[PERSPECTIVE — ANIMA]
Darkness is not a place; it's a feeling. It's like plunging into hot oil. And then, the pull. That delicious, violent yank that rips me from the back seat and puts me behind the wheel.
I open my eyes.
The physical world is so… noisy. It smells of damp, rancid fear, and ozone.
Eduur, the idiot, waited until the last second. The body is trembling, energy reserves in the red, the heart beating so fast it's like a trapped hummingbird.
But I'm here. The dog is out to play.
I analyze the threat in a microsecond.
To my left: the Dream Devourer. An aberration of my own world. A parasite pretending to be a predator.
To my right: the Syndicate. Two gorillas with rifles and that sack of bones called Méndez.
Méndez fires.
Bang.
The bullet goes straight for my forehead.
How slow.
"Zero Gravity," I murmur.
I don't need energy to stop the bullet; I just need to alter the perception of my own position. I lean back at an impossible angle, my vertebrae cracking with pleasure. The bullet slices the air where my third eye was a moment ago.
I straighten and smile. The smile rips across Eduur's face, showing too many teeth.
"Hello, party."
The Dream Devourer shrieks. That static sound that makes human ears bleed is battle music to me. It lunges at me, extending shadow claws to tear my essence. It thinks I'm food.
"Big mistake, ugly."
I extend my right hand. I don't summon the pistol. That's for playing with humans.
To kill nightmares, you need nightmares.
"Oniric Blade!"
The air tears. From a rift in reality I pull the curved sword. But this time it doesn't glow blue. It glows black — an absolute void shaped into an edge.
The Devourer tries to halt, but I'm already inside its personal space.
"You eat dreams," I whisper, eyes fixed on its red sockets. "I am the nightmare."
I swing horizontally. The blade doesn't cut its "flesh." It severs the invisible silver thread that ties it to this plane.
The Devourer howls — a sound not of this world. Its physical form flickers, becoming smoke, then solid, then smoke. I've destabilized it.
"Back to the hole you crawled from," I growl, and I kick its chest with telekinetic force.
The creature rockets down the dark corridor, passing through the locker wall like mist, shrieking as it dissolves into the shadows to lick its wounds. It's not dead, but it won't be back anytime soon.
One down. Three to go.
---
I turn to the humans.
The two Syndicate thugs stand frozen. Méndez, however, reloads with shaking hands. Hate is the only thing keeping him upright.
"Shoot!" Méndez rasp-slurs with his corpse-voice. "Kill it!"
The thugs raise their rifles.
"Boring."
I take a step.
Pop!
Space folds. I vanish from their line of sight.
I reappear behind the left thug. I whisper in his ear:
"Good night."
I crack the base of his skull with the pommel of the sword. Crak. He drops like a marionette with cut strings.
The second thug spins, terror-struck, firing blindly. Bullets ricochet off metal walls.
"Poor aim," I say, walking toward him.
He lets go of the rifle and draws a knife. Fool.
I catch his wrist. I squeeze. The bone splinters. He screams. I headbutt his nose. He falls to the floor, groaning, out cold.
Only Méndez remains. The Sergeant points at me. We're two meters apart. But he doesn't fire. He looks into my eyes and sees that I am not Eduur. He sees the abyss. And the abyss is hungry.
"You…," Méndez pants. "You did this to me. You left me dry."
"And there's still a little juice at the bottom of the bottle," I say, tilting my head.
I walk toward him. Méndez tries to back away, but his lame leg gives out. He slumps against the wall, gasping.
"Eduur has rules," I tell him, crouching until our noses nearly touch. "'No killing.' What a pity. But I'm a good tenant. I respect the house rules… technically."
I put my left hand on his sweating forehead. Méndez tries to scream, but the sound freezes in his throat.
"I'm not going to kill you," I whisper. "But I need to recharge my batteries. And your mind… your mind is full of delicious fear."
I activate the Transfer, but I do not extract physical vitality.
I pull his psyche. I tear out his recent memories. I rip away his motor coordination. I strip his will.
It's like drinking a thick, cold smoothie.
Méndez's eyes go white. His mouth hangs slack. The weapon falls from his hand.
