Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 105: Ch103. Pain as a teacher (27) - Boogeyman

Chapter 105: Ch103. Pain as a teacher (27) - Boogeyman

Miles hesitated for a moment, a drop of cold sweat sliding down his neck.

How could he summon the hat and mantle when he knew what would happen? When he almost died the first time he dismissed it?

But...

"I can do that..." Miles broke the silence, hesitantly. "But if I do, I won’t be able to dismiss it because it-"

"Because it feeds on your essence, and you already noticed it, right?" Kurt interrupted, a smirk curling his lips upward. "Good. You’re one step ahead by knowing it. However-"

"I know it sounds repetitive, but how do you know so much about it, about the Hatter and Wonderland?" Miles cut Kurt mid-sentence, tilting his head as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

Kurt fell silent, and for the first time since Miles had met the guy, he looked down. There was no trace of any identifiable emotion in his eyes, other than cold, distant fear.

"Well, shit..." Kurt scratched the back of his head. "If you tell this to anyone, I’ll kill you, okay?"

Miles frowned.

"Y-yeah, sure, but wh-"

No.

It actually made sense.

Why else would a person like Kurt – dangerous, arrogant, nonchalantly deadly – say something like that to someone like Miles, even though Kurt knew very well that there was no one in Miles’ world who could say anything to rebuke him?

Miles had to force himself not to chuckle because the irony... Oh, the irony.

A deadly man like Kurt was afraid, and if he felt like that toward the Hatter, then Miles could only laugh, right?

Kurt dreaded the being, and Miles was stuck with it for gods knew how long...

"Do you guys have a Boogeyman back in your world?" Kurt asked, inhaling and exhaling deeply.

"Yeah, we have a few. Why?"

"If you have a few, then they’re not nearly as powerful as our Boogeyman..." Kurt let out a bitter chuckle before adding. "Because in our world... The Mad Hatter is our Boogeyman."

Silence unfolded over them like a blanket of nightmares, deadly quiet but ever-present, watching and listening to their every heartbeat.

Miles was almost able to listen to the blood coursing through his veins as the silence dragged on, and the weight of Kurt’s words clutched at his heart like a vice.

For the briefest of moments, even the languid sleepiness he felt seeping into his bones was violently shoved away, and he felt like every nerve in his body was electrified, the hairs on the back of his head standing on end as if to salute the shadows around them, the eerie blue fire dimming little by little.

"The Mad Hatter is... Your world’s Boogeyman...?" Miles finally broke the silence. "You mean... There are scary stories about him that your elders told the children for them to behave?"

Miles’ heart almost jumped from his chest to his throat, and then out of his mouth when Kurt laughed out loud, the shadows around them dancing with the fire, almost as though they were alive, laughing along with Kurt.

"No, kid... I wish it was this simple." Kurt finally looked up at Miles. "When I say that the Mad Hatter is our Boogeyman, I mean it." And after a few moments of pondering, as if he was weighing his next words, Kurt finally added. "The Hatter was a real entity in our world, the Boogeyman, to be more precise. His shadow loomed over us from when we woke up to when we went to sleep, terrorizing the kids who misbehaved, but even more... Instilling fear in the souls of those adults who dared to whisper the forbidden name."

Boogeyman? Forbidden name? The Mad Hatter was real in another world outside its story?

Miles felt his head spinning, but it could as well be just how sleepy he was. It was too much information for him to handle and assimilate all at once.

Not to mention the fact that Kurt knew more about the Hatter than he did, just like he had suspected.

"You okay, kid?" Kurt broke the silence that Miles had not noticed that he had caused. "You look like crap. How about we call it a day and get some sleep?"

Without knowing how to respond, Miles simply nodded, blinking several times.

"Yeah, don’t worry, kid. You’ll have plenty of time to mull over what you just learned in the next few days." Kurt chuckled. "Because from now on, I’m going to skin you alive with training, and I won’t stop until you’re ready to meet the crafters of Luna Sea and then The Horizon’s Oracle."

Before Miles could ask anything else, Kurt simply lay down on his side, and not even a second later, he was snoring quietly, leaving Miles with an insurmountable amount of questions swirling in his head like the sparks that his artifacts materialized from.

His body moved automatically, as though he was nothing but a robot by then, still unsure of how to... Anything. He lied on his back, and kept thinking, his brain simply unable to shut down, until he felt so overwhelmed by everything, that he did not noticed when darkness descended upon him, covering the entire world around him in a blanket of cold doubt.

***

When Miles opened his eyes, though, he was standing in a dark place, and little by little, as his vision focused, the place came to light.

It was the hidden chamber. Miles was touching one of the glyphs, but he did not feel like it was his hand reaching out to it.

’It’s not... Me?’

He tried to shake himself awake, but his body was suddenly unable to move according to his will. His heart began pounding in his ears as he tried and tried, but nothing happened.

Only the voice – his voice, but not his – echoing along the walls of the chamber.

"Poor thing... You might have been forgotten by them, but I still remember you. And soon... They’ll remember too."

"What are you doing, kid?" Miles heard Kurt’s voice behind him, and when he turned around – when the Hatter turned around – Kurt’s eyes widened. "Who the fuck-"

Kurt’s words were cut in half, along with his arm, as soon as the [Harbinger’s Scythe] descended onto him.