Grey, somewhat hollow, and tall. Extremely so. Those are the words that describe the forest, but there is more. There always is. There is a breeze that, like clockwork, runs through the trees, creating a sound that Sunny has only heard from kids during that event called Halloween.
"What was the name again? Ghost?" Sunny asks himself under his breath.
He has been standing just short of entering the forest, looking from the outside in. It is fruitless. The only thing he can see is grey in all directions, except for the one he came from. The wind kicks up again, and with it comes the sound as it hits the trees, bringing with it a strange mineral scent.
Sunny is not exactly surprised by this last fact, since the closer he gets to the tree line, the more clear it becomes that the trees are actually rock formations.
"Or they could have been normal trees that got petrified," he says while crouching down to inspect the ground beneath the nearest tree.
The ground, unlike the trees, seems to be normal—or as normal as anything can be in the Dream Realm—since unlike in the outskirts, or even in all the pictures that Professor Julius showed him of extinct plants, the ground isn't brown or even black.
"Red. Teacher Julius didn't mention something like this in any of his lessons."
While still crouching, Sunny looks back at the grey, barren wasteland that he has traversed, and then looks back at the stone forest and its red soil. Sunny knows that this is the only way forward, but he still feels uneasy, since this transition of scenery doesn't seem to follow any rules of nature—or so it seems to Sunny.
"How can I describe it?"
Murmuring under his breath, Sunny looks at the red soil, the grey dust that has claimed one of his fingers just by touching it, and lastly, he looks at Saint, who is as quiet as ever. Putting a hand over his mouth and taking a breath, Sunny keeps looking for an explanation for this feeling. After much deliberation, Sunny finds what he is looking for.
"It's like oil and water! For some reason, not even a speck of the red soil is mixing."
That is what has bothered him until now. All the way until now, the ground has been covered in the grey dust, but suddenly it changes to the red soil as if a switch has been flipped. With this revelation, Sunny looks at Happy, who is to his left. The shadow just puts its hands on its hips and sways them around as if warming up.
"You're right. Normally, this would not matter. But is it not strange that not a single speck of red soil can be found mingling with the grey dust?"
After asking this out loud, Sunny looks to his right and sees Gloomy shrugging his shoulders as if not interested.
"You might be right, Gloomy. Maybe the red soil dust got consumed by whatever is in the grey dust, but the question remains: why has it not expanded to consume all the red soil?"
This question is only made more valid as Sunny sees how the red soil and the grey dust create a perfectly straight line all the way to the horizon, never once mixing. The border isn't a natural gradient; it's a razor-sharp, geometric scar slicing across the landscape, a physical barrier drawn by an immense, unseen power. As if on cue, a small gust of wind blows a swirl of grey dust right toward the red soil, only for the drifting particles to instantly lose momentum and drop straight down into a neat pile right at the boundary line.
While looking at the perfectly straight line, Sunny feels Saint move behind him. Looking at her for a moment, he nods his head.
"You're right, Saint. Whatever it is, we should start moving—though I'm not exactly liking your theory that somehow the grey dust is sentient and is being repelled by a powerful Nightmare Creature. Truly, couldn't you have come up with something nicer, Saint?"
Saint only tilts her head to the side, looking at Sunny while they walk.
__________________________________________
"As if this place couldn't get any weirder," Sunny murmurs to himself as he gives a wide berth to the strange, orange-glowing object on the floor.
From what he can see as he passes a good distance away, the thing looks like a flower bud—one that is glowing violently orange, its light pulsating as if it has a heartbeat. This is not the first one Sunny has seen. In fact, the stone forest seems to be littered with them. Fortunately, and for some unknown reason, they seem to be mysteriously, evenly spaced out.
The walk from the entrance of the forest has been going well, meaning to say that Sunny has not encountered any Nightmare Creature that wants to kill him.
"This is unnervingly going too well," Sunny says as he avoids another of the glowing buds, whose pulsations start to grow slower the further he walks from them. With how concentrated he has been on making sure nothing gets the drop on him, this is the first time he notices the change in the rhythm.
"I wonder how they work? Could it be that the things react to movement? Or could it be something more complex, like body heat?"
Multiple other questions come to his mind, and along with them comes the face of Teacher Julius. The corner of his mouth rises at the thought of his teacher and how he would love to document everything about this new anomaly that hasn't been discovered yet. Honestly, for Sunny, the most thrilling part would be receiving credit for the report, though he cannot deny that there is a thrill in being recognized as the person who discovered this. Sunny has seen it before—the names of people who are dead, but who live on through the things that they discovered or created.
"Then again—"
Sunny looks down at his hands. There, he sees nine fingers, which dampens his mood a little bit. A faint, ghost-like burning sensation radiates from the stump of his missing finger, a quiet phantom ache that serves as a physical reminder of just how unforgiving this landscape can be.
"How many am I willing to sacrifice just to get an idea of what happens if I get too close?" he asks himself, shifting his gaze from the pulsating orange thing to his hands.
The worst part for Sunny is that there isn't a guarantee of learning anything. After all, what does he truly know about the grey dust that claimed one of his fingers? That it is shiny? That it transfers from light contact and is slow to spread through its victim?
"Well, now that I think about it, that would be enough to write a paper and some theories."
Sunny shakes his head in an effort to stop overthinking what he thinks he knows. In truth, that has been a horrible exchange—the loss of a finger with a side of bladder-loosening pain in exchange for a mere idea of what that thing is.
Looking to the side, Sunny sees his flying, autonomous spear gliding soundlessly next to him. The violent orange light of the nearby pods catches the polished tip of the hovering weapon, reflecting an eerie amber glint across his face.
