"Before I teach you anything," Damien said, "you need to see what really happened to your parents."
He walked to what I'd thought was another painting on the wall, but when he touched the frame, it flickered to life like a TV screen. The image was grainy and dark, like security camera footage.
"This is impossible," I said, staring at the moving picture. "The police would have found any surveillance footage. I read every report, saw every piece of evidence."
"The police saw what we wanted them to see. This is the real footage from your parents' house that night."
The timestamp in the corner showed the date I'd never forget - the night my world fell apart. I watched my childhood home appear on the screen, the same house I'd grown up in, the same front yard where I'd learned to ride a bike.
But something was wrong with the image. The shadows were too deep, moving in ways that didn't match the street lights. And there was a feeling coming from the screen, a sense of wrongness that made my skin crawl.
"I don't want to see this," I said, but I couldn't look away.
"You have to. It's the only way you'll believe what I'm telling you."
On the screen, my parents were visible through the living room window. They looked normal, like any middle-aged couple watching TV after dinner. But then Mom's head snapped up, like she'd heard something. She said something to Dad, and they both moved out of frame.
"They sensed them coming," Damien said quietly. "Your mother was always sensitive to void feeder presence."
The camera angle shifted, showing the inside of the house. I didn't want to think about how Damien had gotten this footage, or why it existed at all.
Mom and Dad were in their bedroom, but they weren't acting like normal people preparing for bed. They were moving with purpose, pulling things out of drawers and closets. Things that definitely hadn't been there when I'd cleaned out the house after their funeral.
"What is that?" I asked, pointing to the silver objects Dad was handling.
"Weapons. Forged specifically to fight creatures from the nightmare realm."
The weapons looked like guns, but they were made of some kind of metal that seemed to glow with its own light. Mom had what looked like a sword, but it was too thin, too elegant to be any earthly blade.
"This is fake," I said, but my voice sounded weak even to me. "Special effects. CGI. You're trying to manipulate me."
"Keep watching."
The bedroom windows exploded inward.
What came through wasn't human. They moved like liquid shadow, pouring into the room like smoke that had learned to hunt. But as they solidified, I could see their true forms - tall, impossibly thin creatures with too many joints and fingers that ended in claws that looked sharp enough to cut through steel.
Their faces were the worst part. Almost human, but wrong in ways that made my eyes hurt to look at them. Like someone had described human features to an alien who'd never seen a person before.
"Void feeders," Damien said. "They exist in the spaces between dreams and reality. They feed on life force, but they prefer the energy that comes from people with supernatural abilities."
On the screen, my parents were fighting. And they were good at it.
Dad's weapon fired bolts of silver light that cut through the creatures like they were made of paper. When the light touched them, they screamed - a sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once, like nails on a chalkboard mixed with a dying animal.
Mom was even more impressive. The sword in her hands blazed with white fire, and every time she swung it, the creatures recoiled. But it was more than just the weapon. Light was coming from her skin, her eyes, like she was burning from the inside.
"That's not possible," I whispered. "People can't do that."
"Your people can. Your bloodline has abilities that go far beyond walking through dreams."
There were too many of them. For every creature my parents destroyed, two more poured through the broken windows. Dad went down first, overwhelmed by a mass of claws and shadow. His scream cut off abruptly.
Mom fought longer, but she was protecting something. The camera angle shifted, and I could see what she was guarding - a circle drawn on the floor in what looked like silver paint. In the center of the circle was a photograph.
A photograph of me.
"She was creating a barrier," Damien explained. "Using her own life force to hide you from the void feeders. It was the only way to keep you safe."
On screen, Mom was losing the fight. The creatures had surrounded her, but she kept fighting, even as they tore into her. Her light was getting brighter, more intense.
"Your mother was one of the most powerful dream walkers ever born," Damien said. "She chose to burn out her life completely rather than let them take you."
The light from Mom exploded outward, filling the entire screen with white fire. When it faded, the bedroom was empty except for two bodies that barely looked human anymore.
The police reports had called it a home invasion gone wrong. They'd found evidence of break-in, signs of struggle, but no trace of the real killers.
I was shaking. The footage was too real, too detailed to be fake. But accepting it meant accepting that everything I'd believed about my life was a lie.
"This is insane," I said, but my voice cracked. "This doesn't happen. Monsters don't exist."
"Don't they?" Damien touched another frame, and the image changed to show me various crime scenes. Murders that had been labeled as random violence or animal attacks, but now I could see the truth. The claw marks were too precise, too organized. The wounds were made by something that hunted with intelligence.
"How many people have died because I didn't know?" I asked.
"Your mother's barrier kept the worst of them away for ten years. But every time you used your abilities, every time you entered someone's dreams, you left traces they could follow. The women who've been dying - Sarah Mitchell and the others - they all had contact with your power."
I thought about all the trauma victims I'd helped over the years. All the people whose nightmares I'd walked through, trying to heal them.
"I've been marking them for death."
"You've been trying to help. You couldn't have known."
But I should have known. If I'd been stronger, smarter, more aware of what I really was, maybe those women would still be alive.
"Show me," I said. "Show me this nightmare realm. Show me what I'm really dealing with."
Damien studied my face for a long moment. "Are you sure? Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Your connection to that world will become permanent."
"It's already permanent, isn't it? That's what you've been trying to tell me."
"Yes."
"Then show me."
Damien nodded and walked to the center of the dining room. He closed his eyes and held out his hand to me.
"Take my hand and don't let go, no matter what you see."
His skin was warm when I touched it, but there was something else - a current of energy that ran between us like electricity. The moment our fingers interlocked, the world around us began to dissolve.
