Chapter 167

Sophie's eyes opened once more to the world of fog. Upon seeing where she was, she became extremely giddy with delight. She wasted no time calling out, "Hello? Mister owl? Are you out there?" When silence was all that greeted her back, she called out a few more times. However, all that greeted her was more silence and the undulating movement of the fog around her. As time passed, and she stared off into the fog, Sophie got more and more anxious. That was, until she remembered what Nat had told her. The fact that owls were regarded as the silent predator of the skies, and would rarely make a noise. Once that came to mind, most of her anxiety disappeared. Thus, she felt safe and confident to just go out exploring.

Of course, she had forgotten most of what her two new mothers had told her about the dreamscape. After all, they had only explained it to her once, but in what could only be described as a word vomit. There was so much said that Sophie did not even catch a quarter of it. Thus, she started walking through with no worries. After all, the owl had come through to save her last time, why wouldn't it do so again?

As she walked more and more, the land around her slowly changed. The fog fell back to reveal carpet, desks and chairs all around her. As she walked more, she came across windows, stretching all along the walls. There was no view to even talk of, as the fog sat ever present just outside of them, but it was clear she was in some sort of big business building. She couldn't even tell how high up she was, just that she was very clearly not on the first floor. A door was marked that stairs were behind it, right beside an elevator. Weirdly enough, neither had a mark or sign saying what floor she was currently on. Not that she noticed that, as there were so many shiny and interesting things sitting around that she had not seen before. Various types of ferns were situated around the space, different office tools spread across the desks, and plenty of chairs to roll around on. As she was but a little girl, she could not help but start playing around, using one of the chairs like a giant scooter and riding all over the office.

Just as she was riding past the washrooms, she stopped abruptly. Not due to anything she did, but because there was the first sound that did not originate from her. The sound of a toilet flushing echoed out of the bathroom, the sound cascading into her ears. At first, she was excited when she thought someone else was there. But when the sound of water running in the sink did not follow, she started to get nervous. Her father had always made sure that hygiene was the top of her priority list when she was young, causing her to brush her teeth three times a day, minimum. Thanks to that, she thought that it was common sense and decency for everyone to wash their hands and make sure that all possible germs were cleaned off. However, that nervousness quickly became fear when a goblin walked out of the bathroom, toilet paper stuck to the bottom of their feet. As the goblin lazily scratched their ass as it walked out, Sophie could not help but have her breath hitch out of fright. Slowly, the goblin looked up directly at her. As their eyes widened, the goblin let out a shriek. One that sounded worryingly of joy and enthusiasm.

The shriek broke Sophie out of her stupor, and she immediately ran down the hallway of cubicles. She ran towards the only place that she could think of to either get out of there to safety. Coming up to the elevator, she tried mashing the button, hoping that it would open before the goblin caught up to her. Turning to look back from whence she came, she saw that it was no longer just the one monster. An assortment of goblins and hobs had come out of the bathroom, with more still following them. Seeing the horde of monsters running towards her, she ditched all hopes of the elevator arriving in time. She couldn't even hear the motor running or any other sound that it was even working.

She turned away from the big metal doors and burst through the door beside them that led to the stairwell. As she came up to the stairs that led downwards to the lower floor, she stopped, turned and started running up. As on the landing below her, she could see three orcs slowly making their way up the steps. That all changed though with the burst of noise both from her slamming the door open as well as the shrieks that followed behind her. Eventually, she ran all the way up to the roof, bursting out the door that gave access to the open sky. She ran to the far side of the roof, only to see no way off the perilously high ledge. Turning around, she froze immediately where she stood. Monsters started slowly filing out of the door, taking their time to approach her as if they had already got her. Having seen monsters rip the limbs off people and torture them until they died, among other things, Sophie figured that death to these monsters would be far more horrible than whatever was over the ledge. And so, she turned back around and jumped off the building.

As she did, the shrieks behind her quieted down into nothing, but there was no quiet for her. Over top of the sound of wind rushing past her ears as she descended towards the fog below, a multitude of sounds rang out around her. But these did not fill her with more fear, instead they removed her fear entirely. Varying calls of owls, ones she had heard Natalie reproduce while they were waiting for Shannon to wake up came from every direction. Then, to her delight, over a dozen owls of varying sizes came out of the fog, and flew around her. One by one, they latched onto her limbs, slowing her descent, until the last one grabbed hold of her ankle. Then, they started ascending, flying off into the sky together. As Sophie enjoyed the moment of flight, the light around her brightened, until she passed back into deep, dreamless sleep.

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Viktor, Saganatsu, Eeleater, John, Hades, Onean, Neal, Sebastian, Sir Hellington, Adam, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 50 patrons, which I will then spend more time each month writing some side stories and shorts that show other perspectives throughout my stories!

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