“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Remember our old house?” Hannah asked her mother somewhat hesitant because their old residence was a bit of a sore spot to both of them for similar and different reasons.
Additionally, as the drugs running through her system had flushed out for the most part, Hannah was trying her extra best to appear as if everything was as it should be with her demeanor.
“Of course I do. What about it?” Hailey answered, though her left eyebrow rose in intrigue since Hannah engaging in the said topic was extremely rare. She knew full well how her daughter felt or thought about it so she paid great attention to the topic
“You… Umm… Remember that one room I could not enter?” Hannah questioned. “F…Father’s office?”
Now intrigued even more, Hailey responded. “Naturally, I do…” Pausing for a second, she added on top of her response. “Be specific, though. Your father was somewhat secretive about everything he did inside it.”
“Ok…” Still emulating her everyday drugged demeanor, Hannah finally asked the one thing on her mind ever since the previous night. “Where did… father usually hide the key?”
“He didn't!” Hailey replied instantly.
“Didn't?”
“No.” Hannah’s mother confirmed again. “He always brought it with himself. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering about something.” Hannah replied and stayed silent for a moment.
“Always?”
“Always!”
“Even when he was at home?”
“Yes, but that one would be a technical ‘Yes’.” Hailey answered honestly. “Depending on what he wore for the day, it was either inside his jacket or his pants. So even when he was at home or using his office, that was where he kept it.” That said, it was Hailey’s turn to stay silent for a moment before dousing her own curiosity. “It's rare for you to ask about your father like this. What brought this forth?”
“Just a stray thought… came to me last night.” Hannah replied, still full of desire to swing about the subject that was her nightmare. “Since I was not allowed inside, I wondered what it looked like?”
“Or why were you not allowed inside?” Hailey finished, as it took very little imagination to see where her daughter's thoughts went.
In the same instance, Hailey saw the eyes on her daughter's face open wider. Not too much. But since it was her daughter, who rarely, or better said could not express her emotions, it was a rarity that she inwardly cherished every time she witnessed one.
On the other hand, that she did at all, presented a problem to Hailey. Only she remained silent for the moment because proving her hunch was not what she desired.
Instead, the mother kept her hunch inside and focused on the obvious. “It was like most house offices, I guess, with a desk on the left, a bookshelf on the right, and that ugly red leather sofa chair of his, I just could not convince him to throw away, right below the window so he could smoke a cigar unbothered. Like I said, nothing special.
As for why you were not allowed inside? Well… not sure if you remember properly, but before your nightmares started, you were quite the wild girl. Just itching to get your hands on everything. Hence, your father simply locked the office all the time to avoid your gravy little hands.” Heiley iterated in a joking manner by imitating a small child for a moment. Then, she ceased before puffing from her mouth briefly, and somewhat angrily. ”At least that was the main excuse he gave me. I am sure there were other reasons.”
Nodding at that, Hannah knew quite well which ones her mother focused on, as downsizing to a one-bedroom apartment was not done on the fly.
That affirmed Hannah’s attention settled on what, in fact, she might find inside her father’s office inside her nightmare because it was clear that it was special… somehow… since even after being unable to open the door, she had tried searching for its key, hence inadvertently learning of the office’s uniqueness by not witnessing anything of color where everything was steeped with that silver sheen which seemed to come from the outside of the nightmare house if the few windows she managed to observe were a good indicator.
Something was going on with her daughter, and Hailey was sure of that one fact, now more than ever.
“Are you finally going to tell me why you are suddenly interested in your father’s office?” Hailey asked her daughter. In the same instance, however, she noticed her daughter’s face snap to attention as if her mind had been somewhere else. “You are not by any chance thinking of going back to that house?”
“No!” Hannah replied but then repeated her statement just in case. “I am not.”
“Good…” Hailey commented. “Not like you would find anything in there even if you did, or could for that matter, ever since its new owners settled in.”
“Don't worry, Mom.” Hannah affirmed her previous statement, though her last denial may have been a tad higher in tone than it should have been. “Seeing it constantly in my nightmares is bad enough as it is. Seeing it in real life? Never…”
“Good…” Hailey commented again, but her suspicions were not alleviated. “That is good. Sometimes what is in the past is best left in the past. Still… You still did not answer me on why you are suddenly interested in your father's office.”
