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D3rLord3 can't sleep. He couldn't sleep for so many days that he actually lost count. The only time he even closes to sleep is when he's unconscious.
It's almost funny: the creature, which existence he cannot comprehend, is the thing that makes him questioning the existing of the concept of sleeping. Makes him questioning everything he did in the past and if he actually sane. Sometimes he thinks he is. Sometimes – he's not.
All he can is wondering around, doing stuff that now feels meaningless: he cuts down trees and hunts for survival. He tries to exhaust himself in order to get even one minute of sweet, sweet oblivion, where he can stop thinking.
You see: after that accident he also can't stop thinking. He's smart, intelligent man, and now all his knowledge feels like a curse – if he wasn't that smart, he wouldn't have sold that cipher, so he would have slept now. What a great power is mind, that cannot shut down itself and let him be.
So he thinks: desperate times need desperate measures. Fuck it. Let's fight fire with fire, and so he goes back, where it all started.
D3rLord3 goes all the way down to that mine where it all started. He knows that way of entering was unusable now. He needs to repeat all his steps one more time in order to get to whatever it was.
So, he does it only to be meet with silence. "What," he asks out loud.
The Golden Gates are now more like brass than that beautiful color they used to be.
It was already strange that there was no whispers and no feeling of being followed. But he still hoped that everything would be fine. He still goes further into the darkness.
The gates don't make any sound.
He goes into the void, which feels like going into open space without oxygen. He feels that his lungs are desperate for air, but he can't breathe – it's just feels too much to him.
"The knight always comes back to his King." D3rLord3 hears something says it. It's a soft whisper, that barely audible.
"What?" He repeats himself.
And then it's happening – he can almost feel the color. He can taste it. Everything is yellow, and he still in the darkness at the same time.
"I called for you." says The King in Yellow. His voice is everywhere and D3rLord3 is sure, that he can hear Him not with his ears, but mind.
"What do you mean you called? I– I just wanted to sleep!" He can almost hear the laughter that escapes The King's lips.
The King in Yellow is definitely not a human. He is not even a God – that concept feels like nothing to this creature covered in yellow clothes. It doesn't exist as something. It is something.
"Do you think it was a coincidence?"
His mind is slow – if it was a human, it would be the human, that drowned in swamp. Raising a hand (to think a single thought) is so damn hard. So painfully slow.
"I did." He hears himself saying.
"You an interesting creature. You, humans, are so contradictory – you know your lives are short, and yet you all are so desperate to keep living."
"That what makes life worth it." He doesn't even care anymore. He just wants to sleep.
"I suppose so."
So D3rLord3 asks a question that was puzzling him from the very beginning.
"Why me?"
The King smiles. Well, He doesn't, but D3rLord3 thinks He does.
"It's not me choose you. It's you choose me."
"How could I even choose you?!" He screams, thinking that it's all a bad dream. It would be nice if it was a dream. That means he's able to fall asleep.
"Human, I think you should talk to me more polite," says The King and His tone is so aggressive that D3rLord3 actually thinks he is going to die. "You are so smart and yet you are so stupid." continues The King. "Do you think you're special? Do you think you're one of a kind?"
"No." He starts to understand. "Of course, no."
"And you weren’t. Not until you decided to play along with my game." The King in Yellow laughs. "Do you think I called exactly for you? No, the first time you came because you decided to. You didn't listen to warnings. The book, for example."
D3rLord3 feels like he's dying. His mind is spinning around and he can't stand. His own actions led to this. It is all his fault.
"And now, you are my knight in shining armor. I think you were always looking for me, even if your human mind cannot grasp it. Look at you: your armor is golden. You are in knight armor. Do you think it's a coincidence?" The King in Yellow talks to him like he is a little child.
D3rLord3's legs can't hold him so he falls on his knees. He's shaking.
He is scared. He was brave and where that bravery brought him to? He was doomed from the beginning, when he saw the moss. Curiosity killed the cat, and now it's going to be the cause of D3rLord3's death.
"Do not be afraid." says The King in Yellow reaching out His arms to him. "I'm not going hurt you. You are my knight after all." He cups D3rLord3's face by His cold golden hands.
D3rLord3 is tired and scared. He lost count how many nights he spent restless and sleepless. He cannot take it anymore. He just wants to be left alone. To forget about everything what happened. To stop worrying about his life, about the other person, who will find this. That person will face his own fate and he cannot help him. He just prays that that person will listen to him and run.
If only he knew. He wouldn't even go near that mine. He wouldn't even choose these clothes. It was his favorite armor, but now it feels like shackles on his body.
"And as a good King and Ruler, I let you sleep. I should look after my knight."
And D3rLord3 falls down, feeling numb.