Ethan's apartment was quiet, but the silence was deceptive.
Inside his mind, there was noise, a constant, low hum.
These were his new "possessions," the few nightmares he had captured, each one imprisoned in an intellectual cell, pulsing with its own energy of terror.
The "Paranoia Entity" was the strongest, a black jewel of systematic doubt. The others were weaker, mere fragments of childhood fear or professional anxiety.
Ethan sat on his sofa, eyes closed, taking a mental inventory of his forces.
It was like looking at a small, scattered military unit.
I have a general... he thought, feeling the cold presence of the Paranoia Entity. And maybe a few specialized officers. But you can't fight a war with only officers. I need infantry. Lots of them. Fuel for the battles to come.
Where would he get these soldiers?
He could no longer rely on chance or wait for new clients. Time was not on his side.
Somnus Corp was hunting him, and every day of hesitation was another day they drew closer.
He opened his eyes and stared at the cracked ceiling of his room.
The solution was obvious, and disturbingly so.
If the nightmares wouldn't come to him, he would go to them.
He stood up and began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind his back. The internal dialogue began, the argument that always preceded his major decisions.
"You're going to break into the dreams of ordinary people? Innocents?" asked the voice of his conscience, which had now become faint and weak. "People who have nothing to do with Somnus or your personal war?"
The other voice, the voice of cold logic forged by desperation, replied, "And what about them? They're having nightmares anyway. I'm not creating them, I'm just collecting them. I'm doing a cleanup, and I'm taking a small payment for it: the fear itself."
"This isn't cleaning," the first voice countered. "This is theft. You're stealing a part of their experience, of their minds."
Ethan stopped in front of the window, looking out at the glittering sea of city lights. Millions of minds dreaming beneath him. A vast ocean of resources.
"It's a tax," he whispered into the silence of the room, his words sounding like a new vow to himself. "A fear tax. They pay it for a protection they don't even know they need. Little pricks, trivial nightmares they'll forget in the morning. But for me, these pricks... they are the ammunition I need."
He had made his decision. There was no more room for hesitation.
He lay down on the sofa again, but this time, he wasn't focusing on a specific target.
Instead, he relaxed his consciousness, allowing himself to sink into the gray "Sea of Silence."
Now, he wasn't looking for a single lighthouse, but scanning the surface, searching for any ripples of anxiety or fear. He was like a fisherman casting a wide net.
He quickly found one. A sharp wave of academic anxiety. It was close and clear. He dove toward it.
He found himself in an endless examination hall. A young student, perhaps around Ethan's own age, was sitting there, staring at an exam paper whose questions were changing and morphing into incomprehensible symbols. The clock on the wall was spinning at a frantic speed.
The nightmare here was small and pathetic. An entity made of torn exam papers and liquid ink was jumping on the student's shoulder, whispering in his ear: "You're going to fail. You didn't study enough. Everyone will pass but you."
Ethan didn't interact with the scene. He wasn't here to help.
Coldly, he extended his intellectual hand, formed a net of purple shadow, and cast it over the small entity.
The entity let out a sharp, faint shriek and tried to escape, but the net tightened around it.
With a clench of his will, Ethan pulled the entity out of the dream, feeling it join his mental stock, like an angry, terrified insect in a jar.
In the dream, the student suddenly felt a burden lift from his shoulders. He looked around in confusion, still anxious about the exam, but that nagging voice in his head was gone. He wouldn't remember anything when he woke up, perhaps only feeling that his sleep was less troubled than usual.
Ethan withdrew immediately. The entire process took less than a minute.
He didn't stop. He went straight back to the Sea of Silence, feeling the cold satisfaction of efficiency.
He cast his net again.
This time, he found a different fear. A fear of public speaking.
He found himself in the dream of a woman in a business suit, standing on a stage in front of an audience of silent, faceless shadows. She was trying to speak, but no sound came from her mouth. The nightmare here was an entity like a huge knot wrapped around her throat, squeezing every time she tried to talk.
The process was faster this time. Ethan didn't hesitate.
He seized the suffocating entity and tore it away forcefully. He felt a slight resistance, then it broke. He added it to his collection.
He continued in this manner. Again and again.
He dove into dozens of dreams that night.
He harvested the fear of heights from a construction worker's dream. He harvested the anxiety of loneliness from an elderly woman's dream. He harvested the childhood terror of the dark from a young child's dream.
With each harvest, he felt himself changing.
It was like working in a slaughterhouse. At first, every scene is shocking. Then, it becomes just a routine.
He became detached from the emotions he was harvesting. He no longer saw the people and their stories; he only saw the resources that could be extracted.
His humanity was slowly eroding, evaporating with every soul he violated, replaced by an icy coldness, a machinelike efficiency.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he felt his mental exhaustion reach its limit. He pulled his consciousness back for the last time and returned to his body in the apartment.
He opened his eyes. The room was still dark and quiet, but his mind was now buzzing with life.
He could feel them. His new army. A swarm of small, petty fears, buzzing and writhing in their mental prison. They weren't individually strong, but their numbers... their numbers gave him a new sense of power.
He stood up and went to the window again. He looked out at the sleeping city.
But he no longer saw the lights of houses and cars. He saw a vast field, an endless field, planted with millions of fertile minds, each producing its own fruit of fear.
Tonight's harvest was bountiful.
"It's not enough," he thought, his inner voice no longer holding any doubt or hesitation. "This is just a mob, not an army. I need more. I need hundreds. Thousands."
He looked toward the horizon where the sun would soon begin to rise.
"Tomorrow night,"he promised himself. "The harvest will be greater."