Two inseparable girls. One breathtaking gorgeous despite her youth and another, easily forgettable.

  Merik was the unattractive one, staring at his friend’s flawless face with gnawing jealousy inside his frail heart.

  Ever since he noticed her beauty, his heart’s heavy with extreme love tainted with unhealthy amount of obsession. Worst combination really.

  Though, he was helpless.

  Helpless, when the boy he loved gave her a rose with blushed cheeks. Helpless, when she got showered with compliments while he bit his own lips, dripping blood. Helpless, when she never forgot the broody girl that he was despite her overwhelming presence and popularity.

  She was everything he couldn’t be.

  Her genuine smiles were piercing daggers to his sorrowful heart, her kind eyes disgusting horrors.

  Despite all that, he still loved her deeply, as a mother would to her child.

  Merik similar felt his heart crushing, along with the protagonist of this dream, presumably Stella.

  Though what he couldn’t understand was that if he were playing the role of Stella, who was this beautiful girl who strikingly resembled the ever-playful, ex-actress, wearing the same mischievous smile and the same mole on her right cheek?

  Then, he abruptly opened his eyes. A minute. It seemed it was his upper limit invading others’ dream and not washed away within.

  Times in dreams were relative – some took mere seconds while some spanning an hour. For Merik, it seemed he simply must exist the dream before the side effects started to show unrelated to the duration of the dream itself.

  His lips curled slightly in satisfaction.

  Though yet perverse and unethical, it seemed he could now easily utilize the dream powers, the gracious Goddess bestowed him with. Moreover, in the future, he could probably manipulate people’s dreams to his desires.

  His face darkened at the thought. He wouldn’t want to be the one to take away people’s dreams, after all, for some people, their dreams were their escapes from their hellish lives. Or their safe haven to meet up with their lost ones. Or where their dreams became genuine reality.

  He shook the overthinking off and lied down again. He’s going to try once again to make sure, to enter the dream of Richard.

  He chanted the Dream Belief and ventured again.

  This time, the dream looked similar to the first one with the protagonist staring at a female that resembled Stella.

  But Stella this time was the same Stella Merik knew. She’s staring upwards at him, at Richard, at Merik, while touching his thigh gently.

  Gorgeous, lazy eyes, a mischievous smile playing on her enchanting lips, alluring figure with right amounts of fats and muscles in the right places, soft and soothing skin moving like waves as she moved and naked... NAKED. NAKED...?!

  Merik escaped the dream and jumped stood up from his bed. He immediately went to his dining table and greedily chug down a jar of water. Some of them spilled onto the floor.

  Then, he puffed out a long and deep breath while trying to calm his body and nerves. He gritted his teeth and let the blood flow onto his knuckles.

  He finally calmed down before the previous voluptuous scene started to assault him mentally once again.

  He felt his throat as dry as a wailing desert. With a self-deprecating laugh, he took note of the huge price to pay in invading other’s privacy.

  A huge price, indeed. Or should I say, a Huge price.

  ________________________________________________________________________

  Quiet.

  Then, the door hissed open as it slid along the floor – invading moon rays illuminated the corners of the darkened hall. Soon after, the quietness was drowned by the deafening laughter of three men.

  “Baron, you really outdid yourself back there. Great job, boss.”

  “True, true, love the insults at the end as well. I would have loved to cut his head off and hang on these walls to stare at those stunned eyes forever. Fuckin hell, Soran’s a fuckin clown.”

  And they broke into deep laughter again, echoes resounding in the entire manor of Bloodworth.

  Baron just smirked, basking in his boys’ praises for his triumph, though he didn’t consider it anything genius since it was just cheating. He took no pride, still he wasn’t going to foil their fun.

  After all, the manor of Bloodworth was no joke and in fact, acquiring meant he became the present lord of Bloodworth.

  He silently whispered, mustered with a satisfied smile,

  “Imagine becoming a lord when we were just petty criminals of the underworld yesterday...”

  The two gaunt men heard his words and smiled while looking back at him.

  They really had come a long way.

  But then, cleaning and mending such huge of a building was by no mean an easy task. Still, he thrilled at the idea.

  Lord Baron of Bloodworth Manor.

