"HAAAH!" Eliot sprang up with a start, completely disoriented. His body was completely drenched in sweat, his breathing erratic as he tried to calm his troubled mind but to no avail. At that final moment, after it had spoken those words to him, something returned with full force, something that he should have felt from the very beginning. FEAR. The sheer terror that suddenly gripped him froze his mind and made it impossible to even think. He could only stare at... whatever that creature was in absolute horror.
"You're awake, that's good," he heard, then looked to the side only to realize someone was actually sat across him, though the person seemed to have been sleeping and had just woken up due to the noise he made.
"Huh?" he blurted, and tilted his head only to realize he was actually seeing things. He blinked once, twice, and then for the third time, but the sight was the same. A grey girl. A LITERAL HUMAN THAT WAS GREY IN COLOR.
"Calm down, you're not seeing things. Just so you know, you are also grey," she said, sensing the reason for his suddenly disturbed expression.
"What?" He looked at his arm only to realize she was telling the truth. He was grey as well. But when looking, he realized he was bandaged at the abdomen, and as though on cue, a mind-numbing, bone-deep pain assaulted him to which he could only gasp with widened eyes.
"Sorry, just don't try to move too much," the girl gave a strained smile and said, to which he clenched his fist and gritted his teeth, tightening his abdomen to reduce the pain. But it was still there, however, it did ease a little.
"Haah, haaah, haah," he panted, his vision a bit bleary before once again returning to clarity. He looked once again at the girl... GRAY. This wasn't a dream, was it?
"Don't tell me it's another nightmare," he thought, hoping against all odds that this wasn't some nightmare like before. The scare he received from that one seemed to have traumatized him for some reason.
"I only have a few potions on me. Sorry, but I have none to spare. The bandage will just have to do for now," said the girl, to which he kept silent. His gaze then drifted to what appeared to be... fire? No, it couldn't be, fire shouldn't be white.
"What is this?" he asked.
"Um, fire?" responded the girl.
"Really?"
"Yes, it's weird I know, but that's how I met it as well," she said. "By the way, what's your name?" she asked, cozying up to the fire.
"...Eliot," he responded.
"Eliot, huh, that's a beautiful name," she said, to which he gave her a dry stare.
"What?"
"Is that supposed to be an attempt at flirting?" came the question, to which she gave a scandalous expression.
"Why would you even say that?" she asked.
"I don't know, maybe because I have said those very lines before in an attempt to flirt? Also, that's not what a girl would normally say, " He tilted his head and said without a modicum of shame, to which her mouth hung open.
"Coughs... um, Gina, you can call me Gina," she said, and then fell silent.
Crackle.
"...Where are we?" Eliot, who had now fully regained his bearings, asked, though he had already guessed it.
"The Mystic World. Given you are here, you must have been in Karendel," she said, to which he nodded.
"So this is it?" he asked.
"Well, I woke up here, so it must be... though you are probably the only human I have encountered since I woke up here," she said, to which he frowned.
"How long have you been here?" he inquired, shifting closer to the fire to feel the warmth.