In The Abyss As A Toon Character

Dante blinked, and his surroundings gradually came into focus; after a few seconds, his view solidified and now was just blurry. The air was filled with the soft laughter of children, the gentle rustle of leaves, and the distant sound of playful chatter mixing with what appeared to be, the creak of the swings.

The world around him whirled, with the colors bleeding into one another before snapping into focus. He found himself seated on an ordinary swing in a children's park, with the twilight casting a warm, golden glow over everything, including his face.

He clutched the swing's cold metallic surface with his hand, "I..." The words tangled in his throat; why couldn't he speak? He blinked, scanning the playground for answers, "Where am I?" he finally choked out.

His body tensed as if bracing for an impact that never came, but... why was he tensing? "Wasn't I mere seconds ago fighting for my life..." His eyes darted around, inspecting everything to get a grasp on his reality, anything that could serve as a clue. A park. Trees. Parents calling to their children.

"Hey."

Dante instantly turned to the noise.

A girl sat beside him with excessively extensive pink hair that seemed to flow like a river of cotton candy, almost touching the floor. She turned to him with her eyes reflecting genuine worry, "What's wrong?" she leaned slightly, shielding him from the faint sunlight.

Many questions flooded into his brain, but he struggled to find the words; his mind was clouded with confusion, making his body instinctively cover his right eye with his hand, "I... I don't know..." he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.

He pressed his hands further, trying to piece together the jagged fragments of his mind. Memories flickered his mind like a dying bulb, fighting, blood, a sense of finality. How did he get here? And why did it feel both so alien and achingly familiar?"

The girl's brow furrowed in confusion at his answer, so she did what any normal person would do after seeing their friends acting weird, "Are you okay?" she leaned a bit closer while gently brushing his forehead for fever.

Dante flinched slightly at the contact, but he didn't pull away, "I... don't know." he repeated, feeling each word heavier than the last. He needed to think to place things in order, but each question, instead of being answered, just opened more questions.

His body was like a spring wound too tight. What was happening? His grip upon reality completely shattered. He needed to-

*POP*

Without warning, the girl reached for her phone, dialing a number with practiced ease; her voice was filled with frustration as she exclaimed with annoyance, "Su Yuan, Dante's having one of his type shit lucid dreams again!"

"Lucid dreams?" Dante, thinking of what she meant pressed his hand to his head, wincing as a dull ache pulsed through his head, and without realizing his other hand grabbed the swing chain so tightly it dug into his palm. "What?"

He couldn't hear what the voice on the phone said, but the pink-haired girl gestured wildly with her hands as she yelled, "AH?! I TOLD DANIEL AND YOU TO REMIND ME TO KEEP HIM IN CHECK! YOU ALREADY KNOW HE IS A DRUNKISH GUY!"

Dante's heart clenched at the mention of his friend's name; a wave of guilt washed over him as he tried to associate the name. He watched as the girl berated Su Yuan, leaving with frustration and exasperation.

The girl sighed heavily, slumping her shoulders as the rant ended, "It's only you, your hangover, and me... again..." Seeing how he didn't reply anything, the girl continued the one-sided conversation, "Daniel is busy saving our asses because no one like to do the project left at the university, and Su Yuan is busy with her family-"

Her words bounced off of him like raindrops on the stone, barely causing some erosion. He glanced around the park; kids played in the distance, the howling wind moved the trees, and a dog casually peed on the hydrant.

Everything...

It was so painfully ordinary.

Dante's gaze continued to drift aimlessly around the playground, taking in the vibrant colors and the sun hues that slowly faded away in the sky, reminding him of a sailor over the distance. He felt a strange sense of detachment as if he were merely a spectator in his own life.

'Heavy...' That's how Dante could describe what he was feeling; he felt like he was stuck inside something, yet at the same time freed. Like a contradiction... 'It's confusing...'

A rhythmic sound started to cradle him, blanking everything and slowly drowning him in its monotony, but- "BITCH!" yelled the girl beside him, snapping him out of this daydreaming.

The girl leaned closer, searching for any sign of recognition, asking with concern, "Are you sure you're okay? Should I call an ambulance?"

Dante forced a weak smile, trying to push aside the nagging feeling of unease, "Is that a threat, or are you trying to help?"

Yet as he made that joke, deep down, he knew that something was terribly wrong; he was terribly frightened of not knowing what it was. As he swung back and forth, the weight of his own life bore down on him like a leaden blanket.

He couldn't shake the alien feeling that he was trapped in some kind of twisted illusion, a mask designed to shield him from the harsh reality.

The girl beside him seemed to sense his unease; after a few seconds of fixing her gaze on him, she softly said while moving to the swing next to his. "So, um..."

Gently, she kicked off, with her legs gliding through the air in rhythm with his, "Sometimes it's confusing, you fix on something of the past, those "happy" memories where you didn't realize they were a blessing until you fell down to hell..." She stopped after a few seconds, narrowing her gaze, "Okay! I'm not made for this. THE POINT IS! You're not alone, you know?"

"I know," he whispered, with his voice being barely audible over the sound of the swinging chains.

Together, they swung back and forth, hearing the rhythmic motion lulling the world into calmness until everything felt alright. For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself to forget the horrors of the world outside, to bask in the simple joy of a cheery day in the park.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the playground, Dante couldn't help but feel a sense of melancholy wash over him.

His gaze fixed back to the girl, and then a word escaped his lips without thought, mustered from a curled-up, buried, and sealed memory. "Thalassa...?"

The girl's cheeks flushed into an intense red, stopping her swinging as her feet dug into the ground. "T-A-L-I-S-S-A" she yelled, "TALISSA!, Thalassa is my name. Don't call me that in public!!!" 

Still disoriented, Dante rubbed the back of his head, lowering his gaze to the dirt beneath his swing, automatically mumbling, "Sorry…"

Talissa, already finding it extremely embarrassing and weird to be called like that in real life, asked him, "Seriously, though," she added with a quieter tone, "What's going on with you? This doesn't feel like one of your 'I got lost' moments. Did you have another one of your-- what's it called-- Alicia in Wonderland syndrome episodes?"

Dante hesitated; for some reason, his mind struggled to form a coherent explanation. For a few seconds, the question hung in the air, pressing against him like an invisible hand on his chest. "I..." he drew a shaky breath, trembling as he spoke, "I think... I just died."

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What's going to happen in the nutshell: (Click the comment to eat a spoiler about the next 3 chapters (Note 2: It's for a friend))