Shadow Slave

With an empty stomach and a head full of thoughts, Sunny returned to the center of the platform and sat down. After a while, he beckoned to his shadow and said:

"Wake me up if anything happens."

Then, he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep. His consciousness quickly slid into the sweet embrace of darkness, giving Sunny some well-needed rest.

In the middle of the night, however, a sudden impulse stirred him awake. Sunny jumped to his feet, his groggy mind full of tense apprehension. He was afraid that the owner of the giant tentacle had come back to finish the job.

Or maybe some other horror from the depths had sensed him and decided to snack on human meat.

However, the sea was quiet and calm. He didn't hear any abnormalities around the knight's statue.

"What is it?" Sunny whispered, addressing the shadow.

The shadow silently pointed him in a particular direction.

Turning his head, Sunny squinted. He quickly understood why it was a good idea to wake up. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to see…

Out there in the distance, a few kilometers away, a small orange light was shimmering in the darkness. Its reflections were rising and falling with the movement of waves.

It was too far away to make out any details, so Sunny just stared at it for a while. Pretty soon, the light disappeared.

"Other Sleepers? Natural phenomenon? Or some monster laying a trap?"

Memories of nightmarish deepwater creatures immediately came to his mind.

Shaking his head, Sunny lay back down and attempted to return to his slumber. However, this time sleep was escaping him. Pangs of hunger were still not unbearable, but slowly becoming more and more intense. The thirst, however, was worse.

until the sun rose again,

***

soon as the morning came, the pincer monsters crawled back from their hiding spots and rushed to the giant carcass to

watched them for some time and then walked to the opposite side of the platform to

the ground rose naturally and formed something akin to a hill. On top of

looks of it, its upper branches were just high enough to stay above

Sunny's head, but at the

of all — would he be able to find the way through the labyrinth and cover that distance during the day? And more importantly, should he even

did, however, send the shadow to investigate as far into the labyrinth as the range of Shadow Control allowed, hoping to chart at least the beginning of the path that could potentially lead him

probably could be in this strange

He could desalinate the seawater in a number of ways taught to him by Teacher Julius, with materials that were present pretty much everywhere in the Dream Realm. He could also prepare traps and

hunting by day, returning to the statue at the approach of the night. It was

for keeping Sunny alive, but had no way of giving him hope. If he was destined

jump down and end

and reach the source of the orange light. And if Sunny was really trying to attempt it, he had to do it before the pincer monsters

way, at least, the surrounding segment of the labyrinth was going to be free of

the next morning. He would spend the rest of today exploring paths through the

closed his eyes and concentrated his perception on the

***

the dark sea. Sunny was stirred awake by

a bad mood. But this time he was too thirsty to think about anything except for freshwater. Staying low so as to not be blown over the edge of the platform, Sunny cupped his hands and waited until they became filled with rainwater. Then he raised them to

to see Sunny now, they would

several hours. Sunny crouched in the middle of the platform, enduring its rage. More than once, a tall wave would crash into the headless knight's neck, threatening to wash him away. But Sunny held tight to the deep grooves in the stone surface of the platform, sticking to it like

dissipated, all of

there was no time to

with a few stragglers quickly following behind, he slid over the

course in all possible forms of traversal. Additionally, Sunny had