“I…” Hannah hesitated for a second as her mind found a plausible excuse. “No specific reason, Mom. It just kind of randomly came to me… so I asked about it.”
“Alright.” Hailey said and nodded since it was clear her daughter felt reluctant to say anything. Still, she would not be denied so easily. If her daughter desired to speak up, there were other ways of finding the truth. “Let's leave the past in the past. Tell me, how is school going? Any problems coming up with the curriculum?”
Shaking her head, a tad faster than usual, Hannah replied, though this one was a bit harder to not mess up. “No, Mom. I am doing fine, like always.”
“I am glad to hear my smarty pants.” Hannah joked slightly. “Still… While keeping that first spot is significant for your future, it is not that important. Ok? If you're having issues, remember to lay them out to the teachers so they can help you. Hmph… If they don't, then I'll have a talk with them about their uselessness as educators in our society. Like leeches sucking the blood of people, only with taxpayer money in their case. Hmph”
Seeing her mother worked up, Hannah simply nodded and affirmed her words. “I know, Mom… and I will.”
“Good…Good.” Hailey said with a smile. “You better hurry it up with your breakfast, or you will miss the school bus.”
“Yes. Mom.”
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Passing the school day was more of the same, yet less of the usual than Hannah was used to simply because her mind had a somewhat harder time focusing on the curriculum than usual where her emotions were swept aside to focus on the knowledge sent her way.
Instead, her mind was occupied by what she had witnessed the previous night in her nightmare, and what her mother had informed her, namely the key and its possible whereabouts. However, while her mind was wondering about its location per se, a larger part of her was more anxious about the ‘What’ of what if she did not, in fact, find the key, because the monster's behavior had deviated from its usual routine, and not by a little, but by a lot.
C… Cou… Could it be that its words held some truth? Hannah asked herself in her mind after she could no longer take her own thoughts. That my end is close by? That I will cease to exist for real?
No… That can't be true. Hannah denied the obvious truth that had surfaced from the depths of her mind.
In that same instance that she denied it consciously, her body reacted subconsciously, producing a shiver up and down her spine.
In the same instance, the chorting and chirping surfaced as if affirming that very same response in her body.
Grabbing her desk hard enough for her knuckles to turn white, Hannah tried her best to power through by taking a deep breath and remembering the promise she made last week.
The promise that, if she could not power through for herself, then she would do it for her mother.
Chanting the promise in her mind, Hannah relaxed slightly before releasing her grip on her desk. Moments later, the rest of her body followed suit. Even the monster's presence faded away, with only its echoing chorting and chirping reminding Hannah of its own promise.
A promise that its imminent feasting was so… so very, very nigh.
After that, Hannah had an even harder time paying attention to her class.
Multiple times, her mind spawned scenarios of her end, thankfully, after the first one of the day her conscious choice of actions allowed her to calm down faster and faster. In the end, it was the plain and boring routine of world history that managed to settle her anxious mind and frayed nerves.
Yet, it was only after school, after arriving home, after completing her homework, after tucking herself under the blanket on the floor all alone since her mother was working out for the night, that she truly understood the truth when the monster jumped on her the moment she became aware of actually being within her own nightmare.
Truly, there was horror, there was pain after the monster unloaded its nightmarish purpose as it could feel, could sense that the prey was ready to be consumed… but then… something went wrong.
The Fear within its prey diminished instead of bubbling up as it should have.
Ceasing its nightmarish purpose, the white dot on its bulbous body impatiently gazed at the brown eyes of its prey and the absent gaze held within.
Somewhat consumed by the baffling experience, it tried a few more times only for a similar response to occur.
At first, there was Fear, and then there was not.
In the end, as it pondered for a few moments, the Nightmare understood its prey would need at least a few more days before it was completely ready. As such, while impatient at being so close to its feast, it managed to curl its own greed to unlatch its tentacles from the prey to simply stretch them into the air and right to the ceiling before latching there and pulling its bulbous body where it usually hanged every Night to observe its prey.
Once there, the white dot on its bulbous body gazed unerringly at its prey and sang its imminent end.
