In the corner of his eyes, he saw that his son regained his balance and was completely fine.

  However, for him, he fell deep into the well while screaming in terror.

  He didn’t want this to happen. He didn’t want to disappear into nothing.

  Merik. Wake up.

  Realizing once again that something was wrong amidst falling to his demise, Merik felt that all of a sudden, time seemed to stop – more like, slowed down.

  Memories accompanied by all kinds of experiences all rushed into him once again, traumas and aspirations alike.

  Though these unfamiliar memories were overwhelming him again and again, Merik felt extremely alien to these distorted flashbacks.

  You promised. Merik. You promised.

  These whispers again.

  Time was moving at an extremely gentle pace and while falling down to his demise, all he saw was Timmy and Tina, staring at him while shouting frantically.

  They were his biggest regrets.

  If it weren’t for them, he wouldn’t have chosen... more.

  At the same time, Merik felt disgusted by his own undesirably tainted body and twisted personality.

  Claiming that they were his biggest regrets while they were his shining lights and sole purpose to live on, was just awful.

  As much as much his conscience loved to stay blind to his mistakes, he still couldn’t get rid of his lingering regrets.

  Regrets that came with irredeemable self-loathe.

  “It isn’t too late.”

  A heavy voice that echoed the well startled Merik.

  Merik felt that even through the countless indistinguishable echoes, he could make sense of the words perfectly.

  Seeing himself yet to fall to his demise and even floating in the mid-air, Merik had no choice but to respond to this unfathomable voice.

  “What do you mean... not too late?”

  The moment he replied the ownerless voice, he felt like he didn’t belong to himself anymore.

  He was no longer him as he could no longer control himself.

  He belonged to the voice now.

  Merik. You promised, Merik. You had to...

  The voice started to laugh loudly in amusement which made the ancient well to shake from its vibrations.

  “Offer me your vision and whatever your Wish is, shall be granted.”

  Instantly, Merik started to imagine his most longing dream with the two children in a beach house, living merrily.

  They were alone, free and happy without an ounce of worry in the world.

  It was vivid; as clear as day.

  He tried to grasp the dream in desperation but it was slowly slipping away from his reach.

  He feared no more.

  “I... I will offer my...so, I Wish...”

  Right as he was about to offer, a hand seemingly slapped his face, appearing out of nowhere.

  Merik. You unbelievable dork.

  All of a sudden, he was no longer Mallory, the two children’s mother.

  "I am a man. A single man with not even a girlfriend.

  A proud Overseer of Peace, his Majesty’s loyal subject, Light’s law-abiding citizen.

  I have my mentor, and a city to protect.

  I have my own unsettled promises to stay faithful to.

  Fulfilling my life to the fullest and won’t settle for anything less.

  I rage, I scream, I despair and yet, I press on.

  I am alone but with strength and perseverance as my companions, I am warm.

  I am me and no one else for I am Merik Ashenwood.”

  He regained his sense of self again with the help of that whisper and abruptly tried to escape before the offering was complete.

  He understood that the voice made a deal with Mallory, the latter seemingly offered her “eyes” and considering the events that he had just gone through, things were about to turn out for the worst.

  There were a lot of cases where people, knowingly or unknowingly, made deals with unknown existences which led to a lot of unfortunate situations.

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  Still, they weren’t always so hard to deal with, considering even the Dream abomination from the previous day was easily subdued.

  For Merik, at least, even if it was lucky.

  He noticed that he was a ghastly figure once again, floating mid-air above the still-falling Mallory.

  He was out of danger for now but he couldn’t leave things like this.

  He needed to get down to the bottom of this – literally.

  He no longer heard the eerie voice, nonetheless, decided to follow the mysterious voice from where it sounded from.

  Strangely enough, time was at the same slow pace; Mallory still hadn’t fallen into the water so Merik floated straight into the filthy, muddied water ahead of her.

  Every cell inside of him was begging him not to go inside even as a ghastly figure.

  Diving in, Merik didn’t get wet from the filthy water; however his vision was still obscured by the muds.

  The well seemed like it was built eras ago and the surrounding was filled with such unsettling air which made Merik beyond uncomfortable.

  He could understand why Jackman himself strongly forbade them from approaching it.

  He was like a fish blindly swimming through the never-ending muds of water.

  Right then.

  He saw some writings on the walls. He promptly went to check up on those.

  They were written in a form of language; which seemed like drawings of certain creatures. He could make sense of a snake, a bird and a weird four-legged creature but the rest were too hard to make sense of.

  Some were almost completely wiped off from the wall.

  Despite these aged depictions, there was an eye-catching symbol which was right in the middle of all.

  It was a bleeding eye.

  Exactly at this moment, Mallory fell into the cold and deep water.