"But then again, there you—"
Looking at the spear, he has to question if it is fate, or if the dead gods, in one of their sick jokes, are rewarding him for his carelessness. To his right, Gloomy immediately covers its own hands defensively at the comment, while Happy looks at Sunny's remaining fingers, silently counting them with a look of mock concern. Perhaps Weaver has a fixation with fingers. Perhaps if he chops off a couple more permanently, Sunny will be presented with more powerful Memories—or, who knows, maybe even a way to escape to the waking world.
A muted chuckle comes out of his mouth, and Sunny rubs his temples as if in disbelief.
"Damn, I must really be losing it if I'm thinking of starting to hack my fingers off."
Trying not to fall into grim thoughts of how long he has until he completely loses his mind, Sunny brings back the memories of Teacher Julius and how to properly write a research paper. There truly is a lot of information that Sunny has gathered in the Forgotten Shore, and with him traversing unknown zones of the Dream Realm, there will surely be more to write about.
"Hmm, I think Before the Crimson Spire and After the Crimson Spire should suffice to create a timeline. What do you think, guys? We can even use BC and AC as a shortcut!"
To his question, only silence answers as he looks in turn to each of his companions. With a wide grin, Sunny nods his head, looking pleased with himself.
"I knew you guys would like it. I have it all figured out in my head, you will see. The report I'll make will be so good that I'll be able to buy one of those fancy refrigerators. It will be a shiny grey, and it will have one of those things where ice falls directly into your cup!"
Sunny can already see the refrigerator in his mind—all big, square, and shiny. The prospect of owning one of those machines and calling it his own really lifts his mood in this grey, stone, creepy, wind-swept, and seemingly endless forest.
Though it is nice thinking about the future, Sunny decides not to get distracted. He chooses to look at his surroundings more intensely, both for security reasons and because there might be something interesting about the stone trees that could be worth putting in the report.
"Well, if we take out the fact that they look to be made out of stone, they are strangely unremarkable."
The stone trees look like any other kind of tree. At the thought of this, Sunny remembers the Soul Devouring Tree, and his face grows serious at the seeming simplicity of these trees.
"No, this is the Dream Realm. There's definitely something wrong with this forest."
After thinking a bit, Sunny decides to find a spot to rest and study the trees along with the ground. It doesn't take long to find a place—a clearing with a circumference wide enough that Sunny, his shadows, Saint, and even the autonomous flying spear can react in time to engage anything that might come at them.
""Not truly ideal, but it's something at least."
To say that Sunny is displeased would be adequate. He has been walking for the entire day, minding his step so as not to disturb the pulsating orange things, which has made his progress slow. He at least hoped to be able to find a place to take shelter. Of course, he doesn't expect another abandoned cathedral, since with his luck, there would probably be a Nightmare Creature that aims to take his head off instead of just gutting him.
"A cave would have been nice, or even a hole in the ground would do," Sunny murmurs as he turns in place, looking at the surroundings of where he is going to spend the night.
With not much to do, Sunny has Gloomy wrap itself around Saint and tells her to guard the perimeter, while he keeps Happy with him and walks to the nearest tree to have a good look, though he doesn't expect much.
The tree he has chosen is like all the others in the surroundings—tall, slender, and leafless—though there are differences in its color, or more accurately, its pigmentation. The tree is grey like all the others, but Sunny notices that some trees have black spots on them of different sizes. This is something he had not paid much attention to before, since in the waking world, Teacher Julius had shown pictures of white trees with circular black stripes on them that were documented as living in cold climates.
Curious about the texture of these trees, Sunny starts moving his hand to touch the bark, but at the last moment, he thinks better of it and takes a step back.
"Let's, umm—a Memory. We can never be too careful."
Sunny feels a bit foolish for the paranoia he is feeling as he summons the Prowling Thorn. The triangular, leaf-shaped dagger doesn't take long to appear in his hand. Without much thought, he brings the dagger closer to the trunk of the tree as an experiment to see if he can even leave a scratch on it.
While pondering if he should do a forward thrust or a horizontal slash, Sunny remembers one of the lessons Teacher Julius had taught him about plants and how to care for them. The most vivid part of the memory is how he had laughed when Teacher Julius mentioned that there were people whose whole profession was dedicated to taking care of trees. That alone Sunny finds somewhat funny, but what had made him nearly fall off his seat at the time was that these people actually claimed the title of doctor.
It is ridiculous to Sunny, the idea that someone would just water a plant and for that be called a doctor, though as he thinks about it, he feels something in his chest. Something like gratitude. Sunny remembers the tree where he had carved the three lines and wonders if one of these so-called tree doctors had been attending to it, since as far as Sunny can remember, that tree has been there no matter how hot the summer or cold the winter.
"The tree is either receiving help, or it's just stubborn and it's looking to spite the world with its unwillingness to die."
The thought brings a smile to Sunny's face. Though Sunny would like the idea of someone partially caring for the tree, he finds it more appealing to believe that the tree has a personality of its own and is trying to give the middle finger to the world.
"Guess cockroaches can come in various shapes and sizes."
After finding a strange sense of kinship with the spiteful tree in the waking world, Sunny decides that the best move will be a thrust attack, since that will help determine if the trees are completely stone, or if they are hollow with a stone shell on the outside. With a moderate amount of force, Sunny thrusts the Prowling Thorn into the tree, aiming for a spot at chest level.
As the dagger makes contact with the tree, it makes no sound, which Sunny finds strange—but not as strange as when the Prowling Thorn is violently pulled out of his hand and into the tree, leaving his hand empty.
Face blank, Sunny opens and closes his hand, not understanding.
"Wha—"
[Your Memory has been destroyed.]