Ciel’s eyes fluttered open again and were met with a surprisingly well lit ceiling.
The light came from everywhere and nowhere.
He stiffened as he realized where he was.
Sure enough, an incessant cacophony of voices began to speak in Ciel’s ears.
Just like the light, they came from everywhere and nowhere, constantly burrowing into his perception, whispering in what seemed to be countless different languages unknown to him.
Ciel tried his best to tune them out as he scanned his surroundings.
It was a room shaped similar to his own, but that was where the similarities ended.
The walls seemed to have trouble choosing their appearance, and they shifted through many different textures in different states of disrepair.
There were no windows or other adornments in sight.
A nightstand was placed near Ciel’s bed, but it also shifted in multiple states of disrepair.
However, on the nightstand was a clock that didn’t shift at all.
The ticking hand was drowned out by the murmurs, but it still moved.
Taking a closer look, Ciel saw it was around 4 AM.
Looking back around the otherwise featureless room, he realized that there was a door directly across from his bed.
Just like the walls, it also seemed to exist simultaneously in different states, with the door sometimes opening or closing more.
Even when it was more open, he couldn’t see what lay beyond the door.
It was covered in a murky grey translucent substance.
Ciel shivered uncontrollably.
The grey substance reminded him of the fog he had seen earlier.
It gave him the same strong sensation that there was something innately wrong.
Pushing these feelings away, Ciel came up with a few different tests he could do to confirm his suspicions.
Observing the floor, he noticed that the area directly around his bed was normal while the rest matched the ever changing characteristic of the walls.
First, he cautiously got out of bed, and took his first step forward, into the unknown.
He suddenly felt a wave of vertigo and almost tripped before quickly realigning himself.
This brought the nausea back, albeit slightly dulled.
Ciel stumbled for a while before finally gaining his bearings and looking around.
To his surprise, he ended up in a completely different part of the room than he had expected.
He now stood near the nightstand.
Is the floor moving me?
Clearly there was a reason for the walls and floor to be displayed like this.
This distortion was physical as well as visual
The only object that wasn’t the same was the clock.
Warily, Ciel leaned forward grabbing hold of the clock.
It was light and made of a smooth material.
As soon as he made contact, the ticking grew louder.
It was now audible over the whispering voices, even muting them to a certain extent.
Ciel smiled.
Finally, relief from these voices.
Looking at the floor again, then turning to the clock in his hand, he attempted to take a step forward again.
To his dismay, the feeling of vertigo remained.
He feared it wouldn’t change anything.
After a few steps, he was able to walk in the intended direction.
The clock did, in fact, stabilize himself, allowing him to directly go where he perceived as forward, disturbing the clearly unnatural distance.
With his head spinning, Ciel continued to walk forward towards the door one step at a time, matching rhythm with the clock’s ticking.
Once he reached the door he stopped to reorient himself before observing the gray material covering the doorway.
He had a strong urge to turn around and return to his bed, but his constant frustration and lack of answers for this enigmatic situation he was put in spurred him forward.
Normally, Ciel would never take such risks, but it’s just a dream after all.
Ciel cautiously reached out, his hand entering the strange grey substance.
It coalesced around his arm before it visibly disturbed the coarse surface.
It was visibly thicker than fog, and felt cool to the touch.
With no obvious warning signs, he pushed onward taking a step into the unknown.
Immediately his vision was filled with grey, as the substance rushed forward, enveloping him completely.
Simultaneously, the whispers turned to loud screams, incessant and maddening.
Ciel squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to even think with all these voices in his head.
He moved forward, searching for respite.
Then, they stopped, as quickly as they had started.
The voices were completely gone, even the whispers had gone quiet.
Ciel opened his eyes.
The grey substance was gone too.
In front of him lay what seemed to be a long white hallway, with no end in sight.
The roof far above was hazy, obscured by something Ciel couldn’t discern.
To each side were many doors, equally dispersed along the walls.
The doors each had different designs, some of wood, metal, or even light.
Ciel could even see that a small portion of them were currently open, with a similar grey substance permeating the open doorways.
Turning around he saw another blank wall, displaying different textures and colors uniquely combined together.
The door he had entered through was nowhere to be found.
Unsure of what to do, Ciel walked up to the nearest door on the right.
It had a design split into quarters and resembling oak wood.
Trying the doorknob, he found that it was locked.
Unperturbed, he moved to similar doors, all of which remained locked.
Finally, he turned to a door that was slightly ajar.
It was a fully pristine white sheet of metal with a round doorknob.
The gray substance once again leaked out of the opening, spilling out onto the ivory hallway.
Ciel slowly pushed the door open further and stepped back, trying and failing to see anything inside.
After a short pause, he steeled his nerves and pushed through again.
Just like before, the voices returned shouting in a disharmonious cacophony, as the substance weighed down heavily on Ciel’s body.
Gritting his teeth he once again emerged in a new room.
Except, it wasn’t new.
Slightly surprised, Ciel noticed that he had once again entered the original bedroom, right next to his bed.
He quickly turned around and noticed a blank wall, shifting through different textures, just like the rest of the walls.
The door no longer existed.
Scanning the rest of the room, Ciel’s gaze instantly fell on the bed, expecting no changes.
The bed wasn’t empty.
Ciel stepped back instinctively, trying his best not to make a sound.
A lone figure lay on the bed, seemingly fast asleep, curled up and facing the side.
Much to Ciel’s annoyance, their features were also constantly shifting, just like the rest of the room.
Sometimes they were an old man with short brown hair, or a young woman with long black hair, and everything in between.
Regardless, Ciel didn’t want anything to do with them, so he slowly began to inch his way towards the following door, maintaining his balance despite the nausea caused by constant spatial distortion.
Unfortunately he only made it about four steps before the figure opened their eyes.
They sat up, noticing Ciel immediately.
Ciel froze, silent and wary.
The figure froze too, staring back at him
Silent, unmoving, as if the room had frozen.
Ciel’s heart raced, almost louder than the voices that had returned in this room.
He refused to move before the figure did.
They were between him and the door, so he couldn’t run away.
The best he could do was to avoid confrontation.
Speak calmly.
Act calmly, he reminded himself
Eventually, the figure broke the silence, with a distinctly female voice with a hint of warmth
“You finally came, Ciel Aster”