A vast, dimly lit hall with shadows cast along the walls by the flickering light of torches mounted at intervals along the stone masonry.

'What... is this...?'

Claude couldn't figure out what was happening, the last thing he remembered was running away from a sort of monster and then some bright white light appeared whilst he fell asleep.

"My lady, please rethink this. There must be another way."

In front of Claude was a middle-aged man, who possessed olive brown skin, curly black hair and emerald eyes.

The thing that confused Claude was that the man seemed to be talking to him, but the last time Claude checked, he was most certainly a boy.

"Ardeshir... You know this is the only way. If I don't do this, humanity may lose its last chance at survival..."

Involuntarily, Claude's mouth opened as his body began to speak. Yet, what came out of his mouth was a melodious female voice.

'No... This can't be... I've become a woman...?'

The outrageous thoughts popping up in Claude's head served to somewhat distract him from the life-threatening ordeal he had just gone through in the real world.

Nevertheless, these thoughts were soon tossed out of his mind as he focused on the conversation before him.

"If my ancestor Kourosh heard of what you have to resort to doing to help humanity, what would he think of this? I'm begging you to rethink this. There has to be another way to deal with the threat of the subspace!"

The man named Ardeshir impassionately continued speaking, though something in his words caught the attention of Claude.

'Kourosh...? He couldn't mean that Kourosh?! And why is it that they are talking about the subspace? Does that something have to do with that monster from before?'

Claude couldn't understand why he was having this dream. What unsettled him more was the details he was hearing from this conversation.

"The subspace network would allow for humanity to possess a trump card. One that would allow their escape from any future subspace invasions. However, to create it, it would need the sacrifice of a pure subspace being..."

The woman whose body Claude seemed to be seeing out of answered the man's doubts, before uttering a wistful chuckle.

"...Currently, I seem to be the only person who would both be willing to and able to do this..."

At this point, Claude felt like his brain was frying...

The woman claims to be a subspace being. Does that make her similar to that 'subspace anomaly' from before...?

What even is the subspace...?

What is this 'subspace network'...?

And... is this actually a dream?

The last question is what worries Claude, this doesn't seem to be a dream. From what Raymond taught him in the past, a dream is merely a reflection of one internal thought.

Thus, you cannot learn something new from a dream.

Therefore, a glaring problem with the current situation is that... If this wasn't a dream... What was it?

However, before he could receive any answer, the world around him began to fade and disappear...

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As dawn broke, Claude's consciousness gradually surfaced from the depths of his bizarre and unsettling dream.

The morning sun cast its first gentle rays across the meadow, gradually illuminating the world around him.

As his awareness returned, Claude found himself lying on the ground, a far cry from being perched on a massive tree as he had been.

His face scrunched up as he attempted to reconcile the dissonance of being in that strange dream with the hard, cold reality of the earth beneath him.

"Wasn't I sleeping in a tree? What am I doing on the ground? Did I fall...? No, I would most definitely be dead in that case..." Claude murmured to himself, more to the silent air than in expectation of an answer.

With a heavy sigh, he propped himself up, looking around and taking in the expansive view of the meadow that stretched out before him.

Then a harsh realization hit him.

That the tree—a massive, sturdy oak that had been his refuge the night before—was nowhere in sight.

"Wait... where did the tree go?"

He questioned aloud, his voice tinged with a mix of confusion and shock. The absence of the tree seemed so implausible to him, that Claude even wondered if he was still dreaming.

Rubbing away the sleep from his eyes, Claude struggled to organize his swirling thoughts.

"So, I somehow went from a tree to the ground in my sleep...? The tree also disappeared? All the while I was having that very lucid... dream?" His voice trailed off as he pieced together the memories, trying to make sense of the disjointed fragments.

As he sat up fully, the chilling events of the previous night began to rush back to him in vivid detail.

He remembered the terror that had gripped him as he fled from an abomination of a creature, its form so vile that didn't even seem to be of this world.

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The memory of the bright white light that had enveloped him was particularly vivid—it had been so intense, so all-consuming, that it felt as if time itself had stopped.

At that moment, everything had changed. The beast that chased him was simply evaporated from the face of the earth by that brilliant light.

Recalling that bright light Claude could still feel a residual tingling sensation that made his skin crawl.

As the details of last night's ordeal settled in his mind, a wave of dread washed over him. Claude's breathing quickened, his pulse raced, and a sense of urgency propelled him to his feet.

"No..." he whispered to himself, a sense of foreboding overtaking him.

His mind replayed the scenes over and over.

Each iteration piecing together more and more of his memories of the night prior. Each one serving to only deepen the sense of overwhelming panic he felt.

Drunk in panic, Claude began walking back the way he had come.

Every step took him closer to the forest where he had run away from... to the place where his reality had twisted into a nightmare.

His heart pounded in his chest, not just from the physical exertion but from the fear of what he might discover when he arrived.

As he trekked through the dewy grass of the meadow and into the denser underbrush of the forest, a sinking feeling settled in his stomach.

Every step seemed to echo ominously through the woods.

Soon, the sinking sensation filled his entire body as he felt he was about to approach a truth he wasn't sure he wanted to confront.

As Claude neared the familiar clearing, each step felt heavier than the last, his breaths shallow and quick.

The forest seemed unnaturally silent. Absent of the usual chirping of birds or rustling of leaves, as if the world itself held its breath.

Pushing through a thick bush, his heart sank with a dreadful certainty.

The air was thick with the metallic scent of blood, which saturated the damp, earthy floor of the forest.

As his eyes adjusted to the grim sight, the details became clearer, each one a dagger to his sanity

Ahead lay a body, so still and quiet amidst the chaos of the disrupted earth around it.