In three seconds Sergeant Méndez stops being a corrupt cop and becomes a breathing vegetable.
"Enjoy," I say, releasing him. His head drops onto his chest, a string of drool slipping from his lip.
I stand, feeling exuberant. The energy of his mind has stabilized Eduur's body. No more trembling. No more cold.
---
I look around. The slaughter is acceptable. No one's dead, just broken. Eduur will complain, but he'll survive.
I glance to the corner. Sofía is curled into a ball, covering her eyes. That child… she has potential. She didn't scream.
I go to the thug with the broken wrist and pat his pockets.
I pull out an encrypted tablet and a thick wallet. On the tablet a map is open. A blinking point marked: "NODE 7 - ST. JUDE CHURCH."
"Bingo," I murmur.
My right hand trembles. The black sword is fading into smoke. The connection is weakening. Eduur is waking, pushing from below. The party-pooper wants back in.
"Wait a bit longer, boy," I growl. "You need more than good intentions."
I concentrate. This will cost me. It'll hurt tomorrow.
I pick up the Glock Méndez dropped. A Glock 17 — heavy, real. But I don't like it. It's crude.
I drop the Glock and extend my hand. I visualize my gun. The Nightmare .45 — black, matte, with engravings that shift if you stare.
I materialize it. The weight is comforting.
Normally, when I leave, my toys go with me. That's the rule.
But rules are for breaking.
I compress all the mental energy I stole from Méndez. I inject it into the weapon. I "solidify" it.
The pistol hums, gleams with a violet light, then cools into real, permanent steel.
"There you go, Eduur," I say, feeling the darkness swallow me. "A present from dad. Learn to use it."
The world inverts. I fall backward.
---
[PERSPECTIVE — EDUUR]
"Ahhh!"
Air rakes into my lungs like shards of glass.
I drop to my knees, retching bile onto the filthy basement floor.
"Anima… damn you…" I gasp.
Silence is absolute. I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and lift my head, bracing for death.
But there is no death. Only silence and bodies.
The two Syndicate men lie on the floor, groaning, twisted at unnatural angles, but alive.
The Dream Devourer is gone. Only a smear of black frost stains the wall and the smell of burnt wiring lingers.
And Méndez…
I crawl to him, my heart in my throat. The Sergeant sits against the wall, staring into nothing. His eyes are empty, glassy, like a dead fish. His chest rises and falls, but there's nobody behind that gaze.
Anima didn't kill him. He ripped his mind away.
A chill of horror runs down my spine. This is worse than death. It's eternal damnation.
"Eduur?"
Sofía's voice makes me turn. She stands pale as a ghost. She looks at me, then at my right hand.
I lower my gaze. I don't have an empty hand. I'm holding a pistol. Not Méndez's Glock. A black, matte gun, cold to the touch. Anima's weapon.
"No!" I shout, dropping it as if it's a venomous snake.
The gun clanks to the floor. Heavy. Real. Metallic.
I wait for it to dissolve into black smoke, as things from the dream usually do. I expect it to return to the dream. But it stays, gleaming under the fluorescent light.
Anima broke the rule. He brought something from the nightmare and left it anchored in reality.
"We have to go," Sofía whispers, tugging my jacket. "Police are coming. I hear sirens."
I pick up the tablet from the floor. The map still blinks: St. Jude Church.
I look at the pistol on the floor. I hate it. It represents everything I fear: violence, darkness, Anima's control.
But then I look at Méndez, drooling in his uniform. I look at Sofía, trembling. If I leave here unarmed, we'll die before we reach the corner.
With a deep nausea in my gut, I crouch and pick up the weapon. It feels icy against my skin. It doesn't give me power. It gives me weight. I feel like I've just fastened a shackle onto myself.
"Let's go, Sofía," I say, tucking the gun into my waistband. The metal bites my skin.
We bolt out of the station, dodging shadows. As we run into the night I feel a vibration at my waist.
It isn't my phone. It's the pistol. It hums softly, like a purring cat. It liked what Anima did down there.
I stop under a streetlight for a second, horrified.
I'm not just carrying a gun. I'm carrying a living piece of my own demon.
And it's hungry.