[You have killed a Latent human, name unknown]
[You have killed an Awakened human, name unknown]
[You have killed a Dormant beast]
The snow fell over the bodies as if trying to bury them on its own. In the end, they were the enemy… so why waste energy on that when the world itself was taking care of covering them?
Bell could no longer feel his feet. Hours… days? ago, he had stopped feeling them entirely. He walked on something that could be flesh or could be ice, but he didn't bother to check. Looking meant stopping, and stopping meant dying.
Everything was white.
There was no sky or horizon, only snow falling from nowhere and accumulating on a ground that seemed endless. The blizzard engulfed everything, devouring sounds, colors… even the memories of a world that had once not been cold.
The army kept advancing.
Or at least, what remained of it.
Bell didn't remember how many had started. Hundreds… perhaps thousands. They marched toward a city they never saw, on a mission to besiege walls that only existed in the officers' reports. No one really knew why they were fighting, or against whom. The only clear thing was that they had to keep advancing.
Keep going, Bell thought. Just keep going.
To his left, a soldier fell to his knees. His lips were completely blue and his eyes glassy, as if there was nothing behind them anymore. Bell walked past him without looking. A minute later, another simply let himself fall into the snow and never got up again.
[You have killed a Latent human, name unknown]
The voice whispered in his mind after eliminating another enemy.
[You have received a memory]
Bell ignored it.
At that moment, his survival was the only thing that mattered. There was no room for anything else.
The blizzard grew stronger.
The wind cut his face like tiny glass blades. Bell squinted and kept advancing, step after step. The snow reached first his knees, then his thighs… and each time it seemed heavier.
Suddenly, an enemy attacked him, completely covered in frost. Bell reacted almost by instinct, raising his sword and running through one of the enemy army's officers without stopping to think.
[You have killed an Awakened human, name unknown]
He didn't turn his head.
He couldn't.
If he looked, he would see the bodies. If he saw them, he would think about them. And if he thought about them… his body would remember that he could fall too.
Keep going.
The wind howled louder, filling the air with a constant, oppressive sound. For a moment, Bell thought he heard a scream in the storm, but it could also just be his mind beginning to break.
Then he saw it.
The beast emerged from the snow like something out of a nightmare. A mass of grayish skin, with bones too long and deformed. Its eyes were completely white, empty, and its mouth was full of teeth sharp as icicles. It didn't walk on the snow… it seemed to emerge from it, as if it were part of the same landscape.
The soldiers who were still alive tried to form ranks, but their fingers were too numb to hold their weapons and their legs too stiff to step back.
The beast attacked.
It wasn't fast. It didn't need to be.
The men were already dead before its claws reached them. Only their bodies didn't know it yet.
Blood stained the snow.
Red on white.
[You have killed an Awakened Beast]
The beast fell.
Bell didn't remember attacking it. Yet his hands were covered in a different kind of ice than the storm's, and his knuckles were stained with blood.
He looked at his palms with some confusion.
When…?
It didn't matter.
He kept walking.
The city never appeared. The walls they were supposed to besiege were nothing but an empty promise. The army was reduced to a single person.
Him.
And still, he kept advancing.
Over bodies, over ice, over that invisible line separating life from death.
Until his body simply couldn't anymore.
He fell to his knees.
The snow began to cover him slowly, first his hands, then his forearms, then his shoulders.
Get up, he told himself. You have to get up.
But his body didn't respond.
Get up…
The blizzard roared mercilessly. The cold seeped through his nose, his mouth, even his eyes. He felt his eyelids grow heavy, his breathing become slower and slower.
Just a moment, he thought. I'll just close my eyes for a moment.
The snow covered him completely.
White.
Absolute white.
Infinite white.
Nothing else remained.
Only emptiness.
Bell crawled weakly through the snow, barely moving his numb fingers. His skin had a grayish tone from lack of warmth, his lips were purple, his body completely frozen.
His vision became blurry. For an instant he thought he saw figures in the distance… but he couldn't tell if they were real or a product of his mind.
He closed his eyes.
[Wake up, your nightmare is over.]
[Prepare for your appraisal...]
---
The cold was the first thing he felt.
Not the unreal cold of the Nightmare, but a completely different one, more tangible. The cold of an underground, poorly ventilated room, the kind that gets into your bones and doesn't leave easily.
Bell opened his eyes slowly.
