The tremor reached me before it reached him.
Dream's realm quivered like a glass struck by an unseen hand. At first, it was barely noticeable, a subtle ripple passing across clouds of sleeping imagination, bending distant towers of thought. But then the second tremor came. Heavier. Hungrier. And the edges of Dream's world began to fray.
The colours of fantasy dimmed. The stars of his internal sky flickered. Entire dreamscapes shuddered as if caught in a slow collapse.
Dream froze upon his throne. He had not known fear in a trillion years until now.
I knew the cause.
It was treason.
One of Dream's own had walked away from him long ago, slipping beyond his watchful eyes into the Below. One of his dream citizens, born from his realm and shaped from pure imagination, had grown resentful and rebellious. The Fallen whispered to it, taught it how to hide, how to feed on forbidden things.
And now that traitor drank from Dream's realm without restraint.
Not through possession.
Through proximity.
Through a mortal boy on a world Dream had not touched in a trillion years:Vvralis.
Dream felt only the consequences.
He rose from his trembling throne, anger and worry carving lines through the shifting mist of his robes. He left his realm in haste, moving through the folds of thought and appearing before Destiny.
Destiny sat pale and shaking at his loom.
Dream demanded answers, but Destiny refused to speak the traitor's name. He knew the consequences names have power. Truth has weight. And if he whispered the truth aloud, the traitor would run deeper into whatever hole it had dug beneath Vvralis.
Destiny offered only a direction.
Only a world.
Vvralis.
Dream descended, shedding his celestial nature for a mortal shape. A simpler form. Soft, human skin. Mortal breath. Fragile bones.
He hated the confinement of mortality, but he needed it. To walk a mortal world as himself would shatter it. To find the traitor, he needed subtlety, not radiance.
I watched him arrive under a sky of twin moons.
Vvralis was too quiet. A stillness filled the air like a breath held too long.
The ash-colored grass whispered under Dream's mortal feet as he walked the outskirts of a sleeping village. Lanterns flickered in windows like shy reminders of life. The air felt damp with dream-energy his own power, but twisted, frayed, dripping into the world like leaking water.
He sensed it immediately.
The traitor had been here. Recently.
He could feel where its presence had pressed against reality, leaving faint distortions like fingerprints on wet glass.
Dream walked deeper into the village, trying not to appear unnatural. He kept his mortal face soft, his borrowed robes unassuming. But every fibre of the world bent subtly toward him, as though the land recognised a truth it could not understand.
Then he heard it.
A shout.The sound of flesh striking flesh.
Dream's eyes sharpened.
Violence.
He moved toward it quickly.
He found the scene in a narrow stone alleyway.
Five grown men are kicking a boy curled against a wall. Dust rising around them. Boots slamming into frail ribs.Spittle flying with each insult.
"Cursed freak!"You make people see things!"You poison our sleep!"You shouldn't exist!"
Dream stood at the mouth of the alley.
The sight disgusted him but it was the energy that made him step forward.
A faint residue shimmered around the boy like a second skin, so thin most would never see it. But Dream recognised it instantly.
A remnant of the traitor's touch.
Not inside the boy. Not controlling him. Just clinging to him like lingering smoke.
The dream-citizen had been near this boy. Very near.Recently.
Dream's mortal fingers curled.
He extended his hand. A ripple of command swept through the air, soft and inevitable.
The five attackers collapsed instantly.
Their minds were plunged into deep, enforced sleep Dream saw to that personally. Their limbs went slack, weapons clattering to the ground. Cruelty dissolved into unconsciousness.
Dream walked into the alley.
The boy lifted his face, bruised and bloodied, eyes wide with pain and confusion.
"Did… did you do that?" he whispered.
"Yes," Dream said softly.
He knelt and took the boy's arm gently, helping him sit upright. Even with Dream's mortal limits, his touch soothed and steadied.
"You're hurt," Dream murmured.
"I've been hurt before," the boy replied with a trembling breath.
Dream's eyes narrowed slightly.
This was not an ordinary child.
Dream placed a hand lightly on the boy's shoulder. Not to healto sense.
And he felt it clearly then:
A trace of dream-force foreign to this world. A remnant not born from Dream's own will. A leftover touch from the traitor.
The boy had been near it. Close enough for it to leave a mark.Close enough for Dream to follow.
The boy shivered as Dream withdrew his hand.
"Who… who are you?" the boy asked.
