The Sealing of the Cataclysm

Kranjax knelt on the small, disjointed crag that was suspended in the starry void. His toes spread in his boots, as if trying to find purchase through their soles. He wiped sweat from above his eye with the back of his hand, sword still at the ready. His other hand had dug into to ground, as if anchoring to the fabricated reality with which he was infinitely more familiar. He glared up at the cracked and decrepit portal as both a hot and cold sweat ran down his back.
  Pulling himself to his feet, he corrected his ragged breathing.
  It wasn't a singular thing, but a collection. A chain of traumas and horrors, rooted in the mind, spanning realms and dimensions. It was not a place he wished to see again, and yet he was utterly unable to sever its presence from the Nexus
  The place had an unsettling presence, which, given some of the places he'd visited before, didn't strike him as terribly odd. His demeanor was equal parts fear and curiosity, and given that his curiosity naturally ran high, he was obviously on alert after setting foot in this relatively unknown domain. What he knew, what everyone knew, was that it existed, and not much else.
  It all started with a moment in what he thought was a daydream...
  A mere handful of meters in, standing in stark contrast to the damp and dusty floorboards of a place he did not know, was a stone grey brick wall. It was thick and sturdy, the kind of thing that it would take nothing short of explosives to penetrate. Kranjax drew his regalia while willing it into the form of a great hammer. He took it in both hands and swung. The recoil travelled up the shaft of the hammer and into his hands, forcing him to drop it. "I'll.... try again...." He looked at the fallen hammer, and by the time he picked it up, it was a rocket launcher. He quickly vetoed the idea. Any time he'd tried to use such a thing in those games that let you freely enter items for use... it always backfired spectacularly. "The boring way it is, then..."
  The regalia flashed in a briliant light for a brief moment before settling into his hand as a pencil. He placed it against the wall and began to draw a line. His consternation manifested instantly as the faintly glowing silver pencil began to turn grey, its glow fading by the second. He pulled back reflexively. His writing instinct would not let him mistake this. It was the physical manifestation of 'writer's block'.
  The wall began to crumble slightly, and before he knew it, he'd been sucked through the small hole that had appeared. When the spinning stopped and he was able to attempt to regain his bearings, he found himself in a void. It was like standing on obsidian colored ground under a starless, moonless sky. He detected the smell of burnt... something. It was food of some sort, a few of them, bread, sugar, chicken, and a few exotic things he hadn't encountered, but they'd all been burnt beyond recognition. At least that's what he could discern from the scent. While this was disheartening, it felt... out of place, as if it was meant to be upsetting, just... not to him.
  The breeze also carried the scent of flames yet still burning. He turned his attention in that direction. almost at what should've been the horizon, was a burning village, and an enourmous tree on fire. He didn't think twice and kicked off the opaque floor as fast as he could, trying to close the distance. He felt like a place foreign to him, yet increasingly less so, was in danger. He moved against the wind, faster than a gale, and approached. A hand here, a foot, elongated ears, corpses. They weren't human, but goblins. He did his best to summon water to douse the flames, but nothing heeded his command. He tried to summon his regalia, but it was still dull, unable to manifest his wish.
  Kranjax began reaching through rubble, but the strength provided by the Nexus was not present here. Now that he was closer, he noticed it was... silent, unnaturally so. The roar of flames did not reach his ears. The screaming one would expect from a scene was not audible. It was as if everything here was muted. He opted to do what he could and summoned a wooden staff. It was carved and lacquered, and rooted in Outworld. So long as he could reach that realm, he could conjure anything he possessed. He found the first creature closest to him that showed signs of life, in this case, movement. He ran over and attempted to pry away some of the debris covering them with his staff. He recognized the creature instantly; a friendly female goblin he called Illy. Her mouth was open, yet no words could leave. She was utterly silenced.
  Kranjax's eyes opened wide in shock and fear, as he was overcome by a feeling of absolute dread, of an absolutely inevitable disaster....and like the wrath of another was about to bear down on him with inconceivable force. He reached for the goblin, whose skin began to shift from brownish-green hues to a pattern reminiscent of a night sky, and as he tried to move her, he passed through. As he noticed this, he realized that he no longer felt the 'ground' beneath him, and he sank little by little as if falling into slime. He tried pulling himself free, but any contact he made with it only resulted in him sinking faster. He held his breath as his head went under, hoping against hope that he'd at least be able to breathe in a few moments.
  He fell through the sludge and directly into free-fall, able to breathe, and at terminal velocity. "Wings would be great right now!" He groaned, though he had the idea, they would not manifest. He could see the ground now.... drawing ever closer by the second. Wings, a parachute, a plane, jet boots, no flight mechanic he could think of would manifest, until he thought of squirrels.
  Materializing in a powdered sugar 'poof' was a white squirrel. Though he could not remember its name, Kranjax knew of this creature. He was swamped with dread all over again. If this thing appeared, then he must be in dire straits. "Well shit on a biscuit..." as he muttered those words, he immediately considered just how disgusting that sounded, and yet, the smell of fresh-baked biscuits (sans shit) came to mind. His descent slowed and the rapidly approaching ground began to blur. His mind began to race, trying to figure out the oddities of this place, and why only certain thoughts had responses, before he heard a notification ping, pulling his conscious to Outworld.
  He glanced at his phone, its battery critically low, screen dimmed. The charger was missing, again. He wouldn't be able to find out what pinged until he found it, but he glanced across his desk... work beckoned, and it definitely was not his favorite thing. Knowing his luck, his writer's block would vanish and he'd get hit with a torrent of ideas while in the middle of a complicated task. Either way, he'd lose momentum for one of them. A heavy sigh, stretch, a momentary closure of eyes, and he found himself back in the place with that forboding feeling... but this time... worse.
  He found himself running through the woods, chased by characters well known to him. Some had lists of things that needed to be done in Outworld, others had papers that resembled Swiss cheese... undoubtedly plot holes that required attention. They were accompanied by enormous ravens made of smoke, the guardians of the Blue Lotus Nexus core. They were loyal to the masters of the hotel. For them to be chasing him meant he was deemed an enemy. Their noxious form could disorient anyone, and he didn't have the luxury of being anything short of fully lucid for this ordeal. His mind raced as he ran. His brief returned to Outworld and then back to what he assumed was the thing known as the Cataclysm had somehow made the disastrous area worse. It's as if it fed on negativity from reality. Should he become aware of the negativity of others, it could even be possible to manifest their concerns. It was a very possible scenario that he did not want to consider. Currently, he had much higher things on his list to think about, such as the fact that he was approaching a cliff. He cursed internally at Reason, whose themed idea was at least partially responsible for the delerium that was this delve into the Cataclysm. Moments later, a non-human hand appeared, grabbing his arm, and pulling him to some place he was not familiar with.
  The voice, familiar, yet threatening in a way he had not yet heard, flowed into his ears along with the feeling of wrath he'd glimpsed before. "Kran... Kran... Kran... dafuq did you do to..." The Brownie (not of the edible sort), was glowering at Kranjax, his eyes glowing.
  "Think... of the devil...." He immediately pulled out the pencil, which had recovered to its original state, and ejected himself out of the Cataclysm, to its gate. "Once Reason leaves, putting a lock on that thing..."
  He immediately felt the eyes of wrath upon him as he confirmed his surroundings and readied the pencil, which was now the size of a quarterstaff. "If it makes you feel any better, it isn't canon..." The glowing eyes of Reason followed him right out of the Cataclysm. "Oh, and thanks..."