if anything you’ve probably seen a program to store someone’s psyche in data form on a chip or something like it, along with that you’ve read the consequences on it…”

Lily sits there stunned, racking her brain for answers on how this man knew exactly what it was.

His azure blue eyes ringed with that unearthly yellow held so much more than she could ever know, there were thousands of mysteries and an unknowable darkness lingering just beyond that glowing surface.

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It’s just now that she’s also able to see the dark bags under his eyes, which before had been obscured by his glasses prior.

Everything about this man was strange, comforting, dangerous and felt misleading at the same time.

Even his rather neutral smile felt like a lie.

“Well, you can sit there trying to read me all you want, or you can go meet up with Vonder.” the stranger says while standing up now. “After all, you don’t want to be stuck wandering on your own do you?”

“Wait, at least tell me your name first! I’d like to know who exactly I’m stuck with.” Lily sternly asks while walking in front of him.

The stranger pauses, clearly a bit surprised.

He hadn’t thought about this, normally he doesn’t even have to, though this time was different.

All the little chances of fate had thrown him off course, changing the way he’d normally act.

“Six, you can call me Six.” he replied calmly, recomposing himself at that moment.

“Seriously, just Six? Does it have some special meaning to you?” Lily asks, her annoyance fading a bit now as she casually turns to the door, ready to meet Vonder now.

“I suppose you could say that, Six has always been a bit of a lucky charm for me.” Six kindly replies. “Though you’ll find out more about that soon enough, for now just go enjoy yourself while you can.”

“Yeah, kinda hard to do that when I’ve got a ghost tailing me everywhere.” She jokingly comments, though her words held a tinge of truth.

“Don’t worry, unless you need me it’ll be like I was never here.” His voice is its usual tone, but didn’t seem… natural?

“And what do you mean by that-” Lily asks, turning around only to find her room empty once more.

Any and all traces of Six had vanished just as quickly as they came, like the last glimpse of a dream before waking up.

Now a tiny bit worried she calls out for him. “Six?” her voice trails through the room, but no response.

He wasn’t lying, aside from the thing she’d personally witnessed, it was like he was never here to begin with.

It was almost a little worrying how easily he vanished, as if he’d done it a thousand times before.

She was already having second regrets about saying it to him, but now wasn’t the time for that, she still had to meet up with Vonder and sort things out.

First it’d be learning the area so she could maneuver around with ease.

Then it’d be figuring out what happened here to cut it off from the rest of the world.

Lastly, take down that Lord and move to reunite with her friends.

It wasn’t really much of a plan, but it was the only thing she had at the moment truthfully, she didn’t know how long she’d been away since she went into that coffin.

If False Zones are really that strange then there was no telling how long she’d been gone.

It could’ve been weeks, months or maybe as little as an hour, there was no way to tell.

There was only one thing she had left to try, and that was to send a message and hope this barrier and time manipulation didn’t mess with it too much.

So, with a bit of a shaky hand, she produced the journal and looked over her friends list, sending everyone a message stating she was alive and where she was stuck.

Thankfully it seemed to send, now she could only wait, the anticipation slowly eating away at her.

Maybe Six was right though, maybe she just needed to enjoy herself today, surely that’d help ease her weary mind… right?

As she entered back into the main area she saw Vonder already sitting at the counter chatting up a storm with Night and Aida, bright smiles painted across all their faces.

They truly didn’t seem to have a care in the world right then, it almost made Lily jealous to see.

Though that didn’t last for long as Aida quickly spotted her and waved her over, the other two greeting her with equally big smiles.

Surprised by the genuinely warm greeting she takes her seat, though struggles to find any words to say.

“So, sleep well?” Vonder asks, downing a cup of juice afterwards, almost startling her with how quickly he finished it.

“Well… as well as one could sleep after all that I guess.” Lily barely replies, still struggling to even comprehend everything that's happened to her recently.

Before she can even ask for anything, Night already has a plate sat in front of her consisting of a rather simple breakfast of toast, bacon and eggs.

“Well hey, some rest is better than none.” He optimistically says while sliding his glass back to Night. “Hope you’re ready by the way, got a lot of great stops planned for us along with one big surprise.”

“What’s that?” Lily asks, now more curious than ever.

“Hey it wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, now would it?” He states with a bit of a sly grin.

“That’s true I guess…” She replies a bit slowly, not fully trusting Vonder but not wanting to assume the worst either.

She sits and thinks for a moment before suddenly wolfing down her meal, letting out a satisfied sigh afterwards and standing up with her usual smile back on her face. “Alright! Let’s get this show on the road!”

Vonder and Night could only laugh at her sudden change in disposition while Aida was just shocked how she ate so quickly.

“Alright then.” Vonder crosses his arms. “I hope you’re ready, because your journey through Resovult begins now!”