Slowly opening his eyes, Zain's vision started to come back. But he didn't find himself in the club. Instead, everything was pitch black around him, and he couldn't see where he was. However, he could tell what he was currently looking at was the hard floorboards of a room.
That's when he noticed something else as well.
'I'm back here again. It's those damn visions.' Zain cursed while staring at his small hands, which belonged to a ten-year-old, and not just any, but his own self.
After a while, he stood up and looked around as his eyes got used to the darkness and deduced that he was in a bedroom. There was also a window in the room, and when he looked outside, he found the night sky was out, and a half moon shone brightly through it. It didn't take long before Zain began to feel a sense of familiarity within the room.
Walking around, Zain looked at one of the posters on the wall and brushed his hand against it. It was one of the survival games that had come out a long time ago, <Train to Huzan>, where one would fight a horde of Zombies on a train while also trying to get to the next destination.
'This is my old room.' Zain had realised, 'But why? Why are these visions happening now? Am I dreaming? Is it this damn Zombie head of mine?'
Zain tried to knock the side of his head a few times with the palm of his hand, but nothing seemed to be working. It was also hard for him to tell if he could feel pain or not. Things just didn't quite make sense to him.
In the end, since it didn't look like he would get himself out of the current situation by just standing here, he decided to find the door and leave the room.
'I don't like this place…the quicker I get out of here, the better.'
He soon found the door. He pressed his hand on the doorknob, twisting it to unlock the door. It made quite a loud creak when he pushed the door open. After a few seconds of observation, he concluded he was between the kitchen and living room. On the left was an kitchen island, although the kitchen was small as whole, while on the right was the living room, a sofa facing the TV.
Further through the hallway on the other side, if one was to walk right across, would be his parents' room and the washroom. But, just like the other rooms, this one was dark as well.
Scouting the room, Zain wondered if he would see others here, although it wouldn't be the first time that others had appeared in his vision.
'I thought I might see my mother…or father here.' Zain mused.
Tuning his head, he looked at the light switch and found himself reluctant to switch it on. Maybe because he had been living in the real world, in a high tense situation, he felt like turning on the light would attract whoever it was that might be in there.
'This whole place feels so real. It's not like a dream, I can see everything clearly, move around, and the layout is exactly the same as my apartment, but why bring me back to this age?' Zain frowned while trying to make sense of the situation, 'At least I remember what this place is, and it's not like the last time when I had no clue where I was.'
A little uptight, Zain headed to the kitchen. He saw a knife on the countertop, and after tiptoeing a bit more, he stretched his arm forward and pulled it out from the block. Soon, he was holding it in his hands. This action was reflexive, and he justified it by thinking he needed to protect himself.
But as soon as he held it though, for a second, his hand looked completely covered in blood, and so did the knife. Taken aback, Zain let go of the knife out of shock and dropped it onto the floor.
It made a clanging noise, and quickly, using his feet, he stepped on it to make it stop.
'Sh*t, there's no way someone didn't hear that…but what was that? Why was the knife suddenly covered in blood?'
Bending down, Zain picked up the knife once again, carefully looking at it this time, seeing if it would do the same, but nothing had happened. Neither the knife nor his hands turned red this time.
'I'm having visions in visions. This is great.' Zain sighed.
Just then, he heard a clicking noise, and a slight creak resonated as if someone had opened a door. Zain's heart started to thump and almost jumped to his throat. He immediately crouched down and hid behind the island of the kitchen's countertop.
His heart raced and thumped even louder. Zain wanted it to stop, worried that it might give him away. By now, he was hearing footsteps, one after another, as someone walked toward him. Zain counted them in his head until they had eventually stopped.
'What do I do? Do I make a run for the exit, or to the room and lock it, or do I try attacking them…but this is all fake right? Everything in here is fake.'
Gripping the knife tightly, Zain looked above him and found a faceless man staring at him. In the next moment, a mouth suddenly appeared on the blank face.
"What did I tell you about coming in here again?!" the man hollered and reached out to grab Zain.
The latter quickly rolled back onto the ground, but the man easily climbed over the kitchen top and walked with heavy-footed steps. He could feel the vibration in the floorboards as the man stomped his feet with full force.
'I can't fight with this weak body!' Panicked, Zain threw the knife toward the faceless man, aiming straight for the head.
Moving his arm, the man flicked it away mid-air as if it was just a simple toy and the next instant, the knife stuck on the wall. Then grabbing Zain by the arms, the man lifted him up off the ground.
Zain kicked his legs and tried to use all his strength to break free, but everything turned out to be useless in his current size and strength. His body had yet to grow, and he wasn't even in his teenage years. It was impossible to break free from an adult.
"You like to think you can survive anything, don't you? Well, let's see you survive this." The man's voice resounded once again, confusing him with those words.
Holding onto the little Zain, the faceless man walked over to the living room and right up to the window. The next second he hurled the young kid and threw him against it. Zain's back crashed into the window, shattering the casing glass as he fell outside into the darkness.
As he fell through the window, Zain noticed the night sky above and staring at him from the other side of the window through where he had just fallen, was the faceless man.
"Bye-bye." The man muttered, waving at him.
'Shit, Shit! Am I going to die? Am I going to fall to my death? I've never died in one of these visions before. Maybe it's one of those things if I die in the vision I do in real life too? Wait, I'm already dead, so I can't possibly die again, right? But no, I can't risk it. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!' Zain screamed in his head as he continued to fall.
However, before he hit the ground, his vision started to fade. It was beginning to disappear, and soon everything around him turned to pitch black again. Zain couldn't see, hear or feel anything and was left with his thoughts.
'What was all of that? Who the hell is that faceless man…I could hear his voice clearer this time, but it was not the same as before. It's not the same one I heard when I was stuck in that chair. That voice, without a doubt, was him, so who is this man?
'He must have been the same one from the forest that time, but then why is he in my real memories now, or real places unlike the forest from before?'
Suddenly he started to feel a headache. It was dull at the start but was turning into excruciating pain by the second until Zain's eyes opened up. There was light this time as he found himself staring at a crummy old brown ceiling.
There were even a few bugs flying around. And when he slowly lifted his body, he noticed he was on a thin mattress that someone had placed on the floor.
'Am I still in the club? Where are the others?' Zain touched his head and saw something from the corner of his eye.
Skittle was there, staring at Zain, but right next to him was a man tapping his fingers on the former's face.
"So interesting.." The man mumbled.
Jumping up from the ground, Zain instantly leapt to where Skittle was and knocked the man's hand away, trying to defend his friend. And then, grabbing the man by the neck, he pushed him up against the wall.
Without giving any chance to retaliate, Zain held both of the man's hands above and tightened the grip around the latter's neck.
"Why were you touching Skittle?!" Zain shouted. He didn't know what was going on and had done everything instinctively.
Just then, the door was pushed open, and Kun stepped in. Staring at the scene, he was shocked for a moment and then shouted, "Zain, what are you doing to Fingers?! Let go of him!"
*****
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