Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 261. Corruption

I am in front of my crystalline counterpart, and instead of attacking, I stay still.

It doesn’t move as well, and although there is no face on the polished smooth surface, I know it is watching me.

Then I hear the screams, the same pain-stricken screams I had heard today, unsure where the sound is coming from.

I touch my head, and the figure does the same. I have a headache.

Why is someone screaming, and why am I hearing it so vividly, as if it is real, as if it had been real?

The table had flipped, the violet coin in my mind is pulsing; although this isn’t real, this is a dream—or is it?

No, it is.

After our talk in the bathroom, I did crash into my bed, I remember.

What is going on, and what is wrong with me?

The screams are louder, the pulsing so intense that I see the light behind my lids—not even closing my eyes brings me peace.

I snap my eyes open and see the figure in front of me. I cover my ears, but again, there is no peace.

"Are you screaming?" I ask the figure, and it tilts its head while still mirroring me and covering its ears.

"Who the hell is screaming?" I yell into this beautiful crystalline world.

The figure in front of me behaves unusually, neither mirroring me nor doing the opposite as it raises its arm to point at something.

I follow its hand and see that on the earth not far away, the crystals on the ground shake, rise, and build an open room. The room that appeared was similar to a prison cell, with a metal desk in it, on which over a dozen papers lay.

Now I know that this wasn’t just a vision anymore; it had turned into something else.

"Had my vision turned into a lucid dream? Why are you showing me this?"

A vision or imagination? A memory or a nightmare?

I look at my hands and see that they have grown so big, while the ground I can see through my fingers has grown so far away.

This crystalline world suddenly seems so fragile as I take a step forward with my gigantic foot, my head fogging, thinking becoming harder.

I reach down and grab my crystalline counterpart, doing what I always do. I see the figure in my palm, just lying there as I put it in my mouth, as I devour it, crushing the crystals between my teeth before I swallow.

Swallow under screams, screams as I swallow, screams while I swallow, eating, devouring, and repeat, an endless cycle of devouring and being devoured, and when I stop swallowing, I die—no, when I am being swallowed, I die. No, I die in either case; I am going to die.

I will die, diediediediediediediediedie.

But I don’t want to die.

I just want to go home.

*****************

I snapped my eyes open, holding my pounding head.

When I turned to my side, I saw him sleeping beside me, even cuddling me.

Am I back in this strange body, inside this unknown world?

My eyes wandered to the window, and again the hope that it would show me my home surfaced.

I wanted to try it again, I wanted to confirm again, and if it really wasn’t my own world, I again wished to at least take another look at this unknown world before I would disappear again.

My body felt so heavy and foreign as I crawled over the body blocking me and fell on the ground.

"Kenny?" A tired voice asked, but I didn’t answer.

I am not your Kenny; I don’t even know you.

"Kenny? What are you doing?"

I continued to crawl. I have to see. I have to see.

When I reached the windowsill and pulled myself up, hands grabbed me and helped me up, holding me in place by my arms.

"Is something wrong with your legs?"

Hannibal, have you ever talked to me in such a worried voice?

I looked at him.

His eyes...were so intense, the blue color—I had never seen something like this before. His eyes were as intense as mine were, or had been.

Wait, does that mean he had also gathered his other parts? Does it mean he can open the layers as well?

"You and I are friends?" I narrowed my eyes at him.

Naturally we were when we slept in the same bed. And if we were friends, there was a tiny chance, a minuscule hope, that he would help me.

He didn’t answer, scrutinizing me instead.

"Can you see the layers? Are you aware?" I asked.

I can’t see them in this body, but if he could, if he could open them...maybe I could return home.

Sudden regret overwhelmed me, longing so strong that I felt like my heart was ripped out.

Sometimes a door is just a door. No need to walk through it.

Yes, you were right. I was wrong all along.

"I want to go home." I said, choked up, my headache intensifying.

"Who are you?" The eyes in front of me changed, the emotions gone from them, only a still mask remaining.

Yes, this look—this is how I know you.

It was nearly nostalgic. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Kenneth Howard." I answered him, still needing his help to stay standing.

"Are you the giant?" Hannibal asked me.

Giant...giant...giant—an imaginary or mythical being of human form and superhuman size.

Terror crawled up my spine as my lips moved involuntarily.

"No."

"I am Kenneth Howard." I am Kenneth Howard, and although I am also so much more, so many other selves as well, no matter if human or creature, monster or slimy tree thing, I will remain Kenneth Howard, my first and inborn identity.

The identity I need to go back home.

My head hurt so much; my power was leaking out of this feeble body, weakening me.

"What is your last memory?" Hannibal asked, his hold having long turned from assistance to restriction.

"...I have gathered another part of myself. It was a tree..."

"What about after that?" His face comes closer, his eyes looking down on me with a burning heat behind the disregarding mask.

Was there something after that?

"I think... I gathered another part after that." I pressed my eyes together and turned my head, trying to remember.

Everything was so fuzzy. What did I forget? Why are my memories out of order?

The more I tried to remember, the more my head thrummed, and I felt another wave of terror before I knew I would retract myself back into this foreign body.

"I will go now."

"If you wake up again, find me; don’t do anything rash. I will help you with whatever you want to do." His words sounded more like a threat, but he clearly wouldn’t do anything to this body.

"Then I will take you up on that offer." I mumbled while I closed my eyes.

The last thing I felt was as this body was pressed to his bigger body, and ’I’ was being tightly embraced.

It somehow felt nice; it was my first time being hugged by a man. It felt not like my mother’s previous hugs during the beginning of my childhood or that from Emily later—

—but much safer.