Dreamland

I opened my eyes and looked around. I was in a hallway. I walked along the wall, and the wooden hallway branched right.

I stopped for a moment, hesitating about which way to go, continue or turn back. I decided to continue. To the right was a closet that held brooms and other cleaning utensils. The door was open. A giant ant was looking at me from inside the closet.

It moved its giant mandibles ready to attack me. It could snap my neck with one bite. I screamed in panic as loud as I could:

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

The ant waved menacingly its feelers and answered with a high pitched noise:

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

I tried to run away. I turned, hit a water bucket, and fell on the wet wooden board. In the movement, I knocked over the water bucket spreading its water all over.

“Oh dear, did you hurt yourself?”

I simply froze in the puddle of water, not daring to move. Did the ant speak to me?

“I was just cleaning the hallway, I am so sorry for the water bucket! May I help you?”

I turned slowly and looked at its giant hexagonal eyes. The ant grabbed me and raised me with ease in the air.

“Please don't tell Erin I made you trip over, she would cancel my cookies and I like them so much!”

I nodded, trying to stand on my feet that were currently balancing in the air. She looked at my dejected apparition, putting me gently down. I just escaped from the guts of a giant snail, my equipment has been almost completely corroded and I was covered with foul-smelling liquids.

“Oh, you are looking for the bathroom?”

I nodded. She stepped forward, holding her mandibles apart.

“This way!”

Does she prepare to bite me? She led the way and I followed cautiously behind looking from time to time at her mandibles. I said 'her' because she was wearing a kind of a skirt, but it might have been a Scottish ant with a kilt.

I was slowly recovering. At least she did not seem to want to eat me immediately, even if her mandibles looked very dangerous.

“You know, I am new here!”

The ant said that proudly. She added then, a bit unsure:

“Is Aaaaa a greeting from where you come from?”

I nodded.

“Oh, I see! Then it was good that I answered the same way. I was unsure if I was behaving the right way! You know when we keep the mandibles apart, we are smiling. I am currently smiling!”

"Oh!"

"You see, different people have different ways to express themselves! I am glad I learned something new today!"

We entered a steamy room. An elf was sitting in a kind of a cauldron whilst firewood was burning under it. They are cooking her alive!!! She wants to put me in the cauldron too!!!

I tried to run, but my feet slipped on the wet floor.

“Aaaaaa!!”

The ant grabbed my hand not letting me escape and addressed the elf:

“Aaaaaaaa! Good morning Ceria!”

“Good morning! What is happening?”

“This young lady would like to take a bath, is it possible to share your cauldron?”

“Oh, for sure. Can you please put more firewood on the fire, else it will very soon be freezing cold here?”

“Of course Ceria." - the ant turned and looked at me as I was not ready to enter the cauldron. She turned back to Ceria - "I think she is very timid and is waiting for you to greet her!”

“Greet her?”

“Yes, just say Aaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“You mean just scream Aaaaaaa? This is their greeting? Aaaaaaaaaaa!”

Her scream was rather moot.

Ashamed, I stepped into the cauldron. This ant made me step by my own volition into the soup cauldron! The water was steaming hot on the sides but freezing cold in the middle where the elf was.

“Just mix a bit the water to suit you, I will go to the next cauldron, the one boiling now over there!”

“But... but why? What do you do?”

“I exercise my ice magic!”

“Oh, I see.”

I did not really see, but... I shrugged. Strange way to exercise magic.

I entered the vacated cauldron and started to wash.

“Would you like to take breakfast here, or will you eat in the dining room?”

The ant waved her feelers looking at us.

Ceria screamed from the other cauldron that was starting to freeze:

“Dining room! Come with us, the others will join us, it will be fine!”

I nodded to the ant:

“Dinning room.”

“You are room number...?”

I said the first number that passed through my head.

“Seven.”

Ceria protested:

“No seven is my room. You must be in room number two. Pinky is painting now the numbers too artistically, you may get confused. That is a two not a seven!”

“Oh!” - I nodded - “It is my fault. I just came from a fight. I thought a monster ate me, and now I found myself here. I don't know where I am. I am totally confused!”

“Don't bother dear. Anybody may read wrongly those room numbers! Now, thinking about it, maybe my room number is not even seven, was there not a one in front of it? Oh, Mrsha has renumbered them yesterday!”

As I stepped out from the cauldron she pointed with a finger:

“Bath towels are over there, bathrobes the next row!”

“Oh, thank you!”

I dried myself with a bath towel then took a bathrobe whilst Ceria was moving in another boiling cauldron where the ant was adding more firewoods under it.

Just when I wanted to exit the room, a giant walking crocodile entered, blocking the way.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaa!”

The crocodile looked surprised at me, stepped back, and hit with the shoulder a cupboard. Scores of various soaps fell to the ground. The ant screamed at the crocodile.

“Relc, don't panic, she is only greeting you! That's how it is done in their place!”

“Oh” - the crocodile answered turning his face to me, then took air into its lungs and screamed - “AAAAAAAAA!”

OK, that was much louder.

He said -“Relc!” - crushing my poor hand into his.

“Ow, Cala!”

“So Owcala, you are the mysterious traveler from room number ten!?”

Ceria contradicted him as I was just nodding:

“No, Owcala is room number two!”

OK, I was nodding to what Ceria said.

He protested:

"No, that is Mrsha who renumbered all, so that she sits in room number one!"

He then turned towards the ant:

“I am hungry! I thought Erin is here!”

Then he turned towards me again - “Can you cook?”

“Ahm? Yes? Ah, poorly...”

The ant saved me:

“Don't pester her Relc! There is food already prepared!”

She then came to us:

“Everything is prepared, I only need to put the dishes on the table, come, follow me!”

I followed with Relc behind me. Ceria screamed from her cauldron:

“Don't you dare eat my food Relc!”

I arrived in a giant dining room. A goblin was singing and playing an electric guitar in a corner. A lot of people were having breakfast. I was seated at a table with the giant crocodile, and the ant started to fill our plates. Oh, it was such good food!

Where the hell am I? Am I in heaven? Or is this hell? Did I die?