I was back in my room. This was supposed to be a punishment? Ha! I had a private space, I didn't have to work, and I was being fed three times a day. This was the life. My mouth curled into a grin as I looked around. Then, I climbed into bed, pulled up the blanket, and went back to sleep.
I slept through the first day. Then the second. By the third day, I noticed something: I wasn't sleepy anymore. The fatigue of the Spell had finally vanished. I just sat there, staring at the ceiling.
I was bored. I had no entertainment and nothing to do. But I still had an ace up my sleeve: my Soul Sea. I hadn't entered it before, and now was the perfect time.
The transition felt natural. I was greeted by a wasteland of ash beneath a sky of swirling smoke. In the middle of the burnt paper world stood a tree of white parchment. I walked toward it. At its base stood a figure—a life-sized tiger made of folded paper. The origami was impossibly complex, the edges of the sheets sharp as daggers. Inside its hollow body, I could feel a fire burning, consuming the tiger from within. This was my soul: a fragile thing held together by spite and flame.
I looked at my first Memory, the one I'd received from the beast in my First Nightmare. A brittle sword formed from a shower of sparks.
Memory: Vain Ambition
Rank: Awakened
Tier: 1
Description: Ambition is as fleeting as a sweet dream.
Enhancement: [Brittle] – The blade cuts through the flesh of lower-rank monsters with ease but shatters against stronger opponents.
"Thank you, doggy," I muttered. It was useful enough. I wouldn't survive a clash with a powerful Awakened anyway, so a blade that could butcher Dormant monsters was exactly what I needed.
I returned to the real world. I had two months to prepare for the Dream Realm—hardly enough time. I couldn't research the world from this room, so I focused on my body. I already had some basic sword knowledge, but I'd grown soft lately. My record was 170 push-ups; I wanted to shatter that.
I began a cycle of push-ups, sit-ups, and shadow boxing. After an hour, I was a slumped mess of sweat. I ate, slept, and repeated. By the end of the first week, I scratched a mark into the wall with my fingernail. The nail snapped.
A sharp, stinging pain flared up, and a tear rolled down my face. An inhuman scream escaped my lips. God, it hurt!
As the days bled into weeks, the boredom became a physical weight. My stamina improved, but with it came agonizing muscle cramps. If I couldn't have entertainment, I'd make my own. I nagged the guard for paper and a pencil until he finally caved just to shut me up.
I tried writing, but I was terrible at it. I tried drawing, but I had no inspiration. Then, an idea struck: I had a perfect model right beside me.
I concentrated on my dark impulses, thinking about the end of the world. My shadow manifested my will, twisting into something horrific. I began to draw it. The first sketch was creepy. The second was worse. By the hundredth drawing, the walls were covered in sketches of my shadow's various atrocities.
The guard stopped looking me in the eye after that. He just slid the food tray through the slot and hurried away.
The two months passed in a flash of sweat and ink.
[Guard's POV]
Finally. My shift guarding the sicko was over. May he never come back.
I saluted my fellow guard, who arrived with a high-tech suppression collar used to weaken rebellious Dreamers. We entered the room—if you could even call it that anymore. The walls were papered with hundreds of disturbing drawings of demons and shadows. If I'd known what he wanted that paper for, I'd have never given it to him.
In the center of the room stood the kid. He was tall, glistening with sweat, and reeked of effort. He had rolling muscles and a confident air about him, though he looked more bruised and battered than imposing. We snapped the collar around his neck and escorted him to the facility's sub-levels.
[Sandu's POV]
I was finally out of that room. Honestly, even I was starting to get creeped out by the drawings. I flashed a confident smile at the guard, flexing my muscles, but he just looked at me with pure disdain.
Whatever. They led me to a sleeping pod—a life-support device designed to keep my body alive while my soul wandered the Dream Realm. I climbed in, the cold glass closing over me.
"Dreamer Sandu, welcome to the Dream Realm."
As the darkness took me, I felt the familiar weight of the Spell pulling at my soul.