"Happy birthday!" Milia stepped into the room only to be surprised by confetti and the loud voices of her family.
She had forgotten that today was her birthday, so the lively scene that greeted her as she opened the door caught her completely off guard.
Before she could reply, her mom grabbed her and made her sit in the front seat of the table, urging her to blow out the candles on the birthday cake that she probably baked herself.
"Blowing is a bad idea, Mom, all that will do is introduce germs to the cake," her brother stated while opening a large bottle of orange juice.
'Astute as ever.' Thought Milia.
"Mark, it's your sister's birthday, don't rain on her parade," her dad said sternly.
"Just saying," Mark said, averting his eyes from his dad's strict stare.
Her mom ignored the squabble, with her usual easy smile, and said, "Don't forget to make a wish!"
'A wish, huh?' Just as she was about to waive the childish idea, she remembered her friend fervently complaining and crying about his obscure favorite show getting a terrible ending.
thinking it wouldn't hurt, she made a wish, 'I wish Shadow Slave gets a good ending.'
feeling a bit embarrassed by the fact she actually made a wish, she hurriedly moved her hand and snuffed out the candles with her fingers, heeding Mark's advice not to blow.
"I swear, kids these days are way too worried about every little thing," her mom said, sighing lightly as she cut the cake into pieces and placed them on the plates.
Time passed as the family enjoyed the birthday party. Mark and her father went to sleep early so they'd wake up for their shifts in the morning.
Getting up and reaching for the plates to start cleaning up, her mom cut her off, "Leave the cleanup to me tonight, baby, you need to wake up early for university tomorrow."
Sensing her rebuttal if she refused, Milia decided to concede and head towards her room.
Before she left, she turned around and said, "Thanks for the party, Mom. The cake was delicious. Good night"
Smiling brightly, the mom replied, "Good night~."
Lying down in bed after she finished brushing her teeth, she started reading the latest daily chapters of her favorite web novel.
"Ahhhhhh, I really should start stacking these chapters, the cliffhangers are driving me crazy."
She sat an alarm for 6am before turning off the phone, making sure she doesn't forget the time by scrolling on social media apps.
dozing off to sleep, she thought, 'I'm definitely gonna stack starting tomorrow.'
And as she fell asleep, a lone alien voice rang in the darkness of her room.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
***
Milia dreamt of a forgotten shore.
In the dead of the night, she saw a great sea of darkness rush against the giant walls of a city with a single bright castle in its heart.
The sun suddenly started rising from the west, and she saw a towering crimson spire dwarf the city with its harrowing shadow.
And as the light shone on the sea, it started rushing down underground, revealing a sprawling crimson labyrinth that stretched from the horizon and a deep, ginormous crater that made it look as if a powerful nuclear bomb had been unleashed in that location.
Then all of a sudden, the sun became a blurring line of light, and the sea became a giant wave that rushed back and forth.
Until eventually the sun disappeared and all that was left was darkness, for a few moments, then the darkness receded once again into where the crater had been, revealing the sun once again, and the land where the hollow crater was started refilling itself alongside the retreating darkness revealing a city that once stood there, and soon all that was left was a small depression in the ground near the city, which then also disappeared after a shining black star shot out of it into the night sky.
She could see a bizarre sight of people slowly walking backwards in the streets of the city until they finally all stopped moving, and then started moving forward at a much more normal speed.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
Milia woke up and stretched her arms over her head, she felt weird.
'I haven't had a dream that weird in a while' groggily yawning she covered her mouth and got up to start her morni-
"What…" She looked around.
Her blanket was gray and uncomfortable, her bed old and rickety, and her windows were not made of glass; she didn't know if calling it a window was right since it was just a wooden shutter.
"…the fuck." As the moments passed, she kept noticing the stark differences, and as she moved her head to look around, she also noticed that her hair, which she never remembered dyeing, was blonde.
"Hmm." She supported her chin with her hand and closed her eyes as if she was thinking deeply.
"I see." She tapped her fist into her palm and opened her mouth wide, looking like she had solved the mystery of the meaning of life.
"I must still be dreaming." Reading Shadow Slave before falling asleep must have led her into this dream, she logically thought.
'I gotta say this has to be the most realistic dream I've ever had. I wonder if I can start flying like the last time I had a lucid dream,' excited by the possibility, she tried to will herself to start flying multiple times to no avail.
"Weird…I don't remember it being this hard," she shrugged and started exploring her room further.
