The air in Lucas's apartment was heavier now, as if the act of reading the Grimoire had shifted something fundamental. The lights flickered with every heartbeat, and the edges of the room blurred like the corner of a dream. But this wasn't sleep. This was real—or at least, it was becoming real.
Lucas sat on the floor, the book open in front of him. The symbols on the pages had stopped shifting, but the meanings lingered in his mind like echoes. Dreams weren't just random images or thoughts. They were gateways. Realms. Ecosystems powered by fear, memory, desire.
And now… something was leaking through.
The masked man—who had never given a name—had vanished the moment Lucas began to read. No warning. No goodbye. Just a ripple in the air where he once stood. That was fine by Lucas. He didn't trust the man anyway. He'd have to rely on himself from here on.
He stood, slipping the pendant back around his neck. It felt heavier now, like it had absorbed some of the energy from the book. Or maybe from him.
Lucas needed answers. Not cryptic warnings or magical tomes. He needed to know what the hell was happening to his mind—and how to stop it from swallowing him whole.
He stepped outside.
The hallway of his apartment complex looked normal at first. Dim lights. Closed doors. The faint buzz of an old TV in one unit. But as he walked toward the stairs, he noticed something that turned his stomach: a door that shouldn't be there.
It was wedged between 3B and 3C, a gap that had always been a blank stretch of wall. Now it was a tall, narrow door made of blackened wood, covered in faint, glowing runes. His fingers itched just looking at it.
He didn't want to touch it.
So of course, he did.
The moment his hand brushed the knob, the hallway dissolved around him. Not shattered—melted. The walls twisted like wax in a flame, dripping into colorless liquid before being sucked into the void.
Lucas stumbled back, blinking against the sudden dark. He wasn't in his building anymore. Not even in his city.
He stood in a wide, desolate landscape—a graveyard of forgotten dreams. Buildings from different time periods and styles rose crookedly out of the ground like broken teeth. A ruined cathedral leaned against a skyscraper. A half-melted carousel spun slowly in the distance, its music box chime warped and haunting.
Above it all, the sky was a swirling mass of color and shadow, like a painting trying to erase itself.
This was Somnara—he didn't know how, but the name pressed itself into his mind the moment he breathed the dream-laced air.
The Dreamweaver's Realm.
And it wasn't empty.
A figure approached—lurching, shrouded in a veil of static and shadow. It had no face, only a gaping maw where a head should be, whispering fragments of forgotten thoughts. Lucas froze, heart pounding.
He didn't have a weapon. He didn't have powers. He barely had his sanity.
But he had the pendant.
On instinct, he gripped it. It pulsed against his palm like a heartbeat. The creature snarled—if that sound could be called that—and staggered back, as if the light emanating from the pendant burned it.
Lucas didn't wait for a second round. He turned and ran.
The terrain shifted beneath him as he sprinted. The streets bent in impossible angles. Staircases led upward into nothing. Gravity felt optional. But he kept moving, trusting his instincts.
That's when he heard her.
A voice. Soft, clear, familiar.
"Lucas."
He skidded to a stop, spinning in place. The voice was like a thread, cutting through the chaos. Someone he knew?
The dreamscape around him pulsed like a heartbeat, and then suddenly she stood there—Ella, his ex, the one person he hadn't seen in months. But it wasn't her. Not really. Her eyes were too wide, her mouth curled in a smile that didn't match her expression.
"Why did you leave me?" she asked, stepping forward. "Why didn't you come back?"
Lucas staggered back. The pendant flashed again, and the illusion cracked. Her form flickered—first Ella, then a shadowy beast, then nothing.
It was a memory shade. The book had warned him. The dream realm fed on emotion—fear, guilt, regret—and used them as traps.
He steadied his breath. "You're not real," he said aloud. "You're not even her."
The world around him quieted slightly, as if acknowledging his resistance.
Lucas pressed forward, weaving between twisted buildings and shadow-stitched trees. In the distance, a tower stood—tall and strange, with dozens of windows that glowed faintly.
He didn't know why, but he knew he had to reach it.
His journey had just begun, and already he'd seen how quickly the dream realm could bend reality, weaponize memory, and tear down reason. He had no mentor now. No guide.
Only the pendant, the book, and himself.
As he reached a crumbling bridge leading toward the tower, the ground beneath him shuddered. Cracks spread through the dreamscape. Something was waking up.
Something ancient.
Lucas gripped the railing and stared across the void.
He didn't have a choice.
He had to cross.