The ceiling was gray concrete, with several visible cracks. A light bulb hung from a bare wire, illuminating just enough not to trip, but not enough to feel comfortable. His wrists and ankles were secured by leather straps to a metal gurney.
I'm alive, he thought. Again.
"Well, well. The hero awakens."
The voice was male, tired, like someone who had already repeated that same phrase too many times.
Bell turned his head to the right. A man in his thirties, with an unkempt beard and a government jacket with the patch of the Awakened Control Office, was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
"Where…?" Bell asked, his voice rough, as if he had swallowed sand.
"Sublevel sector seven. Temporary quarantine zone," the officer replied while unbuckling the straps with automatic movements. "Congratulations. You survived your First Nightmare. You're officially no longer an Outskirts Rat. Now you're a Dormant."
Bell sat up slowly. His body ached, but he had no visible wounds. The Spell had taken care of that.
"And the girl?" he asked, rubbing his wrists. "The one who usually receives you. The one with dark hair… the pretty one."
The officer looked at him with a mix of patience and weariness.
"Everyone asks about her. But today you got me. Sorry to disappoint."
Bell gave a small, tired but genuine smile.
"I'm not disappointed. Just curious."
"She's still on the morning shift. Right now it's two in the morning, so you'll have to deal with me," the officer replied, pointing to a metal door at the end. "Shower at the end of the hall. Hot water for fifteen minutes. Don't get excited, it's the only concession. After that, the cafeteria. There I'll explain your options."
"Options?"
"You're a Dormant now," the officer said, lighting a cigarette. "The world no longer sees you as trash… it sees you as a resource. And resources always have options. Good or bad, but options nonetheless."
Bell nodded without saying anything.
"Now go take a shower and finish waking up. Then we'll talk."
---
The hot water hit his back like a punishment.
Bell pressed his hands against the tile wall and let the steam envelop him. The heat should feel good, should relax his muscles… but his body barely reacted, as if the cold of the Nightmare had become trapped inside him.
He closed his eyes.
The war.
He didn't remember how it had started. He only remembered the snow, endless, devouring everything.
He had been just another soldier, nameless and faceless, advancing alongside hundreds of others toward a front they never reached. The enemy had no face either. The only real thing was the cold… and the blizzard.
Day after day, his comrades fell. Not from wounds, they simply sat down in the snow and never got up again. Their eyes empty, their lips blue.
And he kept walking.
Not because he was brave… but because stopping meant the same thing.
In the end… only he remained.
---
Bell opened his eyes.
The steam still rose slowly as the water fell on his back. He turned off the tap and stepped out of the shower.
He approached the fogged mirror and ran his hand across the surface. His reflection appeared between the condensation marks.
White hair.
Sky-blue eyes.
He looked like a different person.
But inside… he felt the same.
He raised his left hand and focused his attention.
The runes appeared.
---
Name: Bell
Rank: Sleeper
Aspect: Winter Heart
Aspect Rank: Ascended
Aspect Ability: [Gelid Aura]
Innate Ability: [Cold Aura]
Echoes: —
Attributes: [Ice] [Shadows] [Talent] [Eye of Truth]
Memories: [Bone Flute] [Hidden Arsenal] [Seeker's Armor]
Flaw: Retribution
---
He read them calmly.
Some things made sense. Others, not so much. [Eye of Truth] raised doubts. [Shadows] too.
But what truly weighed on him was the flaw.
You receive a portion of the pain you cause when you kill.
It wasn't a punishment for killing.
It was a punishment for surviving.
For being the last one.
For having kept walking while others fell.
He lowered his hand and the runes disappeared.
He dried himself with the rough towel and put on the gray sweatsuit with the police logo that was on the shelf. After changing, he nodded slightly to himself.
---
When he left the bathroom, he walked down the hall until the smell of hot food reached him.
His stomach roared immediately.
He had gone three days without eating during his First Nightmare… and now hunger hit him hard.
The cafeteria was a small room, with several scattered tables. At one of them sat the officer, with two trays of hot food in front of him.
"Sit down," he said, pointing to the empty chair. "Eat first. We'll talk after."
Bell didn't argue. He sat down.
The officer pushed one of the trays toward him. White rice, a synthetic meat steak, boiled vegetables, and a cup of hot tea.
Bell took a spoonful of rice with vegetables and brought it to his mouth.
The taste was nothing special… but at that moment, it seemed incredible to him.
Much better than the synthetic paste from the outskirts.
The officer watched him in silence for a few minutes, waiting for him to finish before starting to speak.