Shadow Slave

Sunny's bed trembled slightly, and he felt the wind blowing across the room. Still mostly asleep, he sighed and tried to pull the blanket higher. However, that damned thing was nowhere to be found.

'Where the hell is it…'

Reluctant to let go of sleep, he blindly searched for the blanket. Instead of finding it, though, Sunny suddenly felt his whole bed careen to the side. Startled, he opened his eyes… and saw nothing but darkness surrounding him.

'What the?! Oh… right.'

He wasn't in his small room in the Sanctuary. He was plummeting into a lightless abyss atop the corpse of a Fallen Devil, instead.

Sunny stared into the darkness for a bit.

Then, he yawned.

'Well. At least I slept well.'

Indeed, he was feeling rather refreshed. Most of his aches had either disappeared or grown milder, and even his wounded mind felt soothed. He felt rested, energized, and much better overall.

The only problem was, he was still falling into the endless void of the Sky Below.

Sunny scratched the back of his head, though about this predicament, then summoned the Endless Spring and drank some water. Then, he concentrated and tried to assess the situation.

was absolutely

nothing had changed while he slept,

at the treasure chest

pettiness. Not only did I kill this poor bastard, I even went

down below, false stars shimmered with white

judged that he slept for about twelve hours. A bit

he assumed them to be correct, that would mean that he had left the Sanctuary six

was going to take to reach the thing on the end of the golden String of Fate, but had to assume that it

of his house. The pod

Would anyone miss him?

his long ventures into the Dream Realm, and even if none of them had been as long as this one was going to be, they would just assume that he was too lazy to answer their messages and go about their business. They

were not in the habit of keeping a detailed record of who went in and out of the Citadel. The most anyone was going to think about him would be when Cassie arrived from the

was avoiding her, as he

chest in boundless darkness, Sunny realized that no one was really going to care that he was gone. So many things had

at the beautiful glass bottle in his hand, Sunny remained motionless for a

my coins, at

***

performing a strange aerial dance. Holding onto the rope connecting him to the dead Mimic with his one functioning hand, Sunny summoned the Dark Wing, then cautiously climbed onto the side of the big chest and tried to balance it so that the heavy

down with incredible speed, his

going to increase exponentially, which

the air moving past him as he