" It began not with a sound, but with absence - the sort that echoes in your bones, not in your ears."
Nameless inhaled sharply.
If breath could exist in a dream, his was cold. Not cold like winter air, but like the memory of drowning - sharp, slick, and senseless. He tried to move but found his limbs unresponsive, like a marionette with tangled strings.
he couldn't feel his fingers.
he couldn't remember if he'd ever had any.
Darkness pressed around him. Not blind blackness, but a shifting curtain of deep gray and rust- red - like velvet soaked in old blood. Whispers trailed through it. Not words exactly, but the residue of speech, "laughter smeared across weeping, syllables cut into ribbons."
His mind clawed for identity. A name. A history. Even a single word that belong to him.
Nothing.
Then... suddenly a pain surged through him.
Like a needle stabbing directly into the soul, hot and sudden. The darkness snapped like a torn sheet, revealing - A desk. A wooden desk.
The surface was battered, stained with ink and something darker. An open ledger sat atop it, the left page was blank and the right page was half written in a language he shouldn't know, but somehow did.
"When the dream no longer ends, the dreamer becomes the cage."
The ink shimmered faintly under the light of pale, Crimson moon. Its glow poured in through the cracked window behind him, staining the floor in unsettling hues. Everything had a film over it, like dust that wasn't quite real.
He tried to move again. This time, his arm obeyed - twitching like a limb thawing from frost. He blinked.
That was when he noticed the "mirror."
It stood to his left, tall and narrow, framed in rusted brass. But the reflection was wrong. The room behind him looked melted, like wax poured over bones.
Worse still was the man staring back at him.
Sharp cheekbones. Slate - grey eyes. A collar stained with something brown. pale skin. Too pale.
Nameless opened his mouth. So did the reflection. But didn't spoken.
They smiled at the same time. A slow broken smile.
Nameless staggered back, bumping into desk. his hand slapped against the ledger again, smearing a small patch of ink. His palm burned where it touched the words. Beneath his skin, something writhed - like a second set of nerves trying to wake up.
"Where... Where am I?" He crocked. though the sound came out warped- more thought than voice.
Suddenly, the walls breathed.
The air swelled, the wallpaper rippling as if it were made of skin. The pipework above him pulsed, clinking softly in rhythm with a heartbeat - not his own. And a strange scent filled the room, Rust, lilacs, and mold.
And footsteps.
Downstairs.
Click, click, click.
Measured. Heavy, each step made the desk tremble slightly.
Nameless moved on his instinct now, turning his head towards the narrow staircase behind the doorless arch in the corner of the room. He knew he shouldn't be here. knew this room didn't belong to him.
"He was inside someone else's memory. Someone else's fear.
Then the journal fluttered open wider. More text appeared - scrawling itself across the pages in fresh, black ink.
"If you're reading this, then I'm already gone. I tried to seal it. I really did. But the dream won't stop bleeding."
Nameless's finger twitched.
The footsteps grew louder. Whoever - or whatever - was coming up the stairs was humming now. A child's lullaby, sung out of tune, each word bent backward.
His vision doubled.
Suddenly, he was not alone in his skull.
A rush of emotions that weren't his own spilled into him. panic, guilt, obsession, longing, terror. A memory of a girl with violets in her hair. A ring of feathers. A voice that said, "You're the lock. I'm the key."
Nameless fell to his knees, the weight of it all bearing down like a ocean. A name surfaced - but it wasn't his.
Lucien Grahme.
The original dreamer.
Nameless choked on air that didn't exist. His body now wore Lucien's skin, Lucien's bones - but the soul behind the eyes was not the same.
Another line blend into the journal.
"If you see her, don't follow. She's part of it now."
The footsteps reached the room.
Nameless turned slowly - his body weak, clumsy - and saw the silhouette at the threshold. A woman in a lace gown, her eyes hollowed with shadow, mouth sewn shut. She hovered above the floor, arms limp, her head twitching slightly as if pulled by strings.
The crimson moon outside pulsed once.
And her eyes turned toward him.
The women didn't move.
She just hovered there - motionless at the threshold, framed in flickering crimson moonlight. Her gown, once white, was socked at the hem in a color that wasn't quite red or black. It clung to her body unnaturally, as though it had been stitched onto bone, not flesh. Her arms hung limp, but the fingers twitched - elegantly, like a pianist warming up... or a spider waiting to strike.
