The scavenger moved with a frantic, clumsy sort of pity. He didn't just stand there; he acted. I felt the rough pull of a heavy thermal wrap being tucked around my shivering frame, the fabric smelling of stale ozone and machine oil. He was trying to say something—his mouth was moving, his eyes wide with the kind of frantic energy people get when they think they're watching a child die—but I couldn't hear him. The world was a muffled, underwater blur.
I didn't care about his words. I had something more important to hold onto.
I closed my eyes and forced myself back into the center of the storm in my head. The "Enlightenment" was fading, but the residues of the two lives were still clashing, grinding against each other like tectonic plates. It was fascinating. In my first life, all I ever wanted was freedom. I wanted to run, to scream, to feel the wind. But I was a prisoner to a sterile white bed and a heart that couldn't handle the slightest spark of excitement. I couldn't even get happy without my breath hitching and the machines starting to beep. I was safe from the cold and the hunger, but I was a ghost in a shell.
Then there was this life. I was free—free to starve, free to freeze, free to watch my fingers turn black in the sub-levels of a dying colony. I was constantly worried about where the next paste-packet would come from or if the heaters would fail for good. Two lives, completely different, yet they felt exactly the same. Both were just different types of cages. The realization was sharp, a jagged piece of truth that cut through the fog of my concussion.
As the peak of that feeling started to ebb, leaving me hollowed out and shivering, the clarity of my situation hit me. This world... this was the world of Shadow Slave.
I looked down at my body, and a wet, rattling giggle escaped my throat. "This is bad," I muttered, though I couldn't even hear my own voice. "But it could be worse." Then I looked at the bruise on my leg, the blackness of my frostbitten fingers, and the pools of blood I had coughed onto the dirt floor. I remembered the strange, crushing tiredness I'd been feeling for the past six days. It wasn't just the cold or the hunger. It was the weight of the Nightmare Spell anchoring itself to my soul. Today was the seventh day. I could feel it now—the "call" vibrating in my very soul, a dark, heavy pull toward the void.
I was one of the "Infected." The Spell had chosen me.
A child, only eight years old, and the Spell had already found me. I thought back to the things I knew from my past life's memories—the youngest person to be taken by the Spell that I could remember was Mordret, who had been twelve. There was Effie's son, of course, but he was a special case, born in the third Nightmare and became a saint . I was just a child in a body that was failing, with no essence and a head injury that made the world spin.
"Okay," I whispered, the copper taste of blood thick on my tongue. "So it actually is as bad as it could be. Hahaha."
The scavenger was trying to lift me now, his face a mask of panic. I leaned into him, using his strength to stay upright. I needed to deal with the immediate problems. My head was throbbing, my vision was swimming in red, and I was losing too much blood. I looked at my black fingers and my blue almost back legs . In any other world, this would be the end of a career, the end of a life. But here? I didn't really mind. If I survived, if I climbed the ranks and reached the Master rank, I would receive a new body anyway. My soul would remake my flesh. These limbs were just temporary tools, and if they broke, they broke. I just needed them to last long enough to get me through the gate.
I pointed toward the direction of the upper sectors, toward the police station. It was a gamble, but I couldn't stay here in the dirt. I needed a more stable environment before the I enter the nightmare . If I fell asleep here and failed, a Nightmare Creature would spawn in the middle of a slum. But if I went to the authorities, they'd be forced to contain the potential breach.
But I didn't care about that if I entered the nightmare here I will die in the real world.
The scavenger hauled me through the slush of the lower sectors, his breath coming in ragged plumes of steam.
While I was being carried on his back I thought.
I received a true name as a normal human not a dorment
I can't remember it because my body is weak
It's for the better I'm not interested in becoming natural awakend.
Oh we reached the police station.
He left me at the heavy, rusted doors of the Sector 4 precinct—a place where the law was more of a suggestion and the officers were just thugs with better boots.
I leaned against the cold metal and hammered on the door with the last of my strength. When a surly officer finally slid the viewing grate open, I didn't waste time. "Infected," I croaked. "Seventh day."
The man stared at me for a second, then his face twisted into a sneer. He didn't see an infected; he saw a filthy street rat trying to score a warm bed and a meal. To him, I was just a liar.
He barked something I couldn't hear and stepped out just to deliver a brutal kick to my chest. I hit the ground hard. As I tried to catch my fall, I felt a sickening snap in my right wrist. The pain was white-hot. He spat on the ground and slammed the door shut.
The scavenger appeared at my side again, his face a mask of worry. He hadn't heard the exchange, but he saw the result. My right hand was useless now, dangling at an odd angle. I didn't cry. Instead, I pointed toward the Inner District—the gateway to the wealthy lived. Down here, the police could ignore a dying child. But in the Inner District, they couldn't afford to treat me as a liar because if I failed my Nightmare there, the resulting monster would tear through the elite blocks.
We moved slowly. By the time we reached the polished gates of the Inner District precinct, I was barely conscious. The scavenger set me down and watched from afar, fearful of being caught in the fallout. I used my left hand to bang on the cold, reinforced metal. Every strike sent a jarring shock up my arm.
The viewing grate slid open. A guard looked out, his eyes dropping down to find me. To him, I looked like a heap of refuse that had somehow learned to crawl. I was small, even for an eight-year-old—stunted by years of breathing grease. I didn't wait for him to shout. I forced my lungs to work.
"As... as demanded by the th-third special directive..." I stumbled over the words, my tongue thick. "I'm here... to surrender myself. I'm a c-carrier of the Nightmare Spell." I paused, coughing copper onto the slush. I couldn't hear my own words, so I raised my voice until my throat burned. "I'm not sure if it c-came out right! I can't hear! I'm infected with the Nightmare Spell! I'm not a child... I'm just... short. I'm going to sleep now."
I didn't give him a second to process. I let my knees buckle.
The guard's face shifted to pure horror. He lunged out of the booth, his boots splashing through the grey melt. He scooped me up and bolted through the gates, his chest heaving. I saw his head whip back and forth, his mouth wide as he screamed at the top of his lungs: "CODE BLACK! CODE BLACK!"
The words didn't reach my ears, but I saw the panic. He ran down a sterile hallway and burst into a reinforced room, slamming me down onto a cold, hard surface. He was still screaming, realizing a child this small was about to become a gate to the monster if he fail the nightmare or die .
I looked up at the ceiling lights one last time. My broken wrist throbbed. My black, dead fingers stung. I was terrified, and I was exhausted, but more than anything, I was ready.
Hah... good luck.
The white lights stretched into long, thin lines, and then the world went dark.
[The First Nightmare begins.]