  “George, go fetch water for me. Jaden, seems you must clean this rat nests of a house first.”

  George nodded while Jaden complained, while staring at the huge family portrait of the previous owners hanging towards the staircase.

  “But boss, I want to explore this place. I have always been in love with such aesthetics. It would be a shame not to... stare and look at these things! It’s not every day we get to be in this manor, you know. Look... look... you see who it is? It’s the bloody Soran there, without his drunken eyes and pathetic smile.”

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  Baron took in the beauty of the ancient portrait, seemingly one of Soran’s family – all inhumanly pale and tall as hovering towers. Each had their own unique sophisticated looks to them.

  He smiled warmly as a father would,

  “Fool, you can explore as much as you want. Because this house belongs to the three of us, now. So, like I said, go buy the brooms, cleaning tools, whatever from the bazaar and come back. Clean this hall to at least make it habitable, then we shall explore together. From that, we can make this our very own hideout, better yet, we can even open a casino of our own, just imagine, boys! I’ve changed my mind, let’s move that portrait down first. I don’t like their... condescending looks.”

  "Boss, may I request to move that portrait after I finish my little exploring? It won’t take much, just a few minutes. Please?”

  Then, George was already back with a glass of water in his hand. Baron slightly frowned, wanting to ask where he got it from, but he pondered a moment for Jaden’s request.

  “...fine then. Don’t take long, then we start cleaning.”

  Jaden’s gaunt face shone and under the moonlight, he looked as cheerful as the day Baron took him in.

  Baron’s heart warmed while reminiscing his life with the two boys – one being rash and foolish while as stern and serious as rock. He took these two orphans in, the same way his father did for him, saving him for having to watch his parents endlessly twitch in their beds.

  Jaden ran towards the staircase and suddenly, he felt wetness near his knees and stumbled onto the floor. Baron chuckled,

  “Jaden, you fool, you're still a child. Get up and go look for yourself, we’ll wait. You’re already a fool, so don’t make yourself any fooler than this.”

  Not hearing Jaden’s awkward or embarrassed chuckle nor his clever retorts, Baron asked again,

  “Jaden?”

  Instead, what came out from him was heart-wrenching shrill, eyes full of terror and utter confusion. The two men noticed a moment later but when they did, the legs of Jaden were cleanly cut at his knees – bloodied limbs still pulsating with shock.

  They immediately took their revolvers out panicking and Baron’s eyes darted around the hall in search of the invisible invader. George on the other hand, couldn’t retract his eyes from his crippled friend, his whole vision, a trail of dark red bloods.

  Baron felt tightness around his heart and his forehead started to bead with cold sweats. Still, the monster was nowhere.

  Panic didn’t help, worry didn’t help, the moonlit night along with too dark of halls didn’t help.

  “Come out, you coward. Who even attacks from the shadows? You’re a piss poor coward if you think you can take me on this? Do you have any idea who you’re messing with? I am Baron, Lord Baron of the Bloodworth. Before Lord Baron, I am Madam Beatrice’s man. Mess with me, you mess with all of us. Come if you dare.”

  The voice didn’t reply but instead responded with a dark red sword slash towards him. As rusty as he might be, he still could nimbly dodge a few more slashes like this – a glimpse of his former glory.

  He snorted while unloading his bullets towards the direction and he faintly saw that a silhouette shifted in the shadows of the moonlit manor. He smirked and his shots traced along the shadow before the bullets ran out.

  Then he shouted,

  “George, help me out here first, we can help Jaden later. If we leave it as it wants, it will eat us alive.”

  “George?”

  He looked back and his face became pale as a milk-drenched paper. Because both his boys were decapacitated clean, bloods gushing out like a broken dam from their necks.

  Tears welled up in his eye with realization and started shooting in every direction while screaming to his lungs. Though they still had a chance at surviving, since they hadn’t turned into Soullesses, it was dreadfully slim.

  The monster hadn’t shown its face, and yet he already lost two of his men. His boys. The boys who were just following their greedy father.

  He yelled, his choking voice full of disdain, regrets and sorrow,

  “Show your face, you wretched creature. Whatever did they do to you to suffer such fate? Why?”

