A good while later.
With the round coconut in tow, Little Chipmunk set off into the depths of the canary Painted Skin's dream.
The dim, beehive-like nest was riddled with passageways.
A layer of downy material covered the flesh-like walls, which writhed incessantly. It resembled the digestive brushes lining an organism's small intestine.
Though the two had only just begun exploring this dream, the little squirrel—who was actually the Dream Thief—had been right: tentacle entities were everywhere. They were all manifestations of the canary Painted Skin's soul and consciousness. In the short time they'd been searching, the two had already seen dozens of them.
These tentacle entities resembled noodles tangled together in boiling water. Their fine tendrils interwove, making them look both mysterious and dangerous.
This dream had been formed by the shallow world of instinct within the soul, so most of these instincts carried a trace of mental awareness. Like white blood cells, they made decisions about trivial matters in the canary Painted Skin's daily life, but they also served as the soul's most basic guardians. They drove out and cleansed stray thoughts, dangerous impulses, Split Personalities, and the rare invading foreign presences like Reilo and the Dream Thief.
"It's just as familiar as I remember."
The little squirrel gazed around the dream world and sighed.
"The difference is, last time my clone forced it into a brief hypnotic state before breaking in. That made its soul and consciousness extremely cautious, and the entire world went on high alert. I did everything I could, but only made it to the second layer of its dream before I got trapped. Then, once it woke up, a mysterious force pulled me right out of its body."
Coconut listened quietly, making no reply.
As someone who had personally helped extract the invading