Lying in bed, Ezkiel shifted, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep. Maeve was lying on top of him, her head on his chest. Her dark hair, with its single reddish streak, was a messy tangle in the young man's fingers. She made a point of pressing her body as tightly as possible against her boyfriend's chest.
This was a normal situation for the couple, an ordinary night, like all the others they had spent together for the past two years. On this night, however, the girl was more excited than usual.
— It's gonna work! Trust me, it's gonna work!
Maeve shifted excitedly, rubbing her nose against his chin. They both stared at the object dancing in the weak breeze from the half-open window.
— I don't know why you're so excited about this.
A beautiful dreamcatcher hung above the two of them. The light wood supported intertwined purple-blue threads, resembling a large spider's web. Three white feathers, tied to the hoop, moved with the wind, brushing against each other delicately.
— Because you're going to dream! That's so cool, don't you think? Like… fucking awesome!
Ezkiel studied his girlfriend's small face, contemplating the euphoria in her large eyes.
— Sure! Fucking awesome.
— Of course you don't think it's awesome! You've never dreamed before!
Ezkiel snorted, a sarcastic smile forming on his face. Maeve began to pout, puffing her small cheeks with air. The same cute expression as always.
— Stop making fun of me, man! The website said it makes you dream.
She paused, staring at him as he purposefully rolled his eyes to annoy her.
— And it was super cheap.
— Oh! Again?
A sincere laugh escaped Ezkiel. He couldn't contain himself in the face of his girlfriend's silly naivete. It wasn't the first time she had tried to buy random things on the internet just for fun. The last time had been a collection of mystical stones that were supposed to keep a person from getting sick. It seemed to be working well, until she caught the flu.
— Sure! Great! Can we go to sleep now?
— Yes.
Her pouting voice was muffled by the sound of the comforter moving to cover her face. Maeve slowly tilted her head against Ezkiel's chest like a small pet getting ready to sleep. He felt her breathing gradually slow, joining his in a favorable synchrony.
He slowly closed his eyes, looking once more at the white feathers of an unknown bird tied to the catcher and the purple threads that were hypnotically attractive. Little by little, his concentration faded, as the object's pendulum-like sway carried his mind away until sleep took over the room.
" Dreamer found! "
" Processing assimilation compatible with Dreamcatcher... "
" Compatibility confirmed! "
" Re-establishing connection..."
" Dreamer has become a Dream Collector! "
" Analyzing body status..."
" Body located! "
" Integration of Collector, Ezkiel Arcs, complete! "
...
" Return available in 2 hours "
The robotic, genderless voice sounded in his mind like a strange awakening. A sequence of events began to arrange themselves in his understanding.
Pain filled every part of his body, becoming a part of him. A physical weakness was eating him alive. A new feeling for someone who had always been in good physical shape.
A lacerating hunger consumed his stomach, an unprecedented discomfort of having no fuel in his body. His organs pulsed slowly, devouring themselves in an act of autophagy, seeking any spark of energy they could absorb.
Lastly, and most disturbing, were his senses. Every involuntary movement felt wrong. His own body was the cause of such discomfort that it would drive anyone to despair. The air entered his lungs strangely. His heartbeats seemed out of sync, pumping his blood correctly, yet strangely at the same time. Even the way his tongue rested in his mouth caused him anguish.
The more he thought about his body, the more the discomfort grew. Small details became focal points of despair for reasons he didn't even understand, he just knew it was wrong.
After some time in this uncomfortable mix of sensations, he found the courage to open his eyes. His eyelids moved like old doors, stuck shut for a long time.
His vision flickered, gradually shaping the scene around him. He was in an old cell, with rusted bars in front of him. The ancient walls were made of stone bricks consumed by dark green moss. The lighting was low, coming only from the moon that peeked through the gap of the small window at his back. Puddles of water had formed all over the room, created by the excess humidity, giving the impression that the cell itself had been crying for years. The ground was deteriorated by the water, forming a kind of sandpaper that scraped the prisoner's wrinkled and lacerated feet.
