𝕴𝖓 𝕳𝖎𝖘 𝕯𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖒𝖘 | Xiao x Reader Sequel

6

Your eyes opened and you shot up, finding yourself surrounded by blindingly bright lights. Your ears hurt as hundreds of voices spoke around you, and you could feel your hair dripping with water.

You had woken up.

The spirits were still surrounding you, and you suddenly noticed several wounds on your arms and legs. They must have done that while you slept. Wondering how long you had been out for, you tried to dodge their hands as they reached out for you again. Carefully, you stood up, which only made you realize just how severe your wounds were.

The spirits moved with you, and you swatted them away, trying to get a glimpse at the sky to figure out what time it was. Unfortunately, the ghosts around you seemed to have other plans, because they continued to block your vision and attack you.

You wanted to cry, still feeling overwhelmed from your dream, only to wake up injured and still surrounded by the spirits from before, who had only grown in number.

Finally, you managed to summon your catalyst, deciding to scare them off, even if only for a little while. You couldn't think like this, and needed some time to organize your thoughts.

"Get back!" You cried, hurling icicles in every direction. With how many spirits there were, each one hit somebody. You felt bad harming innocent ghosts like this, but on the other hand, were they really innocent, given how they'd attacked you? Plus, from what you knew, ghosts couldn't really be harmed. The use of your catalyst was more to deter them from harming you more than anything else.

It worked, too, and after a few minutes of shooting ice at them, only a few spirits were still in your immediate vicinity. By now, you could see the sky, and confirmed that it was early morning. You must have been asleep for at least a couple of hours.

Deciding you needed to get out of the area, you carefully left Luhua Pool and headed towards Tianqiu Valley. After what had happened, you didn't exactly feel welcome at Wangshu Inn, and you didn't want to bother any mortals by bringing ghosts near them, either.

As you walked, you worried about what you had seen in your dreams. That place had felt so real, yet so fake. So familiar, yet entirely new. You had even seen Xiao, but how could you be sure that was truly him if you didn't even know where the two of you had been?

You looked down at your hands, which were no longer coated in the blood from the ocean in your dream. Was it even your dream?

Sure, it had started out that way, on the mountain you remembered so vividly, but that red abyss, the bloody ocean, was it possible that that could have been Xiao's?

You'd only ever seen something like that in your own nightmares, but then you remembered how you'd wished to enter Xiao's dreams, to save him the way he'd once saved you. That was when the door had appeared, hadn't it?

Was it possible the doorway had been an entrance to his dreams? Had your wish come true? It didn't seem probable, but then again, it made sense.

The Xiao you'd seen in there had seemed so real, just like the time he'd saved you before. Plus, you recalled the feeling of his Karmic Debt, the weight just as bad as it was in real life when you'd been around him.

No, that had to be Xiao's dream. There was no way you'd just made something like that up. You must have somehow been able to enter. But if that was the case, he seemed to be in a lot of danger.

It made sense, given how his karma was only worsening, and you knew you had to go back for him as soon as possible. As much as you hated sleeping ever since your thousand-year nap, he needed you.

..........

Your first objective was to fall back asleep. With most of the spirits temporarily scared off, you decided to lay back down on the shore and try to drift off. However, sleeping during the daytime was harder than you had remembered. Plus, after resting the entire night, you didn't feel very tired anymore.