  Merik tried to save her out of instinct only to see his hand go through her body since he was just a ghastly bystander.

  He could only hopelessly watch her get slowly submerged into the deep, cold water.

  Staring at her drowning figure, Merik started to discover the way how this weird realm worked.

  Here, he was a bystander who could likely become trapped inside if he indulged with the feelings of the people here.

  Weirdly enough, he already lost sense of himself, believing that he was Mallory.

  As he was pondering pointlessly, something happened.

  Instead of drowning or swimming back to the surface, she froze.

  Merik saw that she was clearly alive but she no longer moved and instead, let the water encompass her.

  Merik’s heart skipped a beat. He knew that the deal she made had been put into motion, after all.

  Under his watchful gaze, the muddy water started to seep into her in a form of vicious whirlpool and he saw that Mallory was slowly transforming into something else.

  Mallory’s facial expressions seemed peaceful at first but with passing time, her eyes abruptly opened with full of doubts. And extreme worry towards impending horror that was about to befall her.

  She screamed to her lungs but unfortunately, her mouth was already closed shut.

  There wasn’t any air for her here; the only way for her to breathe was through her neck.

  Out of horror, she tried to scratch her necks, only her vision to be flooded with her own dark red blood.

  Her neck was tattered beyond repair with only some thin strands of fleshes barely attached.

  The intense pain made her scream again but this time, her voice came from the depth of her. The way it echoed was the same as that mysterious voice before.

  Her face became disfigured beyond recognition and gradually, her eyes full of fear and panic shut off, as if they were tightly sewed by invisible threads.

  After suffering for what she felt like eternity, her neck was healed as good as new but her voice was no longer there.

  Instead, her voice was now a mind-numbing shrilling that came from the deepest depths of herself.

  “Timmy, Tina.”

  The voices came out in an unrecognizable mumble and Merik was staring at this whole nightmarish terror with his mouth wide open.

  It was the first time that he was terrified to this extent, therefore he couldn’t contain any of his calm demeanors.

  It was plain cruel.

  The next moment, the “creature” was already climbing up the well while scratching the wall with its inhumane claws.

  Merik floated to the top of the well to at least warn the poor children.

  Even as a bystander, he hoped that there must be something he could do.

  “Little bug trying to leave my nest when he himself came uninvited.”

  Merik almost lost consciousness after hearing the voice; it was the same voice as before but this time, a lot more ominous and full of chilling contempt.

  Now, he was somewhat resistant to the mental assaults since the only things that he had been facing this night were nothing but claws and countless waves of mind-attacks.

  If he were to be exposed to this voice from the start, he would lose his consciousness instantly.

  Though, he was barely hanging on.

  He didn’t linger, not even for a moment. He rushed to the top of the well without even looking back and even after getting out, he still floated high up to the sky out of terror and cautiousness.

  His survival instinct had been his best friend since the old days, so when it told him to run, he ran.

  “I was lucky the voice didn’t attack me while I was exploring. It could have got me, then. But, why? Even so, could it really hurt me in this form?”

  Knowing that he couldn’t get any satisfactory answer just by pondering, he gave up.

  “Oh.”

  Merik floated down once again to check up on Mallory, Timmy and Tina.

  He wasn’t positively hopeful but what he saw further made him even more dejected and disheartened.

  He finally understood everything.

  In front of him was a woman in a tattered white dress – regrets written all over her face. On her right shoulder was her son whose name was Timmy and around her left armpit was her daughter, Tina. All three of their bodies were intertwined like they were forcibly merged. And each was eerily alive in their own way.

  The woman, seemingly, the mother had five irregular sized eyes on her face and each one was overflowing with tears.

  Still, a creepy yet tragic smile was tightly plastered to her grotesque face.

  Meanwhile, the little eyeless children were crying while making incomprehensible noises.

  Their sufferings and pains were evident and yet nothing could seem to stop or at least ease them anymore.

  Their mother whilst being the culprit of their misfortune, was also immensely being tortured by her own mistake.

  Out of desperation, she made an irreversible mistake for her life and moreover, her unquenchable thirst for a better life.

  She made a Wish.

  Instead, what she got was a ceaseless agony for as long as she lived and worse, she even dragged her two pure and innocent children down with her.

  “PLEASE. HELP. US.”

  Merik’s heart sank with their pleas for help.

  “What is happening out there? I told you not to go near the goddamn well. Bastards. Why can’t you just be quiet and asleep?”

  A drunk middle-aged man suddenly came out of the house. He was gulping up on a bottle and slowly wiped his mouth.

  Then he saw the creature. He saw his wife.

  Countless glass shards from the broken bottle were scattered all over the ground in the next moment.

  Jackman was trembling uncontrollably and squealed to his heart:

  “Mallory? Wait. No. Monster. A MONSTER!!!”

  Then he ran away.