Desperate, he tried to move, but a chain around his neck, which he hadn't yet noticed, pulled him back against the wall. The jolt was so strong that the boy was left breathless. His eyes widened, his hands pulling at the metal collar in a useless attempt to remove it.
Another metallic noise scraped across the stones, but this time, it wasn't attached to the other end. His wrists were bound in shackles, but the other side, which should have been fixed to the stone bricks of the floor, had come loose due to the cell's deterioration.
Ezkiel touched his own wrists with small, white hands. He observed the raw wounds the metal had made. Old and new scars, from a series of futile attempts to break free. The pain shot through his being like an old shock. The sensation felt, at once, familiar to the body, but overwhelming to his mind.
His teeth ground in extreme agony, but he managed to compose himself quickly. He then noticed his hands: young, dirty, and calloused. His nails were cracked, soft enough to be pulled off with just a light tug.
His breathing became irregular. A panic he had never felt before entered his mind and made it its home. His head thrashed from side to side, pulling the chain with all the strength his weak hands possessed, while his feet pressed against the ground, trying to stand up and break the chain, tightening it even more around his neck.
— He—lp…
His voice barely came out when he tried to scream. It sounded more like the growl of a suffocating creature than a human cry.
His mouth was completely dry and his chapped lips leaked small droplets of blood that coated his rough tongue.
A dream. I'm in a dream! The dreamcatcher worked. This is all just a fucked-up dream!
The surprise that arose in his mind filled him with genuine happiness. A smile appeared on his pale mouth, reddened by his own blood.
I just need to wake up. I want to wake up!
He thought as he stared at the rusty bars in front of him and the sound of water drops falling into the puddles on the stone. The sound was interrupted by a familiar voice in his mind, along with a purple-blue screen appearing before his eyes.
" Return available in 1h 58min "
What the hell is this? Who's talking to me?
He thought, frightened, considering the idea that he was going crazy. However, the phrases he had disregarded upon waking in this world came to mind.
Compatible body? Dream Collector?
Confused, another purple-blue window appeared before his eyes:
Name: Ezkiel Arcs
Race: Dream Collector
Body: Human
Class: –
Dream Threads: 0/1000
Stage: Soulless
Rank: – Talents:『Tortured』
Skills:『Collect Dreams』『Dreamer Analysis』
Dreams Collected: –
Some information is not visible to the user.
What's happening to me?
An abrupt urge to laugh out of panic came to his mind. Fear mingled with the disorientation of the tab in front of him. The information seemed so confusing in his mind that he couldn't think of anything other than a bad joke.
Why the fuck is my talent Tortured?
That was the first thing that crossed his mind.
Just as a new tab was forming in front of him, the sound of footsteps echoed through the wet corridors of the prison. His eyes bulged, and he began to shake the chain desperately, trying to attract as much attention as possible. With his focus on the movement of the flames that appeared, illuminating the area, the dreamcatcher's window disappeared from his sight.
With swift steps, a man appeared in his field of vision. He wore a poorly cured leather vest that was falling apart with every movement of his body. He wielded a sword in his right hand; the cracked metal was covered in scratches from its base to the simple leather hilt, showing the poor quality of the blacksmith's work.
To complete the set, a flickering lamp dangled from his left hand, worn out and leaking small droplets of oil from its base, turning its flames into small, volatile sparks.
The man's appearance was at odds with his equipment. The signs of use on the items were similar to the scars on his body, however, one stood out more than the others. On his face, among dirt marks and light wounds yet to heal, ran a scar from his eyebrow to his jaw, cutting across his left eye.
A blow from a large beast that had torn his face. This understanding came from the state of the scar, which didn't look like a cut, but rather a piece of flesh that had been torn away, leaving a wrinkled and deep scar where only a milky orb with reddish streaks still moved.
His hair, a difficult color to identify in the flickering light, was straight and oily, falling to his shoulders. The mane of a ragged lion.
However, what caught Ezkiel's attention most about the entire figure of the scar-and-leather-clad hunter before him was not his sword or his unkempt hair, but his age. He seemed to be close to his own age, a young man under 20.
— There's still a prisoner in this forgotten place?
His deep voice sounded out, like a roaring animal. He looked Ezkiel up and down, his body tensed to attack.