The face, hidden behind a mask of blood, was unrecognizable, but the familiar clothing, torn and stained, was unmistakable.

It belonged to Raymond.

Claude's knees buckled slightly, grief mingling with fear.

His hands trembled as he approached, each step reluctant, dragging a flood of memories—laughter, guidance, friendship—all severed as brutally as the life before him.

For Claude time froze, all he could do was stare at the scene before him.

"Teacher..."

Thud

As he uttered those words, he collapsed onto his knees and his blank facial expression soon began to morph.

Cradling his face in his arms, Claude began to sob. The initial sobbing soon turned into bitter weeping. The weeping soon turned to screaming.

The mere notion that Raymond would no longer be with him seemed to be a fantasy to him.

Sure, he had seen Raymond's health deteriorate over the years he had been with the man... but this was... far too soon.

"Please...! This can't be true... This has to be a dream. YES! A dream! I just need to wake up and everything will be back to normal..."

Between his heart-wrenching screams, he soon found himself muttering to himself.

Time passed and Claude's venting soon began to quieten down.

Raising his head, Claude stared at Raymond's body one more time.

The same man who once served as his teacher and his father figure.

Forcing himself to stand up, Claude trudged over to a nearby pile of pebbles. After picking one that was around the size of a fist, he returned to where Raymond lay.

With a blank face and vacant stare, Claude knelt once again but this time started to use the pebble to dig into the ground.

Minutes soon turned to hours as Claude maintained the same movements.

What if his right arm was tired? He would use his left.

So what if the odour of blood was assaulting his sense his smell? Claude simply ignored it along with the sense of nausea that was building up within his body.

With his unceasing actions, the hole soon morphed into a pit, deep enough to reach Claude's waist.

Wiping the sweat pooling on his forehead, Claude looked up at the sky above.

"It's afternoon...?"

Shining brightly, the sun hung overhead and illuminated the world with its warm, tender rays.

Yet...

Claude clenched his fists, all he could feel was a bitter sense of loneliness.

Walking up to Raymond, Claude used every ounce of his remaining strength to hoist Raymond's corpse over his back.

Arriving at the pit he had dug, Claude gently lowered the body into the pit.

Upon doing this, in a similar manner to before he began to fill the grave up.

After completing the endeavour, Claude found himself once again at a loss as he stared blankly into the air.

His eyes soon, however, gained a bit of light as something clicked in his mind.

'The village!'

Since waking up, understandably, Claude's mind forgot about the situation at the village.

'Is everyone there okay?'

After the thought flashed in his mind, it began to spread throughout his head like weeds in a garden.

With a sense of vitality in his movements now, Claude returned to where he had woken up.

Claude soon began his trek back to the village.

Travelling through the forest, Claude couldn't help but notice that is regaining its usual vibrance.

The vegetation seemed the same as before, and the sound of wildlife was slowly returning.

His nose was slowly being freed from the assault of the heavy scent of iron associated with blood.

Now his sense of smell was being gently embraced by the crisp spring afternoon air; conjuring memories of how he and Raymond often travelled to and fro through the forest when he was younger.

Something that... would now forever remain a figment of the past.

Shaking his head, trying to rid himself of these distracting thoughts; Claude looked ahead and made out the silhouette of an all but unfamiliar village.

Hastening the pace of his footsteps, he hurried forward.

Arriving at the outskirts, the eerie quietude of the village struck him harder than the sight of blood stains and charred remains.

It was the silence of a grave—a silence that suffocated any lingering hope Claude had naively previously held.

Houses he knew as homes were reduced to ashes and the air was thick with the iron tang of blood. In the desolation, Claude's desperation peaked.

He rushed from house to house in the regions of the village unaffected by the fire, in a frantic search for any sign of life, any proof that he was not alone in this nightmare.

But with each empty room, each cold hearth, hope dwindled until nothing but despair remained.

After completing his investigations, Claude could feel the exhaustion catching up to him.

His limbs still hadn't fully recovered from yesterday's chase or today's labour.

Exhausted, made his way back to his home. As he approached the bundles of moonshade that he worked with Raymond to prepare earlier appeared in his vision- bringing back memories of a time that felt so distant to him.

With a deep sigh, Claude pushed open the heavy wooden door of the cottage he once shared with Raymond.

The room was dim, lit only by the faint light seeping through the small, shuttered window.

The familiar smell of smoke from the hearth, long cold, filled the air, mingling with the scent of thatch from the roof.

He collapsed onto a weathered, wooden chair beside the dining table.

The surface was worn smooth by years of use, and a few crumbs from their last meal together still lingered in the wood's crevices.

"What do I do now...?"

A sense of hopelessness enveloped Claude as he lay his head on the table. He was merely a child.

How was he meant to live from now on...?

No. There was another question. One that he didn't truly wish to answer.

Why... should he carry on living?

He had no family. No friends. No home.

The future never seemed more elusive to him.

He reached for the cloth-wrapped loaf on the table and gently unwrapped it. The bread was crusty, its surface rough and slightly hardened.

As he tore into it, the bread crumbled under the pressure of his fingers, breaking into coarse, dry chunks.

He chewed slowly, the dry bread scratching his throat as he swallowed without much taste. Normally bread would have been prepared along with some cheese, fruits and anything else left from prior meals.

However, currently, Claude simply couldn't find it in himself to properly prepare a meal for himself.

Beside the loaf was a simple earthenware jug of water. He poured himself a cup, the cool liquid a small relief against the dryness of the meal.

However, amidst his first meal in many hours, he found something sitting within his peripheral.

From the corner of his vision, his eyes reflected a lone tattered book resting on the table he was resting his arms on.