  He was just a plaything. Indulging himself in poor pleasure and not pursuing Beliefs in any field came biting in his ass.

  The next moment, though, the monster showed its face.

  The monster was wearing a black shirt, baring his pale chest combined with shriveled white pants. His overly pale skin reflected in the dim halls, making him seem like a drifting specter bound for revenge.

  A smile was playing on his face and more so, on his sharp canines, extraordinarily long.

  Heart beats rang faster in Baron’s rib cage with every single thumping from the monster’s footsteps.

  “Soran... you... you... how... why?”

  Instead of a reply, an absurd poem rang out from its throat in melodiously.

  “Primordial and Origin, Blood. Blood is river, blood is sea, blood is ocean. Blood resides in life as every pulse rebel death. Blood is river, blood is sea, blood is ocean. Blood flows as time pulsates in one’s puny grasp. Blood is river, blood is sea, blood is ocean.”

  He pauses,

  “For blood is sacred, eternal and endless.”

  With that, a sword made of blood was conjured from thin air. It was as if the sword itself was flowing – fluid-like, unable to take hold of and yet, the monster, Soran Bloodworth, grabbed hold of it firmly in his hand and waved it beautifully.

  “What did we ever do to you, Soran, boy? Please... spare us...”

  As he walked towards Baron, he flicked the sword onto the ground and the thick, hot blood splattered across the hall, sticking to the ground, slightly sizzling.

  Time seemed to stop for Baron as his eyes seemingly drown in the whirlpool of bloodied blade in Soran’s hand.

  He was already numb.

  Looking at his boy’s bodies and recalling their smiles, he closed his eyes.

  Before his existence was obliterated permanently, though, voices... mutters, to be precise, lingered in the air as his final thoughts, which made him open his eyes in shock and anger.

  “No hard feelings, Baron. You won my manor fair and square, but I never mentioned about letting you keep it. This is not gambling, is it? Ah, what a mess you have made on my carpets. Sigh. Well, then, gents. I do love to do this sometimes again but only that, it seems you can’t anymore. Heh.”

  The next moment, with a swish in the wind, Baron’s whole vision wheeled before going completely dark.

  Soran took a deep breath and all the bloods in the hall entered his body in a form of a rushing whirlwind. When the final drop of blood seeped into his body, he shuddered in ecstasy and smiled satisfyingly.

  The gothic went to exactly as it was, with the only addition of three bloodless bodies lying still.

  He smiled.

  “Now that, I’ve got my manor back, seems I can take a huge bet, again, yes, no?”

  He laughed.

  In his eyes laid dark red pools of blood and crippling madness.

  ________________________________________________________________________

  Wailing dune. The only place where the blazing sun could boast its maximum prowess, scorching down on the earth as if wanting to melt the land and water alike, until nightfall.

  Nights were serene, tranquil and calm and yet, the harsh weather of this desert further tortured the land, turning it into a barren field of snow, completely contrasting the daytime.

  No beings of life roamed these lands and yet, a group of people, their whole body shrouded in thick and ragged clothes that only allowed their eyes to peer from, were slowly faring against the very nature of this treacherous land.

  Ordinary clothes wouldn’t help much with all these snow but if one looked closely, there formed a thin layer of illusory lights around the group – a barrier of sort.

  Even though sluggish and some dragging their legs, the whole group wore fierce determination each on their own.

  Then one of them broke the silence,

  “Albert, isn’t that...”

  The handsome, middle-aged man with pretty blue eyes, glanced at where his comrade pointed him towards.

  Then, he answered with a charming smile – one that could melt countless heart’s as well as the blazing sun itself.

  “Yes, indeed. My dear friend. We have finally found it. Thought we’d take months, even years but to think we’ve found it this soon.”

  With a wave of hand that came from a stern-looking young man, there appeared Light, that revealed the entrance into the grand, ancient building. Although the Light was blinding all of them, it still couldn’t reveal the whole thing. They could only make out its shape as a vague ziggurat.

  Albert looked back over his shoulders and shouted, his voice full of vigor and hope.

  “We have finally found the Netherlich’s Domain, the resting place of the previous owner of a fragment of Death!”

  Then, they entered the building, wanting nothing but shelter from the treacherous weather.