A bearded man sat atop a desert dune staring out at the pure blue, cloudless horizon. The bright sun baked all in sight. Its blinding light was held at bay with his hood pulled down over his eyes. The far stretching desert sands blew in the wind. He watched as if time had no meaning. Simply breathing in fresh air as the sun slowly boiled his blood.
He had gone into self-imposed exile years ago. He left his brothers at the monastery when he started to feel different. A strange presence tugged at his mind that simply felt wrong. So he left, to protect them. Or at least that's how he justified it. Honestly, he didn't know how to explain it. For over a hundred years he acted as a guardian of the world.
The wind howled as a strong gust swept by him. It had been a long morning meditating. With the sun rising higher it was time to take shelter. He stood up slowly, still deep in thought. With a deep sigh he turned. Down below between two dunes stood his humble abode.
It didn't look like much. Yet, that was the point. Built with strong magic to keep the sands from fully engulfing it. The building looked like a run down, abandoned shack.
He leaned forward and allowed gravity to take hold, sliding down the dune's slope. His hooded cloak fanned out behind him, sending sand flying in all directions. Inside the shack, he closed the door. The only furnishing was a simple table with over turned chairs and a broken lamp.
Hardly the place to make your home. He kneeled and lifted a floor panel. The wood lifted without even a low creek, revealing a hidden hatchway. The monk preceded down the ladder. The floor panel closed above him and a gust of strong wind sent sand through the window, covering the floor. Effectively hiding half of the shack. It now truly appeared as nothing but an abandoned building.
The magic continued down below causing the oil lines to ignite. By the time he reached the bottom his actual home glowed with flickering fire lit torches. He smiled; <i>
one doesn't live as long as he without having the simple luxuries in life
.</i>
This hideout was one of many throughout the world. The order of monks was a secretive bunch. Yshomatsu had made this particular hideout his own personal training grounds. Though it has been quite a long time since he had used it as such. Long ago he had undertaken a quest with his apprentice that had changed them both. Changed them in ways they didn't truly understand. One of those changes kept them from aging.
Slowly he made his way into his bedroom, removing his cloak. He hung the dusty old thing on a hook and moved towards an old piece of metal smoothed to perfection. The metal reflected his unnaturally glowing green eyes back at him. He looked worse than he felt. Deep sleep didn't come to him anymore. In his gut he believed it was because of the presence he felt.
The secretive monk order held one secret they coveted above all else. A way of communicating spiritually. They learned how to tap into the unconscious dream state everyone went to when they slept. With this gift they spread the order out among the world. Though not with goals of conquest mind you. They became the world's supernatural protectors. While human affairs carried on uninterrupted, empires rose and fell, the monk order remained.
Yshomatsu sighed, he had left that life. While he still cared, he couldn't risk their lives. This presence he felt reminded him of the night his life changed. The whole reason the order had evolved out of human affairs in the first place. He rubbed his aching eyes, knowing full well that he had to try and sleep. The bed had never looked so inviting. The moment his head hit the pillow his thoughts drifted until sleep enveloped his mind.
That never happened to him. The process normally took at the very least an hour to occur naturally.
~*~
Yshomatsu opened his eyes and regretted it, immediately.
"You've got to be kidding me."
He was laying on the ground inside a cave. Which by itself wouldn't cause pause. The problem being, he recognized the cave. It certainly didn't stir good memories. In fact, this particular cave traumatized him. The very site that caused his life to change. The last time he saw the cave he was thirty-six years old. In a way the monk remained thirty-six for the next hundred years. The event always that caused this sent a shiver down his spine.
He truly wished he could remember everything about that night. He had entered the cavern with his old apprentice. And woke up after blacking out. He spent countless years trying to reconstruct the memories, to no avail.
The unnatural green tint to the world didn't calm his nerves. It meant he was in the dream state. Since he didn't meditate and enter consciously that meant he simply dreamt this time. Years of entering consciously had given him a sense of awareness unlike any other person when they dreamt. He sat up as the environment changed around him.
A thick fog bellowed out from deep down the tunnel. Slowly the dense condensation filled the cave as unnatural vines sprouted and grew all around him. The air dropped in temperature, worsening his chill, yet he couldn't see his breath. The cold fog had a foul taste to it. It felt like evil lurked around every corner. Yshomatsu had never felt anything of the like in all his years. However, it also felt familiar in a way he couldn't describe. The thorny vines spread along the cavern walls until he couldn't recognize the cave anymore.
With a feeling of dread, he stood up cautiously. Only to find his movements to be sluggish. He struggled to control his actions unlike usual when he entered the dream state by meditating. Slowly he walked towards the cave's exit. A wall of vines blocked his escape. He could still see out between the twisting, thorny vines. What should have been a mountainous desert region appeared to be a lush jungle with towering trees, all covered in vines.
Perhaps it was the unnatural vines that distorted everything, but he didn't recognize the humongous trees. The outside environment appeared to be from a completely different world entirely.
<i>Is it possible?</i>
He wondered. <i>
Could other worlds exist beyond their own? Or was this someone's twisted dream he stumbled on?</i>
Before he could linger on the thoughts, a distinctly feminine giggle met his ears. He turned to look deeper into the cave that he desperately wanted out of. Dense green fog and twisting vines met his gaze, nothing else. The strange fog didn't fill the entire space as it had before. Instead it condensed upon the ground. It became thickest the closer it got to the dirt. He could almost see perfectly up from his waist. Below, though, it was so thick he couldn't even see the vapor move as he moved kicked his feet.
The thought of exploring deeper into the cave made him feel queasy. He also didn't want to risk touching the vines blocking the exit behind him. The conundrum of the entire situation puzzled him. Had he simply gone without sleep long enough for his mind to go bonkers? He decided nothing good would come from any of it, but his curiosity won out in the end.
It felt like he walked on clouds as his sluggish movements headed deeper into the cave. In fact it felt like he was walking on moss instead of dirt. Yshomatsu looked down and kicked repeatedly. The fog refused to disperse for a quick glace at the ground. Afterwards he could feel the fog almost tickling his leg, as if his cloth pants weren't there. If he concentrated hard enough, he could feel fingers caressing his flesh. Absurd, he knew despite the situation.
Deeper into the cave he went, plagued by his memories. The last time here he had simply been a monk with an apprentice on a quest. They were tasked to hunt down a cultist group that worshiped some type of demonic creature. He didn't remember exactly what had happened. Neither would he find out on this trip, he imagined. For nothing was as it had been that day, or was it? Did the same supernatural change happen once they entered back then?
With each step he felt a greater pressure push behind him. As if the dense fog attempted to push him forward, causing his dread to rise with each passing breath.
<i>"Come to me..."</i>
A sultry voice echoed from deep within the cave. Ysho had been so deep in thought that the voice startled him. He froze mid step. His instincts told him to turn around and get out. Yet, his body, refused to obey. His thoughts, they were starting to drift away with each breath. He struggled to focus.
