LES PETITES HISTOIRES DU MONDE DES RÊVES

On a field of crops, a woman in her 30s, with white bunny ears and smaller than the wheat was running. Her messy dark hair was covering up the time she had taken to put them in a nice configuration. Now, her ruined hairstyle embraces the chaos, covered with mud and crops. A heavy rectangle was held tightly against her almost non-existent breast. Close behind her were multiple men in armor, screaming for her to drop the book onto the wet mud.

At some point in her rush, she almost slipped, her naked feet sliding onto the floor on one of her turns. As she nearly let all her efforts go into dust, she unclipped a tissue attached to her waist, and threw it into the air. The little ribbon closing this object gave up, spreading the white powder it contained in suspension in between the smuggling girl and the aggressors. In the heat of the action, they passed through it without a second thought. Almost immediately, their vision begins to fade to black and their muscles instantly stop responding to their commands, pushing them into a good night of sleep in front of the runaway.

The answer of the bunny girl in front of this misfortune was to put her free hand in front of her mouth like she was hiding her snickering.

However, her smile didn't last long. A wooden stick grazed her left ear, passing through her hair. She could feel the wind provoked by the object on the side of her face, like a cold warning that the reinforcements were coming.

Without so much as the time to catch her breath, she started to run again with even more vigor.

She tried to empty her head of unnecessary thoughts, focusing on the cadence of her legs and the road she mapped in her memory. The major trouble with this task could be described by the stalks of wheat, which were entangling with her loose hair, pulling her backwards, to push her on the ground. However, she cut their ears without trying to go back. She will get out of this situation alive, whatever the pain she needs to endure.

Finally, their little tricks to slow her down will be meaningles: She was out of the crop field! She jumped forward, skipping over a trench marking the frontier in-between the field and the forest.

The end of her jump wasn't as glorious as its start. Her unprotected right foot encountered a wooden branch that pierced her skin, leaving her with the feeling of a hot and painful spot at the bottom of her right foot. She only had the time to leave a swear before she heard the men behind her, ready to send some projectiles into her back.

Complaining about her pain was now a waste of time, moreover the kicks of adrenaline were enough to make her forget about her situation.

She then rushes in-between the bushes and the trees.

As the oxygen began to lack, bruises were forming on her body, caused by the impact with multiple branches that she couldn't help to avoid.

Her speed was slowly decreasing even if she put all her strength into her fateful legs.

At some point, she will not be able to keep up, so she needs to act quickly.

Her action was then taken out of nowhere: she jumped forward, skipping a trap meticulously placed.

No one could jump high enough to arrive at the same position, galvanized by this fact, the bunny turned around to make fun of the soldiers with a simple thumbed nose.

This bold move almost got her killed. The sword of one of the soldiers cut through a part of her cloth, following a diagonal, sinking into her flesh to produce a wound of approximately one millimeter. The cut was going from her sternum to her left foot and disappeared at the level of her stomach, the stony rectangle she kept close shielding this part of her body.

When the sword hit the ground, it slipped, going this time backward, in the direction of the pit. The aggressor then continued his fall to meet his demise, composed of sharpened wood pillars.

His body was finally pierced, from his back to his torax, leaving him only the time to scream in pain.

The bunny turned her back has quickly as she could. Her escape was now far more painful, her left foot felt more and more alien as she ran. Like for her right foot, she didn't take the time to check it. Arrows flying near her position was a reminder of the danger that was tailing her.

The adrenaline was pumping all the strength she had left inside of her body. Her focus was now total on her respiration and what she had in front of her. The cadence needed to be perfect.

At last, she could see the forest fading in the distance, leaving only a staircase made of stone.

As she passed through a bush, letting the thorn of the branches swiftly mark her body, she arrived on the next step of her runaway. Climbing the stairs.

She could hear the blood splattering at each of her steps, she could feel her strength rolling downhill. The grasp over the stone tablet was so weak that she would let it go on the stairs, destroying its purpose. So, she threw it on the opposite side of the staircase.

The enormous cherry blossom was just at the end of her difficult ascension. As the air was difficult to grasp, her spirit began to travel to other thoughts, like the joy she will feel when she will pass through the portal next to the cherry blossom. It will be safer because no one will be bold enough to follow her in Kōmuna.

The wind blow was pushing her hair to an even more messy structure.

It was like even the environment was against her.

And, as she tried to perfectly land on each step, she messed up, her entire body fell onto this regular and hard structure.

As she heard their footsteps, a new-found rush of adrenaline came back to her. She needed to continue, by all means. She only needed to be the only one laughing at their failure. As much as she imagined them reading the stone tablet, she only wanted to see it in her thoughts.

She used her hand to stand up, and with the last bit of strength she had left, she continued her desperate escape.

As the arrows were grazing her, she finally arrived at the top of the staircase, the portal was now in front of her eyes. As the soldiers were screaming at her, she made a run for it. In between the pellets of the cherry blossom, the delicate aroma of the flowers was covering the metallic smell of the viscous liquid escaping from her body.

However, this perfect picture was too good to be true: one arrow was enough to erase the scenery.

As she played with all its comrades, the malignant projectile directly entered into the flesh of her back, cutting her in her escape. This sudden strike made her legs loose. An extra sensation other than pain added up, like her feet weren't the only alien part of her body anymore. The lower part of her body didn't respond to her survival instinct, like a colder and colder pile or flesh.