Waking up, Hannah realized that her clothes were wet and her skin sweaty.
In the same instant, her mind produced many thoughts, sensations, and truths that were centered on the horror of her own flayed body, the pain said flaying had caused her, and just how close she had come to being feasted upon.
Truly, had it not been for the familiar pain and situation, which allowed her to mimic a flaccid fish out of the water, Hannah felt that she would not have been able to calm down that very first moment to curb her rampant emotions enough to enable her a kind of trance to endure what was done to her.
Especially for the following attempts by the monster.
Thinking of it, Hannah’s mind centered her thoughts on the possibility of repeating the same scenario of withholding her coming end, however, that was when her logical side turned up to speak its own version of the truth, the truth that while she had indeed succeeded this time, she probably only did so because her body had yet to flush the drugs from her body entirely. The moment it did, there would be no trance to save her from the horror and the pain.
As such, she needed a different solution if she wanted to spare her mother’s efforts and sacrifices for her instead of making them irrelevant.
With that being the case, Hannah steeled her thoughts for the final time on resisting the monster and the fate it brought to her by focusing on the one anomalous thing that seemed to stand out from her current understanding.
The colored door that led to her father's office.
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With resolve, Hannah schemed the whole next school day.
With resolve, Hannah vowed to do everything she could to overcome or at least successfully run away from the monster, and to do that her logical mind came up with a simple idea, trickery, namely Hannah would pretend that she was still influenced by the drugs in her system.
As such, when Hannah became aware of herself within her nightmare again, she neither moved nor twitched for a while. All she did was gaze at the monster on the ceiling with as much absenteeism in her mind as she could summon from her past experiences of when she had been indeed drugged.
When enough time, or at least perceived time, passed, Hannah finally mustered her courage to twitch a finger.
Seeing no instant pouncing on her, she twitched her hand, then her upper body, only a bit, of course. Then when the monster still refused to pounce, although it did glare intensely, Hannah repeated her previous adventure by slowly crawling from her past bed and onto the floor before eventually leaving the said bedroom of the past.
Down the hallway, Hannah went all while her crawling experience gad in some surety, but she refused to make it seem as if she had recovered more than she showed.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Hannah’s first goal? The confirmation that the glowing door was still there and not a pure figment of imagination, though if there was one thing Hannah was bad at then it was imagining things.
Oh, she could focus, learn, and memorize like no other, but the moment it was time to step out of the bounds of logic she faltered. In truth, any school curriculum that featured imagination was her achilles heel.
As such, it was only through brute memorization that she kept her perfect grades in those classes.
Seeing the door, a very slight sigh of relief flooded through Hannah.
With it confirmed, she crawled to it. Once near it, she pulled herself up on her two legs and gave the door a try.
Click Click Click
The next moment, after hearing the clicking, the sigh of relief retreated away from Hannah’s consciousness. Instead, her mind settled on her next goal, namely the front door leading outside her old house. Naturally, Hannah’s goal was not the outside as she had tried that the last time she had been allowed to roam this nightmare.
No, her goal was the stand beside the entrance and the door leading to the living room.
From her last exploration, Hannah distinctly remembered a jacket hanging from it. So that was where she went by slowly stumbling her way forward, with trickery as the goal, along the right side of the hallway. Behind her, the monster quietly followed as it slithered upon the ceiling. Hence, multiple times Hannah performed a slight hiccup in her walk by falling down on the floor as if her legs could not hold her steady.
In the end, it took more time than she would have liked, but Hannah did reach the stand and the jacket that hung from it.
Slowly walking up to it, Hannah began browsing the pockets, both on the outside and the inside of the jacket.
Then, all of a sudden, she ceased moving when her left hand felt something metallic in one of the inner pockets. Though, as much as Hannah desired to check for certain if it was indeed the key she needed, Hannah held back.
No.
During the day, she had thought of the possibility that the monster would stop her if the key could help her somehow. Therefore, after confirming that it was indeed a key through touching, Hannah slowly picked up the jacket from the stand and put it on.
It took but seconds for the jacket to regain its color, thus revealing that it was a brown leather jacket. Naturally, as it was her father's, and with her being small even for a girl her age, the jacket hung past her behind with the size being the most apparent at the sleeves since her hands could not fully get free.
