“Wake up, Bke. Wake up.” I breathed out the words over and over, even clenched my eyes shut, only to crack them open to find… nothing had changed.

  Nope, here I was in Sethia’s capital—an ethereal fragment of it—the city’s gates looming behind me as I distanced myself from the band of adventurers. The insidious urge to snuff out their pitiful existences flickered through my mind, tempting me into another round of murderous delight. But somehow, I managed to resist. Priorities, right? I needed to figure out how to get the hell out of here.

  The oddest part? All the voices from my shattered soul were silent. Not a single errant thought rambling on, no snarky commentary, no strange musings to some imaginary audience like I was breaking the fourth wall. Just... silence.

  It felt unnervingly strange—like the usual chaos had drained away, leaving only one unified purpose echoing across the shattered fragments of my mind: waking up and finding Aislinn.

  For once, all of me wanted the exact same thing. And honestly? That might’ve been more unsettling than the nightmare itself. Nightmares and unseen horrors I can handle. In fact, I thrived off those. Reality? That had always scared the hell out of me, even when I was human.

  My aimless steps carried me deeper into the dreamscape city, the adventurers fading far behind me. The streets seemed to pulse with fearful anticipation, and everywhere I turned, there were guards hustling, their sweat-soaked brows glistening in the dimming sun. Armor clinked as they scrambled into formation, knights barked orders while mages, swathed in the colors of a melted crayon box, chanted incantations to cast shimmering barriers along the perimeter. It was all a flurry of chaos, with such fervor you’d think doom was peeking around the corner. But my hastily scrawled mental math told me we had a few hours left until that undead horde started their knock-knock routine at the city gates.

  And me? I welcomed the oncoming nightmare—always down for a horror show. But this was just another damn nightmare pying out, wasn’t it? Whether I was witnessing someone else’s fears or if we were all floating in some collective ethereal muck of dreamscapes, I couldn’t tell. Sure, I knew this was the dream realm, but the mechanics behind it still eluded me. Still, it was a spectacle. Part of me wanted to grab a bucket of eyeballs, park myself in a prime spot, and watch the movie unfold. But honestly? I was so over it. I just wanted out.

  The py kept churning—people running like headless chickens, citizens screaming in frantic anticipation of the doom about to descend. And me? I felt like a ghost, drifting through it all. Most of the cast didn’t spare me a second gnce. The odd few that did caught a flicker of recognition—an uneasy twitch, a fleeting moment of crity, as if they sensed this was just another twisted repeat. Maybe they knew it was all a dream, or perhaps they were souls unable to reincarnate, trapped in this purgatorial cycle long enough to notice something was off. Who knows?

  Well... maybe the Goddess of Dreams knew, or perhaps even Death. Not like either of them were going to drop me any hints. Nope! Instead, I kept wandering, drifting through the chaos like a shadow lost in a memory already too far gone, as darkness slowly fell upon the dreamscape.

  Oh! One thing I’ve noticed about being stuck on a moon orbiting a massive gas giant: the day and night cycles are weird. Inconsistent, almost random. I’m sure it all works out if you plot it on a long-term calendar, but with so many other moons causing eclipses and whatnot, it all feels pretty chaotic.

  Wait, what was I talking about? Right! The looming battle. A thunderous boom suddenly shook me out of my rambling thoughts, the first salvos of war colliding with the city’s barrier—lighting up the darkness to the tune of terrified screams.

  “Do the undead have siege weapons?” I murmured into the unfolding chaos, a crescendo of destruction that held a certain twisted grandeur. The magic barrier finally colpsed, and I watched with a hint of fascination. “Probably undead casters,” I pondered aloud, strolling leisurely down the street as buildings crumbled beneath the force of arcing spells being hurled over the walls.

  There was a pounding at the gate, then a massive grotesque figure—some monstrous amalgamation of bone—barreled through, with a horde of skeletal and zombie undead right on its heels. Armored knights and glistening, muscle-bound barbarians collided with the advancing swarm, but it was a one-sided sughter. Honestly, if I had to say, it was kind of beautiful.

  The undead, like a cresting wave that had broken too soon, now flooded the streets with relentless, savage elegance. This city, this dream, had become a theater of the macabre, and I was seated front row to witness the apocalypse in full swing. The once proud walls had crumbled into nothing but a fading memory, and I, a mere observer, watched as ruination unfolded, a stark, brutal poetry id bare in the dreamscape.

