Waking up from the terrifying dream, in an instant Jacob sat upright. Gasping for air, he felt the silent drops of sweat glide down against his face slowly curving around the young boy's chin. Dropping onto his ragged clothes.
Palming his face with his left hand he could feel his chest expanding and retracting, Jacob just had a terrible nightmare. Trying to recollect his fragmented memories of his dreadful dream, Jacob ruffled his jet black hair. As he moved his hand, brushing the few strands of hair, revealing his muddy face to the world.
His dark lifeless eyes reflected the small slivers of sunlight that broke through the heavy smog that settled on the outskirts. He always had lived poorly, rarely did he ever fill his stomach, and neither did he have a good night of sleep.
'What was it all even about?'
The nightmare had been terrible, utterly harrowing. From what he could recollect, Jacob had encountered something great, old and terrible. Seeing a vision of a world under destruction by a great winged beast, its body obscured by a wall of dark, ghastly miasma that most of the monstrous body.
Remembering a bloody war, a conflict that brought ruinous change to both worlds. The last thing Jacob could try to remember was its 7 eyes, 3 horizontal white slits on each side of its face and a last ghastly white vertical slit. The 7 seven eyes glowed with a blinding white light, pure white and nothingness at the same time. The contrasting features of its hidden body with its eyes brought Jacob an immense unbearable fear.
Jacob pondered cluelessly, utterly dumbfounded at the lack of anything. The fragments he had just rememvered
Letting the droplets of sweat fall like rain onto the bundle of clothes, sown roughly into a makeshift blanket that somewhat kept him warm and comfy during the sleepless nights.
He had felt it ever since last week. Jacob has had trouble with sleep for most of his life, but ever since a week ago, it had been nothing but endless nightmares.
'The dream curse… of course it was the dream curse.'
Planting himself on his feet Jacob inspected his simple rags for clothes. The useless cloth clung tight to his body, riddled with holes softly revealing his pale sunken stomach.
Clicking his tongue he bitterly dusted off the invisible pecks of dust as he gave a look around his environment.
Being the bastard he was, Jacob had audaciously snuck closer to the citadel. Currently positioned between the border between the outskirts and the more 'richer' area. He had worked out it was a small loophole, rarely were the infected ever placed under the watchful eye of an awakened.
But that wasn't so special, it was that you would get access to a school, a place that would be able to give Jacob the chance to survive the horrors of the dream realm.
His bare feet slapped against the pavement, Jacob was already on his way. With a simple goal in mind, survive.
Jacob was a bitter kid, living in the outskirts meant living in the gutters, the trenches. His life had been nothing much but crime and then some more crime. But more importantly, he had never been free, he had never had freedom.
With hurried steps, the slap of his barrier echoed against the claustrophobic shortcut.
Escaping the grim dark alleyway, the gaping pathway between two huge concrete buildings. Brutal in each design, it was the telltale sign of the government. The government operated with a lethal precision, unexpected events could not happen under their nose.
The world had ended when the 9 continents had declared war on each other, and unlike any earlier war. This one ended in mutual destruction along with the great death of humanity, having taken place roughly 150 years ago. That event roughly killed half of humanity, Jacob didn't know his history so well but he knew that the dream curse started happening some 60 or 70 years ago.
Jacob didn't know what to feel, standing on the pavement he was for the first timeuncertain of his future. When Jacob goes inside the government building, would he come out different or even at all. Taking an involuntary gulp he felt a blend of cold and dread deep into his spine, spreading throughout his flesh and bones.
Sensing the stares of people around him, he couldn't stop himself from biting his lip. He couldn't argue the fact that he looked quite out of place in the middle of the pavement, but he didn't mind it at all.
Jacob was only focused on one thing, the visible exhaustion etched into his short frame, which was a visible mark of sleep deprivation.
The large building was more akin to a large guild hall, the large concrete entrance was a huge stairway. Hell or heaven depending on one's perspective.
'Arrrgh… I'm so tired…'
Treading up the stairs, one step at a time. Jacob couldn't help himself, the dream curse came fast and swiftly. Pulling him into a deep sleep, luring him there. His muscles were aching from an imaginary exhaustion that wasn't there.
Taking one last step, everything turned black. Nothingness.
[ Brave Hero, emboldened by the search for glory. Overcome your trial. ]