SFX: Wind shrieks, distant thunder cracking.)
Shade's fists bled. Again. Ten years of practice, every dawn, and still—he couldn't swing a blade without dropping it.
Across the yard, his cousins moved like living weapons, boots pounding the dirt, laughter sharp as steel. Shade's father watched them, pride burning in his eyes… until it fell on him. Then it died.
The wind shifted. The lanterns dimmed. And somewhere, just beyond reason, a voice whispered: "Come."
Shade froze. The wall behind him vanished. The world snapped.
The training yard dissolved into cracked obsidian, glinting under a swollen blue moon. The pines had become translucent spires, humming faintly as the wind brushed them. Far ahead, a tower of bone and starlight pierced a storm of swirling galaxies.
The Nightmare Realm.
Whispers from elders returned: a mirror world that bled into dreams, where the dead traded secrets for years of your life. Never answer if it calls.
Shade had laughed once. He wasn't laughing now.
(SFX: Low, pulsing hum beneath the silence.)
A map rose from the obsidian plain, translucent and alive:
Shattered Expanse — endless husks of broken dreams beneath his feet.
Glasswood — spires of frozen memory, singing and cutting, warning the unwary.
Astral Tower — a spire of bone and light, reachable only by the worthy—or the damned.
One name pulsed at the map's heart: Lady Maria, Warden of the Gate.
Shade's throat went dry. Maria—the Huntress who vanished a century ago hunting a nightmare beast—sat at the tower's peak, blade across her knees. Waiting.
(SFX: Low, rising heartbeat — thump… thump… thump…)
The map condensed into a sliver of white light and slid beneath Shade's skin. He gasped, clutching his chest. The plain emptied, save for footprints leading to the tower—his own, though he hadn't moved.
"You've been chosen."
The voice, mocking and familiar, echoed inside his skull.
Something moved at the edge of vision: a figure clad in rusted plate, helm shaped like a screaming crow, void where eyes should be. It raised a broken sword.
(SFX: Metal shriek — then silence.)
The figure shattered into a thousand shadow crows, wings slicing through moonlight. Shade fell to one knee, head pounding. The world of the living frayed—the pine, laughter, his father's gaze—all unraveling into static.
The obsidian plain buckled.
And then—the Nightmare Realm swallowed him whole.
(SFX: CRASH! Silence)
SFX: Wind slicing, distant echoes of metal scraping.)
Shade stumbled forward, each step sinking slightly into the obsidian plain. The footprints behind him faded almost as soon as they appeared, as if the realm itself denied his passage.
Cold prickled along his skin. Every shadow seemed to stretch toward him, edges sharp as blades. He could hear whispers now—not voices, but the weight of memory pressing against his mind.
"Fear… loss… failure…"
Shade shook his head, teeth clenched. Not now. Not here.
He lifted his hand. Cursed energy flared faintly around his fingertips—a shimmer of silver-blue, trembling like the dying glow of the lanterns back home. It wasn't much, but it was enough.
(SFX: Low crackle of energy.)
From the Glasswood, a spire hummed louder, resonating with his heartbeat. Shade approached cautiously. The surface was smooth, sharp, yet translucent—he could see faint images trapped inside: a child screaming, a hunter falling, a beast laughing.
And then movement—fast, silent, impossible.
A shadow coalesced at the edge of the spire: humanoid, but wrong. Limbs elongated unnaturally, claws scraping obsidian, eyes empty voids. It leapt, and Shade barely rolled aside, heart hammering.
(SFX: Shattering stone, rush of air.)
He landed on one knee. Sweat and blood mingled on his palms. The creature circled, testing him. Shade's breath came in ragged bursts, but his mind sharpened. Every lesson, every failure—it all funneled into this moment.
He raised his hand, channeling his cursed energy, forming a small blade of condensed light. It hummed in resonance with the spire, pulsing with potential.
(SFX: High-pitched, resonant hum as energy gathers.)
The shadow lunged again. Shade struck—not with skill, not yet—but with instinct. The blade met the creature's claw, sparks scattering like shattered stars. The impact screamed through the plain, and for a heartbeat, the world felt real again.
The shadow hissed, retreating slightly, evaluating. Shade rose fully, legs trembling, chest burning.
This is it, he thought. The trial begins.
Somewhere above, the Astral Tower loomed. The path was unclear, the dangers countless, but Shade knew one thing: he would not fall before he understood.
(SFX: Whispering wind, as if the realm itself is breathing.)
And from the distance, faint but undeniable—a laugh.
Lady Maria? Or something far worse?