“Palla! Palla! Pallas! Come back!” I was jolted awake. A nightmare. That was all just a nightmare. One terrible nightmare. My hand was outstretched towards the sky, and my breath was rapid. My shirt was drenched in sweat, stuck to my skin like a straightjacket.

Saltiness filled my tongue as sweat dripped into my mouth. It wasn’t an unpleasant taste. It distracted me from the remnants of the dream. I concentrated on my surroundings. The air tasted fresh. The dirt felt rich. The cool wind caressed my skin.

“Shit,” I said. This was not my mattress, nor in the city, that’s for sure.

I got to my feet and looked around. I was in a forest drenched in darkness. The moon was high, but the overarching branches and leaves of the trees blocked the moonlight out. Trees that seemed to touch the skies, had humongous trunks, and had snaking roots that crawled on the ground. It looked like a swamp tree from that time I saw once on television.

Only I wasn’t in a swamp. I was on solid ground. They gave me an indescribable sense of eeriness that I couldn’t explain why. They felt haunting, daunting and overwhelming. It felt as though they were looking at me as though I was a bug…which I wasn’t unaccustomed to.

I tested the earth with my feet. It was wet and loose, but not enough to be mud. The air was chilly and moist. And drips of water fell from the leaves. It must have rained at some earlier point.

I had these dreams often. Where I would gain consciousness during them, and my surroundings become surprisingly realistic. With each experience, it felt as though my brain was fine-tuning itself. Pumping up the realism. The air more convincing. The environment more detailed. My body more fragile.

Each time, I was attacked. From vile monsters to fellow humans, it always changed. I wondered what I would be facing this time. I thought of the one time I had been attacked by a humongous crab on a beach. Its hard shell was impossible to penetrate, and it would snap at me whenever I neared it. In the end, I met my fate that night when it caught me in its claws, and snapped.

I shuddered. I didn’t win much. They were all too powerful for a frail kid like me to defeat. I didn’t understand why I was put through this torment, but I knew for a fact others didn’t risk the chance of being snapped to death in their dreams every night, it was unique to me.

Thankfully, it seems the dreams had forgotten about pain. Every time, without fail, pain would be absent and make my death hauntingly pleasant. Of course, I still felt its sharp claws on my skin. Still felt the gradual closing of the crab’s claws. But no pain would follow.

I wondered if Palla also had these dreams.

I walked deeper into the forest. I had no sense of direction in these dreams, and I would only be returned after I killed whatever was hunting me. A hoot of an owl. A caw of a crow. The quiet crawling of ants on the ground. It was getting scarily realistic. And I feared for the day it remembered pain.

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My foot tripped on the snake-like roots. I could see them clearly, but that didn’t mean I could avoid them completely. Thankfully, I was able to catch myself and stop my fall.

My eyes darted around warily. The monster could attack at any moment. Was it a monster, or a human, or a demon, or a beast. I tried to deduce the creature from my surroundings. The things that attack me are usually corresponding to the environment, like that crab in a beach.

I looked around. Laughable amounts of moonlight were shifting through the leaves. A utter darkness that only I would have been able to see through properly. Chilly air that could have been either natural or man-made…or monster-made. Monsters sometimes had magic. I didn’t.

My ears perked as I heard a twig snap. My eyes darted to the left, but only saw a oddly shaped bird. It was fat and plump, and had red feathers. It looked like a comically large chicken.

*Bawk*

It said as it tilted its head. It seemed confused to see me. That meant humans didn’t usually come here, or have never been here before. I looked at the sprawling foliage. The second seemed more likely.

The chill suddenly felt irresistibly worse. It was like I’d been thrown from my blanket and onto the cold streets. I shivered, before my eyes returned to the fat chicken. It was gone. Gone, with the only sign of it ever existing being its footprints imprinted on the soft mud.

I crouched down. The hunter was near. My hairs stood on ends, and I could almost hear my chest thumping. After a few minutes of intense waiting, I take the risk of standing up and looking around. The temperature had risen back to normal, and I couldn’t find any signs of it. My eyes turned grim.

It was a monster. And it had magic.

———

I carefully traversed the forest, not a moment spent lax. The monster had jolted my instincts, and they were now sharper than ever. A twig snapped to my left, I jumped back. I braced myself for an onslaught of attacks, but they never came. It was just another fat bird.

I went in the opposite direction of it. The monster seemed interested in them, and I had no interest in running head-first into a confrontation with it. If there was one thing I was sure about, it was that the monster was fast and silent. Too fast. It had snatched a chicken from below my eyes, and I hadn’t even noticed.

And the chill. It must have been its doing. I wondered how I’d die this time. My head torn from my body before I even realized? Maybe dying in a ditch, shuddering from the cold. Either way, it began to feel more and more hopeless.

The ground was beginning to feel like mud, and it wouldn’t take long before I began stumbling in them. I was tempted to return the way I went, but I might just be walking straight into the maws of the monster. I was always fascinated by mud. How it managed to retain some of its form, despite being invaded by water. It held admiring tenacity. Something I wished to imitate.

I slipped. My back landed on a clump of leaves that cushioned the fall. Mud was sent into the air, and came crashing down onto me. In just a moment, I looked I just took a shower in slimy, viscous brown ooze. At least it smelled nice.

As I got back to my feet, I couldn’t help but notice the dropping temperature. Could it be the mud causing me to feel cold? Or could it be the monster. I shot to attention, my eyes darting around warily. I positioned my body into a rough stance. It was something I’d seen somebody do in Hebe that I tried to imitate.

The air chilled. It was getting colder and colder by the second. Instinctively, after nearly a year of these dreams, I knew. It was coming.

A hiss. A rustle. A snap. It was observing me. Waiting for my moment of weakness to pounce. Tension filled the air. The air. It was chilly. I exhale. Vapor comes out. It was cold. Too cold. My mind felt sluggish. What’s happening?

Another snap. It was behind me. I twisted around. Nothing. My eyelids felt heavy. It’s too much. It’s using magic. It’s waiting for a lapse of judgment. It’s waiting for me to falter. I steeled myself, but the cold air that caressed my skin were beginning to lull me into the sweet embrace of sleep. Or death.

A part of me is tempted to give in. Even if I died here, it had no effect on the real world. It would just be another nightmare added to my collection. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t go down without a fight.

A snap. I flinch. But it was a false alarm. My feet had stepped on a stray twig. Would I get snapped in half, just like that twig? My thoughts strayed. A lapse of judgment.

The hunter pounced.

It crashed into me, sending both of us barreling into the ground. My back hit a root, and all the air in my lungs were forced out in an instant. I weakly rear my fist back, preparing to punch the darkness-clad figure in hopes of shaking it off me. But it acted before I could. It smashed a fist into my gut, sending me careening into a tree.

What little air I had replaced was immediately displaced. I clutched my abdomen. It hurt. Pain the worst I’ve ever felt. I coughed and drops of saliva flew out. Then, my eyes widened.

Pain?