Page 249 of Light Leech

Kuni.

I glanced back. Naoma stood before him, a white aura pulsing around her.

“You seek to know what you cannot comprehend with such feeble minds,” Sanna said atop her mount.

The thing that had been Veren crept forward. Her arms and legs had split lengthwise, expanding with the swell of blue light. Seeing her–it–now, I took in what looked like a human stretched into the shape of a spindly arachnoid. Her head had expanded and split, leaving her violet lights where her eyes had been and a deep indigo abyss glowing in her tunnel of a mouth. Shredded clothing had fallen around her.

A familiar dark aura pulsed around both of them, but more vividly around Sanna.

Zhu, is this anything like the therapist?

“I feel its false light.”

Is that a yes? I’m not going to have another vision of a family I never had, right?

I jumped out of the way as one of Veren’s legs stabbed the ground where I had stood. A black hole remained where she had missed me.

Boyband had done the same. Kuni cried out as Naoma jumped with him to the side with a graceless landing, pulling Kuni to the ground with her.

I readied my agility mod and burned by Bite reserve. I jumped up, expecting to land on top of the mount with Sanna. My jump was no higher than that of a typical man’s, yet my reserve still burned.

Zeg. I had forgotten about our mod blocks.

Rather than try to smash me with a leg again, Veren peddled back and opened her abyss of a mouth.

Colors pulsed. Light within the end of that tunneling mouth grew brighter.

She seemed taller. Looked kinder.

Zeg, what is happening?

“Focus, bakuh.”

Do you understand?

“Your mind is frail, just as it was when facing the therapist.”

He was right. The sensation was oddly similar, but I did not feel the dread of an incoming dream. I was not entering a new world, but one was entering mine.

Naoma was a frightened young girl, not the Neon Idol, but a young girl dressed in a knockoff costume.

Boyband looked the same, but as old as Kuni, the only one who retained stern determination as we all looked up at the giant robotic spider centaur and her joyous face. A royal warrior rode on her back with a jeweled crown and a staff she pointed to call a charge.

The glorious creature galloped towards Boyband, who ran laughing with hands in the air. He looked back, pointed a taunting finger, but was tossed across the room before he could say anything.

His body hit the wall and confetti shot out of his mouth upon impact. Rainbow drool dripped out of his wide smile.

Naoma and I looked at each other, laughed, then saw Boyband was laughing harder than the both of us.

“Focus!” Kuni shouted.

What was his problem? Didn’t he want to play?

“Frail mind.” The image of a stupid pig was stuck in my head

“Shut up!” I yelled. The stupid bossy pig was bothering me.

“Ascend and you shall overcome such cognitive assaults.”