Her face now facing the ground, she had no other choice but to use her hand to pull herself to the portal in front of her eyes. Even if she wanted it so much, to go inside, it wasn't enough. One hand than took her away from her dream, maintaining her in the air with an irritated face.

- Where is the book?

The woman's only answer was pointing to the portal.

- You… You threw this precious text here?!

At the exact moment she nodded she received a slap on the face, and was dropped on the floor without real delicacy.

- Everyone searches around the portal, she could easily make this up. Sêlo and Glwix, you will go into the portal and search if the book is there. If she threw it inside, it shouldn't be that far.

The commander then turned around and put his sword below the neck of the little bunny, ready to cut her throat in an instant.

- Now tell me, did you really throw it inside? Because if you're lying, I will not hesitate to separate your head from your shoulders.

She looked at the sword put dangerously close to her neck, before answering with conviction:

- Why should I tell such an obvious lie?
- To save your own life by forcing us to enter in this hell.
- Oh, really? Well, you will have taken me with you nonetheless, so my fate would have been sealed with yours. It's not really a good plan I think.
- I can't bring myself to hear more of your lies.
- Lies? Oh, come on. Why should I anger such a perfect commander with pointless chatter?
- Keep your jokes to yourself. I have no wish to be sympathetic with someone who killed one of my men.
- Killed? I am sorry, but the only guy I've seen dying in front of my eyes fell into a trap.
- A trap you set!
- Nope, I just noticed the trap and jumped above it. Don't tell me that… I needed to warn my pursuers about terrain hazards! Is that a war crime?
- Shut up. I have had enough of your venom. Starting this moment, you, Chi Frê are under arrest. Everything you will say can and will be used against you.

The woman then decided it would be safer for her throat to say nothing more. It was really frustrating for her, the escape route was right in front of her… It was only a question of seconds. Now she needs to find another plan. With the blood loss she was experiencing, time wasn't a free resource she could dispose of.

Playing dead? It's a dumb idea. She need medical help as soon as possible, and they will surely free their grudge on her body.

Talking to them? Their patience already ran out.

Using some Red Force? She already used a heavy spell 5 hours ago, she doesn't have the resources for it for sure.

As she discarded all of her possibilities one by one, she began to loose her composure. Her usual smile was now gone, replaced by a neutral one followed by a paler and paler face. Cold drops were trying to calm down the heat provoked by such a search, always leading her to one word: "Death".

Finally, one of the soldiers came back from its examination of the surroundings. The tablet inside the colourful tissue in his hands.

- Captain! I found it!

After hearing this, the soldier rushed to his subordinate and took the precious object. After weighing it with his own hands, the leader felt something odd: it was heavier than usual.

He quickly removed the tissue, and… Found a rectangle made of stone with one sentence and a drawing engraved on it:

"You followed the wrong rabbit. Too bad." Which was above a really well made drawing of Chi, sticking out her tongue and winking at the reader.

The captain had his face crumbling down into pieces, as each words of the sentence was a devastating blow on his pride. After the roller-coaster of emotions he faced, going from joy, to doubt, to panic, to an utter annihilation of his hopes. It was a priceless spectacle for the writer, seeing her work fulfilling its reader with emotions. 

After the shock passed, it wasn't long before the angered and frustrated man came at her. He grabbed her cloth to put her face next to his.

- Where is the book?
- What are you talking about? She answered with less vitality.
- Don't mess with me! Answer me now! Where is the book you stole?
- But I never had a b-

She couldn't finish her sentence. The violent unnamed man pinned her against the wall. This foolish action was enough to allow the arrow on her back to continue its route, going through the vertebrae reaching deeper inside her body. The resulting shock resonated like a liquid flooding in her insides with one property: the sensation of pain. When she opened her mouth, trying to grasp some air, trying to scream her pain with all what her lungs could afford… Another feeling, far more insidious followed… She wanted to throw up. This uneasiness grew even stronger in between each second she maintained herself alive.

The soldier didn't understand his mistake and kept on asking questions, with some hits here and there each time she tried to catch her breath instead of an answer.

Slowly the pain became less and less present, the sound of the voice of the furious man was disappearing in the distance until only the void was left.

…

Finally, after an unknown amount of time in the void, her lungs grasped again the air in her surroundings. The immediate response of her body was cough and the resolution of her need to throw up. Her entire body was shaking, she couldn't control it… So, she stayed still, letting the shock dissipate. Her breath was gradually coming back to à steady rate.

When she looked around her, she noticed that she was now inside a cavern illuminated by a red gas flowing with the shape of a circle with no depth.

Finally it was her missing wounds which were the final hint on what happened.

She died.

She couldn't help but to feel frustrated by such a result, with all her efforts now literally dissipated into dust.

She now stood up with a high difficulty, her body wasn't as responsive as she wished it to be. She was taking back what was originally her body. Trying to verify if her entire body was responding, she tried some movements of the arms and legs… Before hitting the ground with her right foot, unleashing all her anger and disappointment in this movement she accompanied with simple swears.

- You brute! You should be ashamed! There are no gentlemen in this cursed army!

[PART 1/2]