  Amidst the chaotic symphony of despair, an orchestra seemed to py solely for me. The wails of the dying provided the rhythm, their screams hitting the notes, while the csh of steel served as my percussion. With each step, I danced through the blood-soaked chaos, a cruel waltz that mocked the grim spectacle around me. Blood spttered beneath every step as I hummed a cheerful tune, like a twisted serenade for the dying. Fmes lit the city like candlelight, while hurled spells burst overhead, painting the sky with their explosive fireworks.

  Okay, maybe I wasn’t entirely over this nightmare. Sure, waking up would’ve been ideal, but there was something undeniably captivating about this particur slice of horror. I spun and weaved, letting the macabre spectacle carry me through my dance.

  As though caught in the middle of a royal ball, I reached out, seeking a partner. My fingers intertwined with those of a undead and decaying lizard woman—one set of her cws still embedded in some random dying man, the other poised mid-strike, as if reaching out for me. Her scales fked off like morbid confetti as I pulled her in. And there, in the eye of the storm, we found a twisted synchrony. Her stiff limbs gained a grace they had likely never possessed in life—a marionette compelled into my dance, her movements dictated by my will.

  She pirouetted in my grasp, her lifeless eyes staring bnkly as I led her through the steps of a dance as ancient as death itself. The horrific and the divine blurred in those moments; the symphony of screams around us rose to a crescendo. There, in the heart of the nightmare, I reveled in the grotesque beauty of it all—the undead and I, partners in a danse macabre of blood and despair.

  Then the air shifted. Every scream, every csh, every groan of the restless dead faded, as though the entire nightmare itself was kneeling, bowing before the figure emerging from the shrouding mists. The world seemed to hold its breath, the air thick with anticipation that stilled even the most relentless horrors.

  The chaotic waltz came to an abrupt halt, the frenzy dissipating as a singur presence pierced the fog. Red eyes, like smoldering embers, heralded an arrival that silenced the symphony of chaos. I shoved the undead lizard woman in my arms aside, her decayed form crumpling into a nearby heap, and gave a cheeky chuckle and shrug.

  And there she was—Aurelia. Words crumbled in her presence, faltering beneath the weight of her essence. She was beauty sculpted from midnight shadows, sorrow woven through magnificence. A paradox incarnate—evoking awe and anguish with a single gnce.

  She stood before me, an embodiment of everything both magnificent and mournful. In her gaze, I saw all that had been lost and all that could never be—an endless ocean of what-ifs and broken dreams. She was a portrait of the sublime, painted in shades of darkness and light, and for that moment, I drowned in the depth of her being.

  Aurelia—this creature of the night, a vampire of resplendent dread—was more than any whimsical affection or possessive craving. She was an ache, a need that cwed at me from the inside out. Aurelia—no, Aislinn—was mine in a way that defied simple bels, just as much as I was hers.

  Soulmates are often sung of, dreamt about, yearned for in whispered moments of loneliness. But here, in the visceral dreamscape of my reality, it was not just a fanciful notion—it was a necessity. Souls, at their dawn, sometimes splintered, each half cursed to seek the other with an insatiable hunger that stretched across eons and lifetimes.

  As our gazes locked, an intense gravity, the kind that could pull stars into oblivion, drew us together. It was Aurelia who initiated contact; her fingers, a whisper of frost against my skin, traced a line from my jaw to my lips. They lingered there, and in that moment, the entire world seemed to hold its breath. Our longing hung in the air, almost tangible, a weight heavy enough to shatter the dreamscape around us.

  “I love you,” I whispered, the words barely escaping my throat, lost amidst the chaos but somehow heard with absolute crity.

  The nightmare’s cacophony of battle faded into a distant, ever-present echo as her lips met mine. In that moment, the need for words vanished—a kiss that spoke of lifetimes found and lost, of a burning desire that had transcended ages. Passion that had simmered just beneath the surface now boiled over, erupting in a frantic urgency. Our hands moved feverishly, as if trying to recim something we had been denied for far too long.

  Heedless of clothing, my fingers worked to strip away the barriers that separated us, desperate for the touch of her skin against mine. Amidst the decay and despair, the undead parade became mere backdrop, as we carved out an oasis within the nightmare—a fevered embrace standing as testament to an eternal bond.

  Her robes pooled on the cobblestones, darkened with the city’s lifeblood, while my touch moved over her with a mixture of reverence and hunger. Our kisses deepened, exploring and ciming each other, the heat of the moment consuming us both. We became the eye of our own storm, lost to everything but each other.

  Her fingers traced frantic, knowing lines across my flesh, seeking not only the sensation of skin but the essence beneath, plunging into the dark folds of my form. Then, her voice, a hungry whisper against my ear: “I want you.” And just like that, she set me free—free from any remaining hesitation, from any constraint. I gave myself to her completely, the dream dissolving into something far more vivid and real.