With it on her, Hannah made her way to her next target which was in fact, not the glowing door. No, her goal was the main bedroom her parents had slept in. Once there, slowly, of course, Hannah opened the door and sought the cabinet standing on one side.
A cabinet that held her parents' clothes, or at least it had at some point.
Gripping the caved-in handle, Hannah slid the door and witnessed the goal. Settling her brown eyes on the male clothes, Hannah performed another investigation. However, compared to the first time, there was no key in any of the pants present within the cabinet, thus further increasing Hannah’s chance of the needed key being inside the jacket she wore.
Having completed her list, Hannah knew it was time for her to attempt opening the locked office.
Still pretending, Hannah stumbled her way back to the glowing door.
Click Click Click
Confirming it was still locked, Hannah grabbed the left side of the brown jacket, revealed the inner pocket, and put her hand inside it before bringing out the glowing key. Unfortunately, Hannah was unsure if it glowed because it came into contact with her, or if it was innate to it.
Whatever the case was, the moment Hannah stuck the key inside, it just felt… right.
Like no other key would ever fit into said lock.
Somewhat stunned by how everything reached her, Hannah just remained in that nonmoving state.
Thankfully, there was a monster behind her hanging from the ceiling, so she remembered its presence, Hannah knew it was not or never. However, before she did, Hannah remembered a certain possibility, hence she took out the key from its lock and put it back into the jacket's inner pocket.
Then, in one swift motion, Hannah opened the door, went inside, and closed it as fast as she could.
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The very first thing Hannah noticed after closing the door was the office interior and its outlook bearing striking similarities to what her mother had described her.
Unfortunately, just as her mind wandered on the hows and the whys, a sudden THUD reached Hannah’s ears. Immediately her head whipped around to face the door causing her brown eyes to witness the handle of the door angle up and down thus making a Click sound multiple times as the monster no doubt sought to enter the office.
In an instant, Hannah’s mind produced another possibility.
The possibility urged Hannah to quickly place both her hands on the handle while her left shoulder leaned on the door with all of her weight to prevent it from being opened up, and not one moment later, Hannah felt the rising pressure on her hands and shoulder.
Pouring all of her strength in pushing against the door, the door closed, but would no doubt open a moment later. And when it did, Hannah pushed again and again, only it was clear to her after a few attempts that she would lose the tug of war since she was already losing strength from her effort in denying the monster's entry.
With the apparent understanding before her, Hannah searched her mind for a solution when the key, inside the jacket’s left inner pocket, surfaced at the forefront of her thoughts. However, the moment her right hand went for the pocket was also the moment the monster attempted to open the door again, causing Hannah to give up the attempt to prevent its entry.
When the same occurred on the second try, she knew she had to switch the method. Quickly turning around, Hannah leaned her entire back on the door before vegging her feet on the ground as straight as possible, like a stake being struck into the ground at a forty-five-degree angle, only with flesh and bone.
That done, and with her free hands, Hannah quickly took out the key before recognizing that she could not insert the key with her right hand, therefore she switched the key to her left hand before urgently slotting the key where it needed to be. Then just as she was about to turn it around, a strong push from the monster vegged the door open enough for a thick tentacle to slither through and prevent the doors from closing.
“Hnnggg…”
Unfortunately, no matter how much strength Hannah used, the door would not close, yet the opening only allowed the monster more space for its tentacles to slither through.
Being so close to safety, in one instant, a thought rushed through Hannah’s mind.
Following up on said urge, her head snapped for the protruding tentacle and bit on its tip, and hard at that. It was in that very moment that, for the very first time, ever, monster included, that true cries of pain reached Hannah’s ears but did not originate from her own throat.
It was so unexpected that all the invading tentacles quickly retreated causing the door to make a very loud THUD as it closed.
Somewhat stunned and perplexed that it had happened, Hannah forgot to turn the key, but when more pained cries, in the form of chorting and chirping promising revenge, reached her from the other side of the door, the key was turned, the lock engaged.
When it did, all sounds from the other side vanished.
Like they had never even existed in the first place.
At the same time, a sensation of isolation and safety manifested within Hannah.