Dream stiffened. His true name would break this world.
He crafted a mortal name instead, simple, old, forgotten by most, but native to Vvralis.
"Varos," Dream said quietly. "My name is Varos."
The boy blinked. "I've never heard that name before."
"It has not been spoken in many years," Dream said. "But it belongs here."
The boy studied him, fear fading into something like hesitant trust.
"Thank you," he whispered. "For saving me."
Dream nodded slightly.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Erias," the boy answered. "It means 'dream-touched' in the old tongue."
Dream nearly froze.
The name was no coincidence.
"Erias," Dream repeated slowly.
The boy swallowed. "You… believe me, don't you? When I say strange things happen around me?"
"Yes," Dream said without hesitation. "More than you know."
Erias closed his eyes briefly, as if relieved. When he opened them again, they shimmered with fear and memory.
"People say I'm cursed," the boy whispered. "That I make them see things. That I drag nightmares behind me like shadows. I don't want to… but it just happens."
Dream sat back on his heels, watching the child carefully.
"What did you see, Erias?" he asked. "What happened before this began?"
The boy looked down at his hands. His voice shook.
"It started with a dream. A very strange one."
Dream kept silent, allowing him to continue.
"I dreamed of a place underground. A stone room. A door covered in symbols I couldn't read. I felt… drawn to it. Like I knew it. Like it was waiting for me."
Dream clenched his jaw.
The traitor's whisper. The lure is used. The doorway into the underground where it hid.
Erias continued:
"When I woke up, I just knew where to go. I walked all morning until I found a cave at the base of the mountain. But there had never been a cave there before, not that anyone knew."
Dream's eyes darkened.
The traitor had carved a gateway beneath Vvralis hidden from Destiny, hidden from Dream, hidden from all.
Erias swallowed hard.
"I went inside. The tunnel was cold. And it smelled like… smoke, but not from fire. More like burned air." He shuddered. "And then I saw the door from my dream."
Dream leaned forward. "What did you do?"
"I touched it," Erias whispered. "And it opened."
Dream exhaled slowly.
"And what came out?"
Erias closed his eyes, remembering.
"A figure. Made of mist. But its shape kept changing. Like it didn't understand what a body was supposed to look like. It didn't speak. But I felt it. It touched my forehead."
Dream felt cold fury burn through him.
The traitor had touched this boy. Left its mark upon him. Left a trail Dream could follow.
But the boy was innocent.
Erias continued, voice barely audible:
"I ran. I think… I think it followed me. I keep seeing it in dreams. Not in my head. Just… standing. Watching."
Dream rose slowly.
The traitor was very close.
"Erias," he said softly, "you are not cursed."
The boy blinked at him.
"You were not chosen," Dream continued. "You were touched. Accidentally, or intentionally I do not yet know."
Erias looked at him with trembling hope.
"Can you make it stop?" he whispered. "The dreams? The whispers?"
Dream hesitated.
This child carried only the residue.
The traitor was somewhere deeper, under the mountain.
"I can help you," Dream said at last. "But to do that… you must show me where this began."
Erias's eyes widened in fear. "The cave?"
"Yes."
"No," the boy whispered. "It's dangerous."
Dream reached out, placing a hand gently on his shoulder.
"And so am I."
Erias stared at him for a long moment then nodded slowly.
"Alright, Varos. I'll take you."
The boy stood shakily, still bruised, still frightened, but guided now by purpose. Dream walked beside him, the two of them crossing the dark boundary of the village and moving toward the looming mountains.
The night wind whispered around them.
Grass bowed as they passed. Shadows lengthened. The ground itself seemed to pulse, faintly.
As they approached the first rise of the mountain, I felt it
A stirring beneath Vvralis.
The traitor moved.
Not toward them.
Away.
Deeper.
Into the hidden paths of the Below.
Dream sensed only the faint echo.
Erias sensed only cold air.
But I knew what the movement meant.
The traitor had felt Dream's arrival.
It had fled.
It had new allies.
New protection.
And it had no intention of surrendering the power it stole.
Dream stopped briefly on the path, glancing toward the mountain's heart.
His mortal voice was quiet:
"It knows I'm here."
Erias looked at him, frightened. "Varos… what is it?"
Dream exhaled.
"Something that once belonged to me," he murmured. "Something that ran away."
They began climbing.
And far above them, Dream's realm trembled once more losing another piece of itself.
The war for Dream had begun.