  Her hands—insistent, unrelenting—tore through the silken illusion I had woven around myself. As she stripped away the veneer, the truth of my form was id bare: dark, formless, unbound. Beneath the mask of the woman I presented to the world was my true self—an eldritch ooze of shadows, a Bck Pudding in all its terrifying glory in human form.

  Yet, even as the guise crumbled, the shape I chose to hold—a curvaceous figure, the epitome of beauty I aspired to embody—remained. My passion, unshackled, erupted. Tentacles, true extensions of my essence, unfurled like night-blooming flowers from my back, each reaching out, each exploring her vampiric form with an intensity forged by lifetimes of yearning.

  Each tendril moved with ancient hunger, seeking out every hidden valley, every curve of her body. Our communion transcended flesh—a dance between darkness and night, a symphony of ecstasy amidst chaos. The screams and bloodshed faded into nothing, drowned beneath our cries as the city crumbled, its ruination mere background to our union.

  “Ahhh! Bowen! My Bke! How I’ve missed you!” Aislinn’s voice shattered through the madness, her fervent cries echoing with a passion only time and longing could cultivate.

  I yanked her in for another deep kiss, my form melting beneath her touch as our tongues danced, a wild and desperate duet. Then—snap!—like a candle extinguished by a fickle wind, the dream crumbled. I reached out, desperate to keep hold of Aislinn, feeling her slip away even as her fingers strained for me. The nightmare, this dream—this beautiful disaster—shattered, leaving my hands empty, reality ughing in my face.

  “I found you at st,” cooed a soothing, motherly voice, echoing from everywhere and nowhere all at once. She added, “My daughter, it’s time to—wake up!”

  The kaleidoscope of the Dream Realm fizzled, dissolving like sugar in the rain, and I was dragged back to cold, joyless wakefulness. I awoke in my true form—a gloriously shapeless blob sprawled over freezing, unwelcoming stone.

  Frantic, I filed, desperate to grab that fleeting wisp of connection, that presence that had felt as real as the icy stone beneath me. But she was gone. Aislinn—my elusive siren—had vanished, leaving me stranded in a dreary pit of cold rocks and awkward silence. Desperation gnawed at my sanity, the void of her absence chewing at my st nerve. The emptiness settled around me like an unwelcome hug—a cruel reminder that the Dream Realm had been nothing but a fleeting reunion, a momentary dance of our souls.

  I would be reunited with her soon enough—at least, that’s what I kept telling myself. But the sting of separation lingered, like a paper cut I couldn’t stop poking. Torn away, left alone… the ache was unbearable and, frankly, downright rude.

  Alone—well, except for the creepy whispers circling me like gossiping specters reveling in my misery. Everything was a blur, as if Mana Focus had decided to take a coffee break. My sight—so dependent on the mana that wasn’t there—made everything swim. Through the haze, I spotted that familiar gnome filing over some woman sprawled out like forgotten undry. She looked about as lively as a sb of stone.

  “Asherah! High Priestess Asherah!” the gnome cried, his voice cracking. “Don’t just stare. One of you, help!”

  Suddenly, there was a cmor of frantic footsteps—more people than I’d realized, scrambling towards the so-called priestess.

  Did... did I just respawn?

  How?

  Well, isn’t this a delightful turn of events.

  Oh, and the voices in my head were back. Wonderful... just what I needed.

  1

  Like what you read? Wait—you actually did? Well, hot damn! I thought I was the only one with mental issues!

  To the rest of you, Shoo! Nobody wants your sanity here—I mean, please keep reading. Oh, and leave a good review as well. Hee-hee!

  Okay, back to you crazies! Come on over to Patreon to read ahead. Loads of FREE shiny chaos for all you freeload—ahem—potential future sacrifices! Wait, that’s not right… umm free following members? Yeah. That’s it! Including Book 2 edits, tweaks, touch-ups, and probably a few mental breakdowns scribbled in the margins. That’s right, all free!

  Come now, and I’ll even throw in a virgin sacrifice… Or I would—but those are for paid subscribers. I’m saving them for a special occasion.

  Enjoy the madness while I’m off my meds!

  I also have a cult following on Discord… At least, I think I do? If not, then it’s just the voices in my head—again. Either way—we’ve got cookies! Or biscuits? Stuffed with meat! Just… don’t ask what kind of meat. Or where the previous cult members went. Tee-hee!

  Toodle-loo!

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