The dining room faded like smoke, and I felt myself falling through darkness. Not physical falling - something deeper, like my soul was being pulled away from my body. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't find my voice.
Then the falling stopped, and I was standing in a place that shouldn't exist.
The sky above us was the wrong color - not black like night, but a deep purple that seemed to pulse with its own light. The ground beneath my feet looked like glass, but when I looked down, I could see other landscapes reflected in it. Cities, forests, oceans, all layered on top of each other like a broken mirror.
"Welcome to the nightmare realm," Damien said. His voice sounded different here, deeper and more resonant. When I looked at him, he seemed taller, more imposing. His eyes had gone completely black, and there were marks on his skin that hadn't been there before - symbols that looked like they'd been carved with silver light.
"This is real," I said. It wasn't a question anymore.
"This is where dreams come from. Where nightmares are born. It exists parallel to your world, connected but separate."
The landscape around us was constantly shifting. One moment we were standing in what looked like a vast library, the next we were on a mountaintop overlooking an impossible city. Then we were in a forest where the trees grew downward and the roots reached toward the purple sky.
"It changes based on the collective unconscious of your world," Damien explained. "Every human dream, every nightmare, every fantasy adds to the landscape here."
I could feel something in this place responding to my presence. The air around me was getting brighter, and I could see silver light beginning to emanate from my skin.
"What's happening to me?"
"Your true nature is surfacing. Here, in this realm, you don't have to hide what you are."
The light was getting stronger, spreading from my hands up my arms. It didn't hurt, but it was intense. Like being filled with liquid starlight.
"Damien, this is too much. I can't control it."
"You don't need to control it. Just let it be."
But as the light grew brighter, it attracted attention. I could hear things moving in the shifting landscape around us. Creatures that had noticed the sudden flare of power.
And they were coming to investigate.
The first one that appeared looked like a cross between a wolf and a shadow. It had the general shape of a large dog, but it was made of darkness that seemed to eat light. Its eyes were the only solid thing about it - red pinpricks that stared at me with hungry intelligence.
"Ignore it," Damien said. "It can't hurt you here."
But more were coming. Shapes that twisted and changed as they moved, things that looked almost human until you saw too much of them. They formed a loose circle around us, watching with predatory patience.
"Why are they just standing there?" I asked.
"Because you're not prey, Aria. You're predator."
As if responding to his words, the light around me pulsed brighter. One of the shadow creatures got too close, and when my light touched it, the thing screamed and dissolved.
"I can destroy them?"
"Your bloodline was created specifically to fight creatures like these. You're a natural enemy to anything that feeds on fear or nightmare energy."
But even as he spoke, I could hear something else approaching. Something that made all the shadow creatures scatter and hide. A presence that felt ancient and powerful and focused entirely on me.
"Damien," I said, "what is that?"
Before he could answer, a voice filled the air around us. It was female, rich and cultured, but there was something underneath it that sounded like wind through a graveyard.
"My lost daughter," the voice said. "You've finally come home."
The landscape around us shifted one more time, reforming into what looked like a throne room. Massive pillars stretched up into darkness, and the floor was made of polished black stone that reflected the purple sky above.
Sitting on a throne made of what looked like crystallized dreams was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.
And the most terrifying.
She appeared to be in her thirties, with silver hair that moved like it was underwater and eyes that were the same purple as the sky. Her dress was made of shadows that seemed to have weight and substance, and when she smiled, her teeth were just a little too sharp.
But it was the power radiating from her that made me take a step backward. She felt like a storm contained in human form, like something that could reshape reality with a thought.
"Eleanor," Damien said, and I could hear the tension in his voice.
"My faithful guardian," Eleanor replied, her gaze never leaving me. "You've done well. She's even more beautiful than her mother was."
"Hello, grandmother," I said, though the word felt strange on my tongue.
Eleanor laughed, and the sound was like silver bells mixed with breaking glass.
"Grandmother? Oh, my dear child. I'm so much more than that."
She stood up from her throne and walked toward me. With each step, the light emanating from my skin grew brighter, as if responding to her presence.
"You have my blood," she said. "My power. My responsibility to protect the balance between dreams and reality."
"I don't want any responsibility. I just want my normal life back."
"Normal?" Eleanor smiled. "Darling, you were never normal. You were born to rule."
She reached out to touch my face, and I felt power flow between us. Not uncomfortable, but overwhelming. Like touching a live wire made of pure energy.
"The void feeders are growing stronger," she continued. "Soon they'll be able to break through to the human world permanently. When that happens, both realms will be consumed."
"What does that have to do with me?"
"You're the key to stopping them. Your power, combined with mine, can seal the barriers forever."
"And the cost?"
Eleanor's smile widened. "You'll have to leave the human world behind. Take your place here, as my heir and successor."
I looked at Damien, who was watching this exchange with an expression I couldn't read.
"What happens if I refuse?"
"Then both worlds die," Eleanor said simply. "And everyone you've ever cared about becomes food for the void."
The light around me was pulsing now, responding to my emotions. I could feel the power in my blood, the strength that came from this impossible heritage. But I could also feel something else - a choice that would define not just my future, but the future of everyone in both worlds.
"I need time to think," I said.
"Time is a luxury we don't have," Eleanor replied. "The void feeders have found you, dear one. They're coming for you tonight. If you're not ready to fight them, you'll die. And with you, the last hope for both our worlds."
As if summoned by her words, I could hear something howling in the distance. Something that sounded like a pack of hungry wolves, if wolves were made of nightmare and fed on human souls.
"They're already here," Damien said grimly.
Eleanor smiled. "Then let's see what my granddaughter is truly capable of."
The howling was getting closer.
End of Chapter 5