In truth, those very same sensations were so overwhelming that they reached deep, very deep, inside Hannah. No… They did not reach deep within her, they came from deep within her. Thus, making Hannah instantly realize the true conclusion of a successful escape from the monster ever since her nightmares had started at the age of eight.
Moreover, the seven years long and constant exposure to the monster's presence and nightmarish actions had created a constant pressure front, with its own existence as the anchor, against Hannah that it provided her a very strong contrast by which to examine the monster's presence, actions and existence in comparison to her own.
Though this was not a conscious action of hers, it still took place within Hannah unconsciously. When it did, the realization of safety generated by that unconscious understanding manifested a front of emotions not based on Fear but on Hope from sheer relief and safety, hence said Hope bubbled within Hannah like a well that had finally been dug deep enough inside the earth’s crust for water to bubble and quench the digger's immediate thirst, and for the days that would come.
Only, this bubbling was more like a natural well of water, a geyser.
Additionally, just like a geyser, which reached the surface for the very first time by trickling some water first to create a channel before bursting with its full might, Hope, in the form of relief and safety, used its own needed release to carve out a channel from deep within Hannah.
A channel that was literal in as literal something could be within her Dream Body and her Dream Instance.
As such, the Hope of safety and relief burst out of Hannah with magnanimous strength, and colors that easily mimicked the layers of colors on a rainbow, before flooding and saturating the insides of her father’s office.
At the same time, that occurrence made Hannah cry like nothing had ever done so before.
In fact, it was as if the crying only made the multicolored light emanating from within her that much fiercer. As if every bit of Hope got squeezed out of Hannah through her tear ducts. Moreover, with every tear that arose and fell, Hannah sensed herself becoming weaker and weaker, such that while nothing was apparent in the very first moments of the multicolored light show, it was evident later on when Hannah had trouble maintaining her awareness of her surroundings.
In the end, by the time Hannah was on her last dregs of awareness, when her tear ducts could no longer produce any tears, and her body refused to emanate any more multi-colored light, she witnessed an orb manifest and condense out of the multicolored light right in the center of her father’s office.
Its manifestation also spelled the moment of Hannah’s vanishing presence from her father’s office before waking up in the real world, into a room filled with darkness, only a darkness that felt wholesomely welcoming to Hannah for it had been a long time since Hannah woke up this… good and hopeful.
Hopeful that her nightmares had finally ceased existing.
Unfortunately, however, something was telling her that it was not.
Nonetheless, that very same thing also told her that she was close, very close to ending her nightly problem, and that multi-colored light within her father’s office was the true key to the solution.
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Just thinking about the multicolored orb and its purpose, kept Hannah up for the rest of the night, yet that did not diminish her good mood, though she did try her best to hide it from her mother when she came home in the morning with a tired expression because anything not out of the norm would alert her mother of something occurring.
Hannah did not want that for the time being.
As such, Hannah kept to herself about everything the whole morning, at breakfast, at school, at dinner, and right before actually falling asleep.
Her only hope, however, was that she woke up inside her father’s office and not on her old bed like usual, with the monster right above her hanging from the ceiling.
So when she fell asleep and did indeed find herself within said office, a loud sigh of relief filled Hannah. That she woke up right beside the only door, as if having fallen asleep right then and there, was easily sidestepped in favor of focusing on the multicolored orb floating right in the center of the room.
Standing up weakly, Hannah walked up to the floating multicolored orb.
It was the size of a head and when she touched it, it felt both solid and liquid at the same time.
“Well done, Hannah…” A voice suddenly reached Hannah’s ears, making her head snap around because the sound of said voice was both old and new, familiar yet strange. “I knew you could do it, after all, you are my daughter.”
The voice had come from a corner of the office, right where a red leather sofa chair stood. However, it was upon it what was important, namely the owner of the office Hannah had found herself in.
Stunned and perplexed, Hannah stared at the man in question seated on that red leather sofa chair with his legs crossed, with one arm holding up his chin, as if in deep thought as the brown eyes stared back at Hannah, only even without knowing the signs, it was clear to her that there was an absent gaze within those eyes as if what they saw was nothing but air.