The room was a bit smaller than her actual bedroom, but it wasn't quite cramped either. Her search led her to finding some clothes that looked like they'd fit in a museum in a run-down closet, and a hand-held mirror at a desk next to the bed.
Holding the hand-held mirror up to her face, she examined it and was surprised at how different and detailed her face looked. Her emerald-like green eyes were especially captivating. 'Maybe I should try dyeing my hair blonde sometime.'
Putting the mirror down, she left the room and found that the house only had one room, a small living room, and an even smaller kitchen, which had some vegetables and dried meat stored neatly next to a medieval stove. 'Great, I guess I don't need to worry about starving inside my own dreams,' She lampooned
Turning around to examine the living room a bit more closely, she stubbed her toe on the edge of the door. "Ouch…"
'Wait, why does this hurt so mu-' as she was finishing her thought, she heard the echo of a horn and footsteps outside the house.
Curiosity taking the better of her, she decided to leave the house and see what the fuss was about. As soon as she stepped out into the streets, she was hit by what felt like a thousand different smells, almost all of them smelling like shit. Wincing, Milia pinched her nose and started following the people who were heading towards the sound of the horn.
After walking for around 15 minutes, she reached a plaza packed with a crowd, all staring towards the center. She had difficulty seeing over the crowd and couldn't make out what it was they were looking at.
Determined to find out, she dove into the crowd and made her way towards the center, catching a few looks along the way.
Finally making it into the inner ring, she stopped to catch her breath, then looked up and froze.
She didn't know what she expected to see, but what she glimpsed wasn't it.
Up there on top of a small platform stood a man wearing a mask, holding an axe, and another man kneeling with his head pinned to a black, stained log.
And as she was starting to realize the reality of the situation, a man wearing white garbs with golden lining walked up to the platform in front of the two men.
The man unrolled a scroll and started declaring, "The temple has found the man, Zachary Woods, guilty on three accounts of tax evasion, two accounts of blasphemy, and one account of cold-blooded murder. With the power vested in me as Cardinal of the Sun, I sentence thee to death."
"May the Sun purify his sins to ash," the bishop extended his hands upwards in the shape of the letter V and exclaimed, "Praise the Sun!" which was promptly followed by the crowd chanting the same "PRAISE THE SUN!"
Milia was dumbfounded, 'Something is wrong,' she thought, and before she could recollect her composure, she witnessed it happen.
One would think it'd be swift, but it took 3 good swings for the executioner to fully decapitate the man, who no doubt felt great pain, as he screamed in a pitch and intensity Milia had never thought possible. As the first swing failed to kill him instantly, the blood splattered on the log and the masked man's feet, his bone showing through the skin.
The second swing ended his misery, but it didn't quite decapitate him as his head dangled to the side of the log, barely attached to the neck. The third swing took it clean off, and the executioner proceeded to hold the trophy up for the masses to admire, which, strangely enough, they cheered enthusiastically for.
Milia couldn't handle it; she knelt down on the cold ground and threw up the food she didn't even remember eating, the crowd clearing around her. Some people stared at her strangely, while others held an expression of understanding.
She didn't care about any of it, though. Milia was simply overwhelmed; she had never seen a person die before in her life, let alone be executed in such a brutal and gruesome manner.
Panting and holding back tears from the shock and the reeling taste of puke in her mouth, she tried to stand up, only to trip and fall back down, her clothes smeared by her own spew.
A few people tried helping her up. But before they could touch her, she quickly stood up and began running east in the direction of her house.
Usually, such a comical spectacle would garner a lot of attention, but most of the crowd was still focused on the executioner and the decapitated head, not paying much heed to the puking lass.
After running back to her home and catching more than a few stares from the passersby because of her sorry state and panicked escape.
Sprawling down on the floor of her room, she panted and cursed her own curiosity for going to the plaza, cold sweat running down her back.
A seed of doubt had bloomed in her heart ever since the execution; she had tried to will herself to wake up multiple times on the way back home, but to no avail.
remembering the alien voice and the vision at the start of her dream, she grimaced.
"Please…please just be a bad dream," she prayed.
Steeling her resolve, Milia concentrated and started thinking about the words "runes" and "status"
"Fuck…"
She saw it.
***
Name: Milia.
True Name: —
Rank: Aspirant.
Soul Core: Dormant.
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: [⌷⌷⌷], [Mark of Divinity], [Widow]
Aspect: [Saintess]
Aspect Description: [A flower with no thorns is both beautiful and defenseless]
Stunned, Milia snickered as she stared at her runes.
"This isn't just a bad dream..."
"It's a fucking nightmare."