SFX: HUUUUUH—THMP… THMP…
The street breathed.
Rhaen felt it the instant his boots touched the inverted pavement: a slow, wet inhale that lifted every loose stone half an inch before letting them drop again. The city was alive—and dreaming of drowning.
Reverse rain rose in perfect glassy spheres, each droplet carrying a stolen memory.
One brushed his cheek—
—and suddenly he was eight years old, hiding under a kitchen table while his father traded his sister for a vial of black serum.
Not his memory.
That made it worse.
SFX: CRIK—
He crushed the droplet between gloved fingers.
The vision splintered like glass.
Ahead of him, Seere drifted barefoot across the lying ground, leaving no footprints. Every upward-falling drop that touched her simply ceased to exist—devoured without ceremony. Her bone-white robes stayed immaculate, as if the city itself feared staining her.
Asha brought up the rear, greatsword balanced across her shoulder. Blood still steamed on the blade—old blood, divine blood. She whistled an execution hymn under her breath.
They had been walking for seven minutes.
Or seven hours.
Time was the second lie the city told.
Rhaen broke the silence.
"Status," he announced.
The word tasted like a prayer he'd never been taught. Something answered anyway.
A black stele unfolded in the air before each of them, translucent and cold.
[Name: Rhaen val Asteria]
[True Name: ——— (Sealed)]
[Aspect: Shadow Slave (Flawed)]
[Soul Core: Flawed – Mortal (Dying)]
[Divine Fragments: 0/13]
[Nightmare Trials Cleared: 0]
[Current Boon: None]
[Current Flaw: Bleeding Heart – Genuine affection causes ocular hemorrhaging]
[Memories Devoured: 0]
[Echoes Owned: 0]
Seere's stele was written in a language like breaking ice on bone.
Asha's was written in blood that dripped upward, defying gravity and decency.
Asha barked a laugh and read hers aloud, amused.
"Flaw: Heretic's Thirst. The more divine power I taste, the harder it is to stop. Cute. They think they know me," she scoffed.
Seere tilted her head, appearing genuinely entertained.
"Mine simply says Curiosity kills more than cats. How rude," she complained.
Rhaen flicked his wrist and dismissed his.
They didn't need to know about the bleeding.
SFX: TEE-hee-hee…
A child's laughter echoed from an alley that hadn't existed a heartbeat earlier.
The three turned as one.
A little girl stood upside-down on the ceiling-street, pigtails dangling upward like black seaweed. Her smile stretched too wide.
"You're new," she chirped. "The last ones lasted eleven minutes. Want to play?"
Asha stepped forward, sword lowering.
"I've killed gods for less lip, kid," she growled.
The girl's eyes rolled back, revealing wet red scripture.
"Then let's play who can scream louder when their skin forgets which way is out," she screeched.
The street inhaled again—
SFX: HUUUUHHHH—
Harder.
Every droplet of reverse rain froze in mid-air.
Then the city attacked.
The ground rippled. Asphalt peeled upward in ribbons, forming teeth. Streetlights bent like spines, bulbs bursting into flocks of glass-moths screaming in ultraviolet tones. The little girl's body unfolded into something tall and wrong, limbs jointed in impossible directions.
[Lesser Nightmare Creature – "Weeping Mother" (Dormant → Awakened)]
[Threat Level: Mortal+]
[Note: She is hungry for names.]
Seere sighed, almost affectionate.
"I do love a woman who wears her grief so honestly," she murmured.
She raised a pale hand.
The air rippled like disturbed water.
A soundless word—one no living throat could form—left her lips.
SFX: KSHHH—
The Weeping Mother froze, joints locking, mouth stretching into a silent, infinite scream.
Dream-eater.
Rhaen remembered.
Ten thousand years sealed in a blade.
How many worlds had she unmade before they gagged her with steel?
Asha moved.
One heartbeat she was ten paces away—
The next she was airborne, greatsword erupting into crimson scripture-fire.
SFX: FWOOOOOM—SLASH—
The blade tore through the creature's torso.
Black blood erupted in reverse waterfalls, spraying upward.
The Weeping Mother laughed with a hundred children's voices—
—and split into thirteen copies.
Each more wrong than the last.
Rhaen joined the dance.
He didn't run.
He simply was not where he'd been.
One shadowstep—
Knife already buried in the base of a copy's skull.
SFX: KRK—smoke hiss—
It dissolved into screaming black vapor.
One down.
But the others were learning.
Asha carved through three, roaring with delighted fury, scripture-fire painting inverted arcs of annihilation.
Seere stood still, fingers conducting an unseen orchestra.
Any creature that met her gaze forgot how many limbs it possessed.
Some forgot they needed bones.
Rhaen was a ghost among them—cutting memories, not flesh. Each kill fed him something small and cold, a whisper of weight in the hollow behind his ribs.
When the last Weeping Mother fell, the city exhaled.
SFX: WHOOOOOOSH—
The frozen rain resumed its upward fall.
Silence followed—
heavy, listening.
Asha flicked divine ichor from her blade and grinned at Rhaen.
"Not bad, assassin. You fight like someone who died already but didn't get the memo," she laughed.
Rhaen wiped the knife clean.
His reflection looked… less ghostly.
More anchored.
Seere opened her eyes. Pale. Ancient. Delighted.
"Thirteen fragments of a devoured name," she added. "How thoughtful. A gift."
She opened her hand.
Thirteen black shards writhed above her palm like hungry leeches.
[Acquired Echo x13 – "Nameless Child"]
[Acquired Memory – "The Mother Who Ate Her Children's Names So They Would Never Leave"]
The stele updated for all three simultaneously.
[Hidden Condition partially revealed:]
Feed the city three True Names before the rain stops…
or become rain yourselves.
Cold slid down Rhaen's spine.
True Names.
The one thing no Awakened ever spoke.
The one thing that could rewrite your soul.
Seere looked at him with gentle, murderous curiosity.
Asha's grin sharpened.
The city whispered from every wall, every droplet, every lying shadow.
Give us a name.
Any name.
We only need three.
Rhaen tightened his grip on his knife.
He smiled—small, polite, the smile he wore right before killing someone who mistook him for soft.
"Over my bleeding corpse," he hissed.
The rain laughed with a thousand stolen voices.
Somewhere above them—
or below—
something titanic stirred in its sleep.
The First Nightmare
had only just begun.