Lucas stumbled through the gate.
The moment he passed beneath the arch, the world twisted again—but differently this time. Not fading, not dissolving. This time it shattered.
For a breathless instant, the sky cracked like glass around him. He saw glimpses—visions through the shards: a younger version of himself crying into a pillow, bloodied hands reaching for help, a woman's silhouette turning away. The fragments didn't fall. They floated, spinning lazily around him, each showing pieces of a life he'd never dared remember so clearly.
Then—impact. Lucas hit the ground hard.
The cobblestones beneath him were transparent, showing pulsing networks of nerves and glowing roots beneath the surface, like the world had a circulatory system. He pushed himself up, gasping.
The masked man was gone.
Lucas was alone.
He turned in a slow circle. Before him stretched Somnara, the fabled city of lucid dreamers. But it was not welcoming. Its towers were jagged, sharp-edged and asymmetrical, as if the city itself hadn't been fully formed—or had been broken and hastily rebuilt. Streets curved and forked illogically, leading to doors with no buildings, bridges to nowhere. Some buildings floated. Others flickered in and out of phase like bad memories.
And eyes. Eyes watched him from windows and cracks in the walls. Not always human.
He stepped forward. The Grimoire burned hot in his pocket, a low pulse against his hip. But it offered no guidance now. Just weight.
This place knows I don't belong, he thought.
But maybe… maybe that was exactly why he did.
He passed a twisted statue of a horned figure holding out a mask—its mouth carved into a smile that didn't match the terror in its eyes. A plaque at its feet read:
"Wear not the dream you fear to face. It will wear you."
Lucas turned away and kept walking.
A low moaning echoed in the distance, like wind—but it wasn't wind. It repeated in intervals, like a ritual chant. Somewhere, someone screamed, once. Then silence.
He felt the rules shifting in his mind. There was logic here—but it wasn't Earth logic. Things responded to thought. Memory was currency. Emotion, power. The city fed on what you brought with you.
Lucas stopped in front of a mirror.
It wasn't his reflection. Not entirely. His eyes were too dark. His smile too sharp.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
The reflection blinked. "The part you buried."
He punched the mirror. It didn't break—but his knuckles split open. Blood dripped onto the glass, and the world around him trembled, as if it had tasted something real.
Lucas staggered back, breathing hard. He had no guide now. No masked man to explain the rules. Just a book that wouldn't speak and a city that wanted to consume him.
But then… that meant the choices were finally his.
No more following. No more waiting. I find the truth, or I die trying.
He tightened his grip on the Grimoire, eyes set on a glowing spire at the center of the city.
Somewhere inside, the answers waited. Or the thing that wanted him dead.
He started walking.