Since I was a kid, school taught me about the existence of the Nightmare Spell — the creator of the dreaded Nightmares, and the even more terrifying Gates.They drilled its danger into us over and over.They taught me how to fight, how to survive in the wild, how to cook with whatever I could find.They made me learn the geography of the Dream Realm and its hazards… even before I learned how to solve for x.
And honestly, I never understood why.The Nightmare Spell only infected people between sixteen and thirty, and even then, the odds were tiny.I never saw a reason to worry about it — and that mindset only got stronger once I turned eighteen without a single problem.
But life always finds a way to drag you out of your comfort zone… and force you to face reality.
I started sleeping more than usual and feeling tired all the time.That alarmed my parents, who took me to a specialized center to check if I'd been infected.Turns out… I was.
As you can imagine, that led to a complete mental breakdown.All those classes I'd ignored suddenly decided whether I would live or die.So, reasonably enough, I bought anything that could keep me awake a little longer — trying to cram years of training into a few desperate days.
I tore up my hands trying to learn a combat style, and had to stop.I memorized the weaknesses of four hundred sixty-three nightmare beasts — creatures I'd probably never even see.I studied the deadliest regions of the Dream Realm and how to survive in them.(That one turned out to be a total waste of time.)
And a few days later… here I am.Strapped down like an animal in a facility built so people like me — the infected — could enter the First Nightmare without releasing a beast that might kill someone if we died.Although honestly, that's not what worries you most in moments like this.In my experience, your main concern becomes: how the hell do I survive this?
After saying goodbye to my family at the facility gate — and realizing that the people in charge of killing me if things went wrong weren't particularly "interested" in conversation — there wasn't much left to distract me from what was coming.
But no matter how nervous I was, that wouldn't keep me awake.Sleep pressed down on me heavier each second, and what was supposed to be closing my eyes for just a moment… became the trigger the Spell needed to send me into the First Nightmare.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer tied to a bed like a prisoner.Instead, I was in a room that shifted and twisted before my eyes — wall colors flickering through the entire spectrum, furniture appearing and vanishing, the bed changing places, the air vibrating with each transformation.
After a few moments, the chaos began to slow.The movements faded until everything settled into a simple room: pale blue walls, a nightstand, a bookshelf full of books, a wardrobe, and a bed beside a full-length mirror.
A strange feeling crept through me.I rushed to the mirror to check my reflection… and what I saw wasn't me.It was a blond boy with a slender build and brown eyes, dressed somewhere between medieval and Renaissance fashion — nothing like how I'd looked just days ago.
A sharp sense of discord filled me.Hands that weren't mine brushed a face I didn't recognize, trying to understand how it could have changed so completely.
This sudden change was one of the phenomena of the Nightmares — upon entering the First Nightmare, we didn't bring our real bodies with us.We possessed someone else's body within it.
Which confirmed the obvious:I was inside the Spell's trial — the First Nightmare.