DreamsCodeAU

Chapter 9: Break

The splinters of the simulated windows seemed to shear through his sleeves and pass through him altogether. Resisting the urge to flail, he peeked through the X formation brace for the anticipated impact.

What lay before him perplexed him to the core.

He was.. hovering through the air. Or floating, gliding? Whatever it was, he was surely not falling anymore. But that wasn't comparatively surprising.

He was floating towards several islands. They all seemed to have a separate terrain each. Some had houses. Some had oasis. Some were simply floating debris, like a vehicle, or chunk of a boulder. Several rivers and such water sources flowed over the edge of some islands, pouring down into the abyss.

Whatever was down there was blocked off by slow moving, heavily dense clouds. Most were light pinkish, some were bright, some were dark and illuminated with flash seconds of thunder. Just like the islands, the clouds varied- only with different weather types.

He was approaching one of the bigger islands slowly, and bent his knees to lower the impact as he made contact with the patch of grass. The island he stood on seemed to belong to a drylands meadow.

A low thud that rippled the ground below him startled him and he turned around to see a floating debris crash slowly onto the ground a distance away from him before gently bouncing back away into space. It was a half broken car, and he looked away for a second before turning back to double take at it.

He was sure he had seen the car before.

A green illumination caught his attention and he braced, readying himself to meet Codex again. Instead, it was just a holographic pop up notification. "1 message"- It read.

Sapnap leaned down, weighing a pebble he grabbed before tossing it at the notification. It went right through. Right. Sighing, he took a step forward and pressed it.

"Congratulation, you've escaped." He heard Codex's laugh through the panel. He waved a hand through it, but it didn't disappear. "You've either figured out I can't get to where you are, or you were silly enough to risk your life by escaping the artificial room. Or both."

"What's out here?" Sapnap glanced about him warily.

"Nothing good." Codex said grimly. "You can thank Dream for that. The longer he lives, the more you'll see of this corruption.'

"I'm not coming back." Sapnap said.

"I'm not asking you to, because you won't, and you can't. Also, if you can travel over these worlds, we might as well try working with it."

Sapnap raised an eyebrow. "'We'? Where did the villain punchlines go? Now you want me to cooperate with you?"

"I'm a program, not a dancing monkey." Codex says. "I rerouted my options to suit yours."

"So come down here." Sapnap says. "If you're all about helping us. And fix this mess of a world. You have powers." He says.

"I'm unsure if you're just naive or if you're just patronising me. Either way, I can't. It's corrupted. But you can."

"So you need me? And you have no clue what's out here?" Sapnap asks.

"Yes, to both. I do know everything that's happening out there, but just not in the right sequence. The world's breaking, and it's too wide of a scale for me to tabulate."

"English, please." Sapnap grumbles.

"I could be your guide. Just not an accurate one."

"How do I know you're not just leading me to my elimination?" Sapnap asks.