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.

situation was

by nothing, nothing had changed while he slept,

the treasure chest

did I kill this poor bastard, I even went so far as to take a

down below, false stars

slept for about twelve hours. A bit longer than usual,

to be correct, that would mean

end of the golden String

in the real world, his body was safely hidden in the luxurious sleeping pod in the basement of his house. The pod would keep it alive for months, so Sunny was

Would anyone miss him?

were used to 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 famous heroes now, after all, with packed schedules and plenty of

The lookouts in the Sanctuary 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 Night Temple,

she would just think that he was avoiding her, as

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

glass bottle in his hand, Sunny remained motionless for a while, then dismissed it and knocked on the lid of the dead

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

plummeting down with incredible speed, his body

fall was going to increase exponentially, which meant that at some point his body was bound

and felt the wind — or rather, the air moving past him as he fell through it — it meant that the speed of his fall had a limit dictated by the