Chapter 25: A War Between Dream and Reality
Scene 1 – The Nightmares Escalate
The air inside the sleeping pod was stale, unmoving. A sterile void designed for rest, yet devoid of comfort. There was no warmth, no softness—only the suffocating stillness of an unbroken cycle.
Lucian lay motionless, waiting for unconsciousness to take him. He had followed every directive, executed every order, yet something within him remained unsettled. His body obeyed, but his mind…
His mind was no longer silent.
The moment his awareness slipped, the change came.
—
A battlefield.
The scene unfolded in bursts, fragments of motion too chaotic to grasp. Gunfire. A soldier running—stumbling. His breath ragged, his body heavy with exhaustion.
Lucian saw his face.
It was his face.
But the eyes—wild, frantic—were not his own.
A voice, desperate and raw, cut through the haze.
"Please, I don’t want to forget."
The sound of struggling, metal restraints clanking as soldiers in Order uniforms dragged the screaming man into darkness.
The vision shifted.
A child sat curled in the corner of a white room, his arms wrapped around his knees, his shoulders trembling.
The sterile walls loomed, unyielding, the air thick with silence.
Lucian felt it—an echo of something buried too deep to name.
Fear.
A sudden jolt, another flash—
A figure kneeling before a towering presence of shadow, whispering, “Not again.”
The words struck like a hammer against glass, a fracture forming where none should exist.
His mind reeled, the images twisting, breaking apart—
And then he saw it.
Carved into cold, metal walls, the letters jagged and desperate, a single word repeating over and over:
REMEMBER.
His breath caught.
The battlefield was gone. The white room was gone.
The world stretched into an endless hallway, the walls shifting unnaturally, flickering between light and darkness.
And at the far end, waiting in the shadows—
The Sandman.
He did not move, yet his presence pressed against Lucian’s thoughts, wrapping around his consciousness like smoke.
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Faceless. Featureless.
Yet Lucian felt the weight of his stare.
A whisper, slithering into his mind.
"You are not the first."
The hallway elongated. The air thickened, pressing against his chest.
"You are not the last."
Lucian tried to speak. His throat burned, but no words came.
The darkness swelled—
A sensation of falling, of drowning in something deeper than sleep—
—
Lucian’s eyes snapped open.
But he could not move.
His body lay rigid in the sleeping pod, his breath sharp and uneven. His mind was awake, screaming, yet his limbs refused to respond.
Paralysis.
He tried to shift his fingers, to clench his fists, but nothing happened.
He was trapped inside himself.
The Master’s control was absolute.
The whispers of the dream clung to him, coiling around his thoughts, refusing to fade.
He could still see the word.
REMEMBER.
His chest heaved, but his body remained motionless.
The fear clawed at him, raw and visceral, unlike anything he had ever known.
Sleep had always been an empty void. A function. A necessity.
But now—
Now he understood the truth.
He was no longer afraid of war.
No longer afraid of pain.
No longer afraid of death.
He was afraid of sleep.
Scene 2 – The Master’s Influence Strengthens
Lucian moved through the training facility with flawless precision, his steps synchronized with the soldiers around him. The air was thick with the scent of disinfectant and metal, the walls smooth and white, stretching infinitely in their uniformity.
No sound beyond the rhythmic march of boots against the polished floor. No deviations. No imperfections.
Yet beneath the surface, something writhed.
His mind was not silent.
The dream still clung to him, its echoes crawling through his thoughts like fingers tracing the edges of something forbidden. The whispers, the word etched into metal—REMEMBER—they refused to fade.
But he did not remember. He did not know.
A thought rose, unbidden. What was that dream?
Pain.
A spike of static slammed into his consciousness, sharp and immediate.
His vision blurred. His limbs locked, his steps faltering for a fraction of a second.
The Master’s voice, smooth as glass, whispered through his mind.
"Obey."
Lucian blinked. The thought was gone. He resumed his pace, his posture correcting instantly.
The other soldiers had not noticed. They never noticed.
The training chamber doors slid open, revealing a vast, sterile space bathed in artificial light. Rows of identical figures stood at attention, awaiting instruction.
Lucian fell into formation. His hands flexed automatically as his rifle settled into his grip. His HUD flickered to life, displaying parameters, movement trajectories, target acquisitions.
Everything was as it should be.
Yet—
The dream.
It was not gone. Not completely.
The image of the Sandman, the carved words, the voice whispering not again—they pressed against his mind, clawing at the barriers that had once been impenetrable.
A crack.
A fracture.
A single word surfaced—why?
Pain.
The static surged again, an iron grip tightening around his skull.
"Forget."
Lucian’s vision blurred, his thoughts dissolving into the void.
A command scrolled across his HUD.
Target acquisition: Engage.
The simulation began.
The walls shifted, transforming into a battlefield. The air thickened with the scent of burning metal, the distant hum of drones cutting through the static haze.
Lucian raised his rifle. His body moved on instinct, executing maneuvers with calculated precision. The simulated enemy units emerged, faceless figures clad in resistance insignias.
He fired. They fell.
His mind processed each movement with brutal efficiency, each elimination a checkmark on an invisible list.
But then—
Another flicker.
The battlefield was no longer a simulation.
The figures collapsing before him—
They were not enemies.
They were him.
Dozens of versions of himself, eyes wide with recognition, faces twisted in silent screams.
The word flashed again.
REMEMBER.
Lucian hesitated.
Less than a second. A fraction of a heartbeat.
Yet in The Order’s precision, it was an eternity.
Pain.
The Master did not whisper this time. The static was a roar, a vice tightening around his thoughts.
His HUD glitched, his vision distorting as the simulation snapped back into place.
The battlefield was clean again. The bodies were gone.
Nothing had happened.
Lucian straightened. His pulse steadied. His hands stopped trembling.
The hesitation was erased.
The memory did not exist.
The Master’s voice coiled around his consciousness, cold and absolute.
"You are Order."
"You exist to serve."
"You will not remember."
Lucian exhaled slowly, his grip firm on the rifle once more.
He was One.
There was no war in his mind.
There was no question.
No deviation.
Only silence.