Nameless couldn't breath, yet his chest rose and fell. He could feel Lucien Grahme's fear crawling under the skin he wore like an ill-fitted coat. His heart beat - Lucien's heartbeat - thundered in his ears, far too loud, too fast. But behind that borrowed panic, a deeper still, was curiosity.
"Who is she?"
"What is she?"
"Why does she know I don't belong?"
The air in the room thickened like syrup. it pressed against his lungs, each breath coming with effort. The scent had changed changed - less mold and rust now, more of something decaying sweetly. It was like breathing in wilted roses left atop an open grave, mingled with the metallic bite of dried blood.
Her head jerked again.
Once. Twice. A violent spasm - then stillness.
Then without warning, her feet touched the floor.
The soft tap echoed louder than it should have, as if the room itself gasped at the sound. She took a single step forward, and the wooden floor groaned - not under her weight, but like a sleeper turning in restless slumber.
Nameless's back hit the desk.
The ink bottle wobbled and toppled spilling across the journal like a dark artery opening across a corpse. The words were still writing themselves.
"She's looking for me. If you wear my skin, she'll think you're me. Don't let her kiss you."
kiss?
His stomach twisted.
Nameless forced himself to move. His left hand reached out blindly and landed on the revolver - the cold brass was like a burst of clarity. It fit oddly in his grip, like a memory he hadn't earned. Lucien's weapon. Lucien's fear. Not his.
But he held it anyway.
The woman stepped again. then again.
Her movement were smooth now, as through water had replaced her bones. her sewn mouth made no sound, but her eyes... they screamed. Grief. Longing. Hunger. The skin around them cracked, revealing pale threadwork underneath - as if someone had tried to repair her from the inside out.
Nameless raised the gun.
His hands trembled. he didn't even know if it would fire. This was someone else's weapon in someone else's dream. Did dreams have bullets? Could you even kill someone that wasn't fully alive begin with?
He clicked back the hammer anyway.
The sound was loud. Final.
The woman froze. Then her mouth unstitched itself. Thread snapped. Skin tore in silence.
Nameless screamed.
Not aloud - his throat locked. But the scream echoed in his skull, fracturing something.
The journal burst into flame.
No spark, no heat. Just dreamfire - cold and white, flickering like a frozen lightning. It devoured the pages in seconds, leaving only ash. The revolver grew heavy in his hand, and for a moment, he imagined it melting into his palm, fusing with his flesh.
The woman stepped into the fire.
and stopped.
Her head tilted.
The fire reached her feet, then her knees. she didn't burn. The flames passed through her, as though she were nothing but smoke. her mouth stretched open wider, until her jaw cracked - and still she made that terrible, beautiful wrong sound.
Nameless fired.
The recoil was like thunder beneth his skin. The sound didn't travel outward - it imploded, crashing into his ears, his ribs, and his mind.
The bullet struck her in the chest.
she smiled.
The hole in her gown pulsed like a second heart. something black oozed out, dripping without touching the floor. She took a single step forward and whispered - not with lips, but directly into the dream itself.
"You're not him. But you will be."
Her form flickered.
split.
reformed.
Nameless stumbled backward - no longer in the study, but in a long hallway of mirrors. Infinite. The walls were lined with frames, each showing himself in a different skin, a different life.
"A soldier weeping in a trench filled with saltwater."
"A scholar vomiting up keys into a stone bowl."
"A child with empty eyes and too many teeth."
"A man in a straight jacket, grinning as he's swallowed by a shadow shaped like bird."
Then - her reflection appeared behind every version of him.
She placed her hands on their shoulders. and kissed their necks. they all screamed and Nameless fell.
No floor, No ceiling. Just falling- endless, weightless, silent. The dream was breaking apart now. he was being spit out - rejected like an unwelcomed guest.
Before the dream tore completely, he heard one final whisper from her.
"Lucien's not done with you yet."
Nameless gasped and sat upright.
Cold sweat soaked his heart.
This time, there was a real floor beneath him. Wooden. Dusty. He was in a different room now - a small garret chamber with a cracked window, a flickering oil lamp, and a peeling poster for a dream- theater troupe nailed to the wall.
His fingers still gripped the revolver.
The ink - stained journal sat on the floor beside him, unburdened - but the first page was missing.
"You were born in someone else's dream."
He could still feel her breath on his neck.
The crimson moon hung outside the window, silent and high, as if watching him with pity.