[b][color=darkslategray]"Do you want to live?"[/color][/b] A voice said, drifting through his consciousness. His eyes slowly opened, but he couldn't see a thing. [b][color=darkslategray]"I know not what you're life has been, but surely this is no worthy end."[/color][/b]

He could vaguely see a shadowy form in front of him, maybe someone he knew.

"What's the point of living, if all that waits for me is darkness?" He said.

The figure leant over him, and he could feel that they were smiling.

[b][color=darkslategray]"What if I take you beyond the darkness?"[/color][/b] The figure continued, [b][color=darkslategray]"There are ages past this, worlds beyond yours, wouldn't you like to know them?"[/color][/b]

"I don't want to know anything." He said. "I just want to sleep..."
[hr]
He woke up suddenly. Red light filtered through the leaves, giving him enough illumination to see. He looked down at himself and saw his own familiar form. The small, striped body with his dainty limbs. He felt relieved as he crawled out of the bush he was in.

[b][color=yellow]"That was a weird dream."[/color][/b] He said, [b][color=yellow]"It feels important somehow."[/color][/b]

He got up to his feet and shook himself awake, shaking off some black leaves which had come with his body. He'd decided to sleep in a bush after he'd gotten lost in the forest, and it had been quite comfortable.

[b][color=yellow]"Hnnng, where's my blobfish?"[/color][/b] He said, stifling a yawn. He plodded over to the back of the bush and rustled around for a few seconds before finding something squishy. He pulled back but it was kind of stuck. He dug in his back legs, sqaured his shoulders and started to heave. With a [i]plop![/i] the blobfish came away from the bush.

"Life is a relentless torrent of filth and misery." It said dramatically.

[b][color=yellow]"Are you repeating your lines now? You said that just before I went to sleep too."[/color][/b]

"The darkness hides the truth of all things."

It was pointless to keep going like that, the blobfish wouldn't respond with anything other than edgy one-liners so he just put it in his mouth and trotted along through the forest. After he'd woken up, he'd spent a lot of time wandering from place to place. He sort of knew where he was going but he got blind-sighted every now and again.

[b][color=yellow]"What's with this forest, anyway?"[/color][/b] He said aloud.

It was rather odd, because all of the trees he'd seen so far were relatively normal while pretty much every plant in this forest he was in was entirely black. But still, he wasn't going to let it get him down. Surely he'd find something interesting in the forest.

[b][color=yellow]"Oh, there's a clearing up ahead!"[/color][/b] He said, surprisingly clear even through a mouthful of blobfish.

He upped his pace and broke through the trees to find see a Mansion in the middle of the woods.

[b][color=yellow]"Wow, there was something!"[/color][/b] He said.

It didn't really look abandoned but there wasn't anyone in it at that time. Maybe they were all out. He trotted over to the front door and inspected it. They were some pretty ornate double doors but the decorations were kinda dark. Black trimmings and that kind of thing.

He wiggled a little and jumped up, grabbing onto the door handle. He pulled it down with some resistance, and the door swung inwards. The entrance hall was quite a creepy sight just by itself. Most of it was covered in shadows with the only light coming from windows above threw everything into a red tint.

[b][color=yellow]"Wow..."[/color][/b] He said, a sparkling starting to come into his eyes, [b][color=yellow]"This place is so cool!"[/color][/b]

He merrily trotted off into the house, in search of whatever secrets it may have.