As Adam jumped in the hole, somewhere far away in a place he could not see, a young woman in her twenties was also entering Dreamscape through very different means.
'Is this the place she told me about?'
Looking at the dark Sea all around her, she couldn't help but shiver a little bit but still she continued swimming without hesitation.
This was the final place for her to truly graduate.
Only by succeeding in the task she was given would she become able to wield the power she was bestowed with no problem.
"Let's go."
.
.
.
—----
Despite what it may look like, or what his words and actions may seem at a glance, Adam had not jumped into this outrageously suspicious-looking black hole-like entrance just for the shits and giggles. He had done so with a calm and rational mind.
'Why didn't I use the 'Eye of Truth'?'
'Why did I take something with me that could wander effortlessly inside the Sea of Subconsciousness and wasn't warier of it?'
No matter how reckless he was acting currently, this was definitely not the standard way he did things. There was something really wrong with the way he had behaved around the White Rabbit who self-proclaimed that ever time was not able to chase down.
The only possible conclusion that he was able to reach was that his basis of reasoning and the usual analyzing character had become distorted or slightly affected by the Dream World.
Either way, the being called the White Rabbit was not something weak that he could easily beat and in fact from the power she had released just then while opening the rabbit hole or something similar in theme, Adam had come to the conclusion that the being was able to squash him to paste with no effort whatsoever.
If that were to be the case, then why did he still jump inside the rabbit hole despite a very ominous warning that was delivered to him from a very strange, illusive, and mysterious entity?
The reason was simple— because he desired to do just that.
Adam always wanted to follow a set of established logic, and always tried to think before acting, and thus it led to situations where he was overthinking every single thing and wasn't going anywhere with them.
He had the feeling that this was all he had been doing till now.
Thinking and thinking and overthinking ever since the moment he had awakened.
But sometimes… One had to let go of their hang-ups and inner restraints and just take a leap of faith.
The possible benefits Dreamscape could give him were too tempting for him to give up on them.
Perhaps it was greed but then again it didn't really matter.
'Damn, I think I am going to die.'
Adam laughed in a dumbfounded way as he finally went through the hole and after a long period in darkness, he was finally able to witness the light.
Sadly for him—
Whoosh!
The sound of the wind rushed in his ears and the feeling of gravity took hold of him.
The light of the sun blinded him slightly and the odor of the world filled his nose.
Without a doubt, Adam had left the confines of the Sea of subconsciousness.
From his position, as he looked down, all he could see was a giant chess piece filling the world that seemed to be as tall as a mountain and a ground littered in black and white cases as if he was above a giant chess board.
But all of this wasn't important.
The most important thing was that.
"Fucckkkk!!!"
Adam was falling.
—--
For Adam who was now used to flying, the current sensation that was filling him was something that he was all too familiar with but at the same time oh so different
But there was one great problem.
—He still couldn't use The World.
He couldn't block the wind from whipping at his face full force, causing his eyes to tear up and obscure his vision from seeing further.
He couldn't stop the gravity from taking a hold of his body and had to let it do its thing and make him descend further and further down.
Long story short— he was not able to fly as he would be able to in the outside world.
It was truly an exciting experience for him to be in a free fall like this, he had done nothing like this before. Moreover, the overall situation surrounding him was so debilitating that Adam almost lost his rationale for a split instant.
Thankfully, he was used to these types of fucked up situations by now that came his way out of nowhere and knew that all hope was not lost until the last second.
'Wings?'
He tried creating some wings on his back to fly in this scenario but he could not truly picture himself flying using wings as he had never done anything like that in reality before and had no experience with it.
The thing with dreams and illusions in this realm was that…the more blurry the image was in his mind and how less experienced he was with that specific image or action, the more Dream Force and energy the manifestation of that ability would take. He had a feeling that this would take too much of his energy and would leave him completely spent if he were to proceed further.
Not to mention his already established problems with using wings as flight tool as he had not done so before.
If so, perhaps there was something easier that he would be able to try in this situtaion.
He focused on his memory of using the power of 'The World', trying to copy the sensation of flying that he had experienced back in the real world as well as the sensations of using gravity to de-accelerate his body and make it float.
'I want to slow down.'
He succeeded, he was sure that he was having the right image in his mind while he invoked the power and he could also feel the Dream Force being consumed and the phenomenon unraveling in front of him.
But—
'Ugh…'
Rather than slowing down, as he wished to do so, he could feel that the gravity surrounding him was gradually increasing further and further and was putting tremendous pressure on his soul form, leading him to accelerate further into his fall.
His mind started to work in earnest and time seemed to have slowed down as he used one of his latent skills— 'Accelerated Perception' which allowed him to think through many things all at once.
He tried to understand just what was happening here right now until he finally remembered the events that transpired in the first book (Through the Looking Glass) that he had read about in Alice's adventurers.
'Ah…'
This world that he was currently entering, if it was really the same as it was portrayed inside the book then, in fact, the world was similar to what it would be through the other side of a mirror.
A world where rules were inverted and where the more Alice wished to run, the more she was unable to move.
Realizing this simple truth, Adam understood what he needed to do right now. This was a rather dangerous bet but he truly had no other choice to do here other than bet it all in this endeavor. He was already able to see the square ground-shaped platform approaching fast in his tunnel vision and he didn't want his first death in this world to be through splattering on the ground.
'Increase the gravity and accelerate me.'
He thought strongly in his mind, trying to change the laws of the world through his Dream Force, and then…
He was able to distinctly feel the change coming.
His body had become far lighter than before and the speed at which he was reaching the ground was slowly going down until the speed simply slowed down to a snail's crawling pace and he finally reached the ground and landed on his feet.
The moment his feet touched the ground, Adam felt that a great weight had been taken off his chest right then and there. He was able to safely land from who knows what height he had traveled while reaching down here.
"I survived."
"Indeed. I must say this was worth looking at."
"Who!?"
Adam was taken off guard and swirled to look at the source of the voice. He also filled his whole body up with the power of 'Death', preparing himself to attack the originator of the voice at a moment's notice.
His eyes landed on a woman and she smiled when she saw him looking at her with such hostility,
"Who am I?"
She shrugged, as she watched him looking at her with clear surprise in his eyes while sitting on a luxurious chair and sipping on her tea,
"I am the White Queen."
"....Eve?"
Adam was truly left with no words to speak of at seeing his grandmother inside this place.
(AN: Okay guys, I hope you like the Dream arc for now. This won't be long as I said this is just an introduction. You can say that the Dreamworld will be a very important part of this story. In fact, you can even consider it as a story within a story, as weird as it sounds. This will be a rather interesting plot point of this story and we will follow Adam's adventure through different places.
Though don't worry. Natasha is still the main point of this arc.)
Updat𝓮d from freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.co(m)