Chapter 389: Secrets of the Male Mind

’Where the hell am-’ Valerie began to think to herself, however she had to quickly stop and cover her ears in desperation. The thought leapt from her mind and boomed through the air around her as loud as thunder, and echoed over and over as it travelled throughout the endless abyss, nearly deafening her in the process.

"Hello... Hello?" She whispered softly, tentatively testing the sound of the endless abyss. Strangely her speaking voice was normal, not choosing to deafen her like her internal thoughts did.

"Okay, looks like I’m monologuing then. Wonderful, five seconds in this place and already I’ve developed the habits of an insane person. Well, I guess it isn’t so bad. So long as I don’t start having actual conversations with myself, I won’t be actually insane. Right?" She asked, half joking.

"Right."

Valerie immediately whipped her head around in a panic, searching for whatever had just replied to her in her own voice. She stumbled across the waters surface, scrambling as she nearly fell over her feet in her panic.

Yet no matter where she looked, she saw no one. Nothing. Just endless water that stretched to an impossible horizon. That was until she looked down.

The reflection of herself in the tranquil waters of the Abyss, was not herself. Not exactly. It’s eyes were pitch black, and its cheeks were torn all the way up to the ears which allowed its large, razor sharp teeth to be on full display in a maniacal smile.

Although she had never actually seen herself like that, Valerie instinctively knew what this reflection was. It was Belladonna’s partial transformation, pushed onto her regular body.

It was strange and confusing. It was horrifying and disturbing. It was... waving at her.

The reflection wiggled its torn, clawed fingers at her in a wave and smiled more with its eyes, as it spoke again.

"Well... Aren’t you a delicious looking treat." It said, before cackling wickedly.

Valerie quickly looked away, shoving that to the back of her mind and instead focused on where she was. The Abyss, as strange as it was, was also familiar. It reminded her perfectly of Sylvi’s domain, the domain of dreams and Illusions.

It was an educated guess to assume she was, for some reason, within Percy’s mind - or his mindscape if that’s what you want to call it. So all she had to do was control her thoughts, and influence it.

To start, this Abyss needed something. A way for her to parse Percy’s memories and his thoughts, to find out what the hell that bitch had done to him.

Clenching her eyes closed, Valerie drowned out the voice of her insane reflection as well as the booming, thunderous echoes of her own thoughts as she tried to harness and weaponise those thoughts.

The same sentence boomed over and over, becoming a storm within the endless Abyss of the male mind.

The thunderous storm of the same repetative thought was finally broken up by the rumbling of the watery ground beneath her, and the sound of something bursting through the water as the waves came crashing down.

With a smirk on her face, Valerie peeled open her eyes and gazed upon her mental creation.

’Princess Heights’ was proudly displayed above the double doors of the towering and regal hotel that now stood before Valerie. She couldn’t help but chuckle at the name, which was not entirely her fault as she had just tried to conjure up the hotel.

It was cute that was how Percy’s mind responded to her whims, almost as if he knew it was her doing it and was subconsciously adapting.

The doors to this towering hotel swung open on their own, prompting Valerie to climb the steps and enter like it was her own home.

Naturally it was populated by versions of Percy, all of them dolled up in the different outfits befitting their imaginary jobs. Butler Percy, Bellhop Percy with the funny little hat, Manager Percy. It was just a shame there was no French Maid Percy... Oh wait no, there he was. Ooh La La...

"I was wrong. That is the real treat. Why don’t we take a bite and see how it tastes~" Her reflection cackled at her from its place in the hotels well polished floors.

Valerie ignored it, letting this just be a treat for the mind that she burned in there for a later tasting, before she quickly moved on.

Thankfully in this mental plane, she was not burdened by her disease and could run without issue. Something that was very useful, considering how much space she had to cover with the literally endless corridors that filled this hotel, and made her instantly regret choosing this structure.

Darting from door to door, Valerie stopped occasionally to open the door and peek inside. Behind each door was not a well prepared Hotel room, but a memory.

Some of them were blurry, mostly the ones from early childhood that he couldn’t quite remember, whilst others were lacking detail from where Percy wasn’t paying attention at all.

More than once she had stumbled into a room that was completely pitch black, except for a young Percy sitting on the floor playing his games, with the vague sound of arguing echoing around in the empty room.

It was quite quickly clear why he tried to tone out as much as possible in those memories, and why the only thing he remembered was the games themselves.

The most annoying part was not Percy’s terrible selective memory, something that Valerie knew absolutely nothing about herself. It was instead that the rooms were in no logical order.

They were just dotted around with no rhyme or reason behind their placement. Something recent could be next to a childhood memory, something vague could be next to something he remembered perfectly and at-least 1 in every 5 doors was a theme song of some kind. Sometimes even multiple doors having the same theme song, because he listened to it that much.

It was this blind search that sent Valerie stumbling into a very familiar memory as she barged through the next door in line. It was a memory of the party. She could see Percy standing around, a bored expression on his face as he idly stuffed food into his mouth.

The room around him was just shapes, with no attention to the detail of the decorations, and the guests were not much better. Just faceless, vaguely humanoid figures all robotically dancing with each other or standing in groups chanting the word "business" to each other in the same voice.

Valerie rolled her eyes at this idiot, and turned on her heels to leave. But before she could exit, the entire room turned black in an instant.

She stumbled back in surprise, glancing around as she expected something to leap out at her from the darkness, when she saw herself.

Not her reflection, but the memory.

She saw herself standing in the entrance way of the party, not as a faceless blob. But in perfect, inexplicable detail.

She could see every wrinkle in her dress, which seemed to drain in the light from how black he remembered it to be, whilst it draped over her body that definitely didn’t look that good in the mirror.

Her smile, which Valerie remembered being awkward, full of nerves and embarassing as anything was completely different here. It radiated beauty, making her face - which looked absolutely gorgeous in the most inexplicable level of detail imaginable - literally glow like she was an angel descended from the heavens.

Valerie, the real Valerie, stood there in shock. Wearing an expression that was somewhere between awe and confusion, as she took in the sight of this alien version of herself. It looked completely fabricated and unlike anything she had ever seen in any mirror or photograph.

Yet... she could not sense a hint of deception or lies in his image in her. Still... She definitely didn’t look that good. Did she?

Valerie turned slowly towards the memory Percy, who was frozen with an idiotic look on his stupidly handsome face, and couldn’t help herself as she smiled softly. She reached out, caressing his cheek gently before giving him a gentle peck on the cheek.

The memory Percy blinked softly, before frowning and turning to look at her in dazed confusion.

"Ray? What are you..." He muttered, before his eyes lost their focus and the entire memory shook violently, as if it was experiencing an earthquake. The very next moment, Valerie’s body lurched backwards as she was ripped from the memory.

Her body launched out of the door and slammed into the wall opposite, as the door in front of her slammed closed.