It was common for sight to evoke emotions. It was common for people to see things and link them to certain feelings.
In limbo, the land of dreams—the realm fashioned by the kin of the Feys—sight and emotions existed in an unholy union, a mind devouring singularity.
A young soul stood in the heart of limbo, his name and identity completely forgotten.
He had been stripped down to his core. Upon his were marks of five.
The first was a mark of an ancient being, a being so ancient it preceded consciousness. The mark vibrated in excitement as it radiated in the presence of limbo.
The second was a mark of a creature of the harvest, an entity of a thousand wishes. It latched unto the young soul like a karmic thread.
The third was a mark of protection, an echo of a great aura, an shield of safety against natural forces of harm.
The fourth was a parasite, a great essence reduced by destruction—now latched onto a soul young and innocent, eldritch tendrils snaking through.
The fifth and final was a mark that shone as bright as the fires of hell. Pulsing along with the flow of the young soul—a mark sharpened with the edge of destruction.
As the young soul slept, limbo covering it like a blanket, the sulphur-stones of the city around it dimmed to pulsing embers.
The howls faded. Around the fallen city and palace everywhere quieted—servants collapsing in exhausted heaps and warlords slumping in still-burning armors of war.
After the Titan's assault, all Hell needed rest.
Even Queen of Severance, still up in the sky, drifted off on a bed of fire quickly conjured.
One young soul dragged the entire city to limbo with it.
But sleep in Hell is never safe.
It began with a soundless pulse.
Not a boom.
Not a whisper. Something between.
It echoed from beyond the Nine Pits, past the borders of madness, from a demon still slumbering—a drinker of dreams, a master of hell, a lord of light, whose thoughts spill across dimensions like venom through veins.
And on this night, its mind turned toward the City of Severance, spilling out from limbo.
Everyone slept. And then, no one did.
Ran opened his eyes to find himself standing in a sky made of mirrors, each one reflecting a different version of himself.
In one, he was a noble. In another, a beast. In another, nothing but a pillar of fire.
The ground beneath him was soft and breathing.
He tried to move.
But the mirrors began to speak. Each reflection whispered his regrets. His betrayals. His cowardice. He fell to his knees—no, he had no knees.
He was a spider. No—a flame. No—a child again, watching his mother whisper the secrets of the cosmos to his young ears.
This was not a nightmare. It was a harvest.
Across the city, demons thrashed in invisible binds.
Some howled in languages lost to fire. Others simply wept—paralyzed, their memories, buried for centuries, surfacing in waves of torment.
Above the fallen palace, the sky turned inside out. The stars of hell fell upward, becoming teeth.
The moons bled. The remaining spires bent toward the heavens as if praying for death.
And the Dream-Drinker kept on feeding.
Minds were drained and souls consumed in multitude. Every denizen of Severance was gulped down a gullet that shall never be filled.
Knaves, Demons, Lilims, Dukes, Duchesses, and the Queen were feasted upon. Their souls and spirits made into a brew for a creature of the abyss.
Their essences potion of great kin for its insatiable hunger.
It was the personification of gluttony, consuming any and all. And it spread, traveling from mind to mind, all chained to it in the state of their dreams.
All fell before it, all bared themselves to it and were fed upon.
It traveled, jumping minds, harvesting forces and wells of power. Its presence spread and spread until it pervaded the fallen city, resolute in its mission to consume.
Its presence was never seen, only felt. A pressure against the mind. A weight in the soul.
It wore no face, because in the dream it wore everyone's face. Your lover. Your parents. Yourself, if your face had too many eyes and spoke in reversed time.
Ran found himself in the throne hall which should not exist after the Lagarakei's crash.
"What is this?" He whispered for fear of being heard, looking around as even the arch-demons collapsed, drooling void from their mouths.
One stretched his hands towards Ran. "End this," he commanded, trying to cast a protective sigil, but the symbol laughed at him and peeled off his skin like parchment.
Ran screamed and jumped back.
But the scream echoed back at him, twisted into words:
"You are not real."
"You are being dreamt."
"And I am awakening."
Ran collapsed as the words haunted his soul, it spoke to him. This creature of dreams and agony had found interest in him.
"You are not real," it repeated.
"Stop," Ran begged.
"You are being dreamt."
"I'm not just a dream. It has all not just been a dream," he pleaded.
"And I am awakening"
"Mercy," Ran begged, starting to feel himself lose his identity. "I beg your mercy."
"You are not real," the drinker reaffirmed, its tone admonishing.
"You are being dreamt."
Ran cried, his mind eroding, his essence set ablaze as his soul was being erased.
"And I am awakening."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I AM NOT A FIGMENT OF IMAGINATION!!!" Ran yelled in defiance and all around him, limbo burned to the blaze of his anger.
A silence fell again.
Then the Dream-Drinker broke contact.
It left.
Just like that.
Everyone awoke, gasping. Covered in sweat, ichor, or the pieces of their own minds.
Soran Haru rolled onto his back beneath a bone archway. He could still hear horrors speaking inside his skull.
But the stars were real again.
The palace still collapsed.
He had survived.
An abomination had come to drink and feast upon the realm of Lilims
It had come to taste and dine upon their astral, psychic, and spiritual essences.
And it had liked what it found.