Anathan lay inside the sleeping pod that had been arranged for him, the soft beeping of the monitors quietly tracking his vitals.
He couldn't stop thinking about the Hollowed. The image of them clung to him like a shadow. If his wand were ever destroyed, he was sure that would be his fate too.
'What an encouraging instructor, really...'
Ever since the induction ceremony, he hadn't seen a shred of optimism in the academy's teaching methods. Just tough love, strict expectations, and brutal honesty.
'Is the world harsh, or is it the people in it... or maybe both.'
A wave of drowsiness suddenly overtook him. Heavy and immediate, it dragged at his limbs until even he couldn't fight the pull. His eyelids dropped before he could think twice, and he finally gave in to the sleep.
Then, darkness.
A mechanical female voice echoed in the void.
[Welcome to the Dream Realm, Anathan.]
There was still nothing but blackness around him—until the sensation hit. He was falling. Then, the cold came. Water rushed up around him, filling his nose and lungs, choking him.
Despite the disorientation, Anathan held himself together. His wilderness training kicked in. Pushing through the panic, he managed to break the surface and suck in a desperate breath.
Still floating in the freezing water, he summoned his wand. It appeared in his right hand with a familiar weight.
"Lumos!" he shouted.
A brilliant light burst from the wand's tip, searing through the darkness.
Anathan scanned his surroundings. To his right, he caught sight of a curved surface. Maybe a platform or ledge. To his left, something worse. A rushing form, too large and fast for comfort, was surging through the water. And underneath it all, through the crashing waves and pounding rain, he heard a scream. It wasn't human.
'The light!'
"Nox."
He extinguished the spell instantly, plunging the world back into black. But he had seen enough to memorize where the surface was. Kicking hard, he paddled through the water with everything he had. The enhancements granted by being Awakened made him faster, stronger, and he was closing in. But so was the monster behind him.
In that moment, he whipped his wand toward the anomaly, acting on pure instinct. What came after was a sudden force, a violent burst, and his body was hurled forward, carried by a powerful wave. A heartbeat or two later, he slammed into solid ground.
But the surging waves didn't stop. It had flooded the surface, and though Anathan could feel it beneath his feet now, the current was still dragging him.
He reached out wildly, trying to grab onto something, anything.
His first attempt failed. Then the next.
But on the third try, his hand caught hold.
He held on tight for dear life.
He was neither drowning nor breathing, just stuck in the space between. The waves turned more violent. Somewhere in the dark, blows sounded like continents shattering.
Anathan, likely caught in the middle of a war between titans, silently prayed to whichever god could hear him.
'Please! Have mercy! I promise to be good, please!'
***
Minutes, or maybe hours, passed. Anathan had lost track of time, still clinging to the ledge that had saved him. He didn't know whether it was pure luck or some kind of divine intervention. But he was alive.
Cold. Naked. Shivering.
And yet, somehow, still warm with the stubborn flame of life.
The storm had passed. The monstrous titans, too, seemed to be gone. But the darkness remained, thick and impenetrable. He still couldn't see anything.
Curled in on himself, arms hugging his bare torso for warmth, Anathan sat shivering as he tried to make sense of what had just happened.
'This... this is the Dream Realm,' he thought, his breath coming in shallow, trembling gasps. 'But I don't remember anything like this, a starless night. Right... There was a region called Stormsea. But it had constellations that at least gave a sense of direction.'
He shook his head. The idea that clouds were blocking the stars didn't sit right with him. Not in a sky this vast. Not without at least one break in the cover. Therefore... the suspicion lingered.
'Summoning light was a bad idea. A really bad idea.'
Now he knew he couldn't afford to fall asleep, not with the possibility of nightmare creatures still lurking beneath the ocean.
Well, that, and the fact that he had no way to dry himself.
The irony wasn't lost on him. A Wizard… and not a single spell in his arsenal for something as basic as drying off.
"Fu–fuck this pla–ce," he muttered through chattering teeth.
He focused on staying awake. Staying warm. Or at least, not dying from the cold. He curled tighter, clutching his wand like it could will heat into his bones.
Then, after what felt like an eternity, dawn came.
Like a miracle.
Light pushed its way through the sky, casting everything in a pale, muted gray. Though it brought warmth, it wasn't the golden sunshine he was familiar with, just enough to banish both the night and the dark ocean.
Literally.
Anathan couldn't help but rise to his feet, stunned by what he was witnessing.
The dark ocean was behaving... strangely. It was receding rapidly, draining away as if some massive hole had opened beneath it. The water vanished faster than seemed natural.
And the surprises didn't stop there.
As the sea disappeared, the true nature of this strange land was revealed.
Red coral, vivid, sprawling, and impossibly vast, covered the landscape in every direction, except for the elevated surface Anathan was standing on. Towering white bones jutted from the coral here and there, mixing into the crimson like shattered ribs in a pool of blood. Thick strands of dark seaweed clung to the exposed terrain like heavy curtains, strangely untouched by the retreating tide.
'Madness... total madness!'
This place shattered every expectation he'd formed the night before. Whoever, or whatever, had designed this realm deserved some kind of twisted reward.
A small, detached part of Anathan couldn't help but admit: it was beautiful... in a nightmarish, corpse-strewn kind of way.
Anathan walked, intrigued, toward the edge where the surface dropped off into a cliff. But as he approached, he realized, this wasn't just an island, or some chunk of rock.
It was a colossal statue.
The design was unmistakably humanoid, broad, and intricately carved. The portion he had taken refuge on was a flat, featureless surface, likely where the head once sat. The rest of the structure stretched below, a silent monument half-swallowed by coral and time.
Anathan stared back and forth between the statue and the surreal, coral-infested landscape that had emerged with dawn. His thoughts churned, weighted by a single conclusion.
'I'm in a Death Zone.'
Now it made sense why there was no mention of this place in the Academy's lectures, or even buried in the depths of the library archives.
No one had ever made it back to tell the tale.
A grim expression settled on his face.
"Curse the gods," he spat. "Curse them all."