“Unfortunately, if you are seeing and hearing this message, it means I was unable to prevent certain things, and had to therefore vanish from you and your mother’s life for your own safety.”
That said, with a forlorn tone, he stood up from his chair and walked right to the center of the room, right before the multicolored orb before Hannah.
Nonetheless, Hannah, still stunned and perplexed at what she was seeing and hearing, could only stare at her father she had not seen in seven-plus years. Yet, that very same stunned and perplexed state of mind was broken the very second her father passed and merged with her body, partially, at least, since their bodies were not angled properly for a full merger.
Either way, the way her father’s body partially merged with her broke her out of her stupor enough that Hannah’s mind finally began comprehending what was occurring. Meanwhile, her supposed father simply continued his speech. “Therefore, just in case something happened to me, I have left this message to guide you in what you need to do to rid yourself of your Nightmare problem, all while leaving you a few gifts for what would come after.”
“First things first. Let me tell you what has occurred to you.” Hannah’s father said. “A Nightmare has spawned within your Dream Instance. Left unchecked it would feed off of you until it grew in strength it could finally eat your Soul.” Hearing it, Hannah retreated a few steps back and out of her father’s life-like visage before stepping aside to stare at her father’s face since his somewhat absent eyes still seemed to stare at the multicolored orb. “During the feeding process, you would become aware of the Nightmare and this Dream Instance, such that even without training for it you would acquire a natural Lucid state of awareness within it, or Dreamwalking as it is colloquially known.
Using said Dreamwalking state you searched every nook and cranny of this Dream Instance for a way to get away from the Nightmare since all your attempts at fighting it no doubt failed without knowledge on how to overcome a Nightmare and its ilk.
As such, after enough time and desperation, you would realize that you could not find any safe place to hide from the Nightmare. When that understanding seeds within you, you will unconsciously generate one such place of safety.”
Hearing the how and the why, Hannah blinked her eyes with understanding, an instinctive understanding, since everything was beyond her current knowledge.
“Naturally, since I am able to leave a message to you, I am able to improve your odds of finding said place of safety.” The man, the father explained. “Therefore, by tweaking your Dreams a bit, such that if you ever get infected with a Nightmare, as no doubt would happen at some point since you are my daughter, our house would become your Dream Instance, my office would become your Dream Sanctum.”
Once more, understanding downed on Hannah, only this time, her eyes left her father’s face and instead focused on the multicolored orb floating beside her and her father's recorded visage.
“Now… with the obvious out of the way. It's time we address the elephant in the room.” Hannah’s father said, only this time with an even deeper forlorn tone.
“The multicolored orb before you is called a Dream Gem.” The recorded visage of the man explained. “A more common name is Ability Awakening Gem.” That said, the man shook his head for a second. “And while I am extremely glad that you have generated it, I am extremely disturbed that you did because a Dream Gem’s size is directly correlated to the trauma suffered at the hands of the Nightmare prowling your Dream Instance.
Sigh…
What I am saying is this.
Since you are seeing this particular message, it means that your Dream Gem has reached the A-Rank classification, also sometimes referred as Supreme Grade, thus implying that you have suffered for a long time under your Nightmare, and as a father that is something I am extremely unhappy about.
Sigh…
That said, Supreme Dream Gem, only the sky will be your limit, and even that can be broken with proper planning, hence this recorded message contains the greatest amount of information in the hope of not inhibiting your future growth as a Dreamwalker, or Dreamer for better clarity.”
“Still… There is one important fact that should be clarified.” Hannah heard her father say. “You do not have to be a Dreamer. Now that you have generated and found yourself within your Dream Sanctum, the Nightmare will not be able to bother you anymore.
Meaning, that with time it will starve and vanish on its own.
However, since you have generated your Dream Sanctum and Supreme Dream Gem at that, it would be a huge waste to make your suffering turn meaningless.
However, that is your choice to make, my dear daughter.
I am but a ghost here.
Though, do know that I will be happy no matter what you choose.” Hearing her father's voice, and seeing his smile at the end, an unknown wall chipped within Hannah, but that was all for now. “To confirm your choice, tap the Dream Gem once if you want to be a Dreamer and twice if you do not.”
With that said, her father’s recorded visage turned around and walked back to the red leather sofa chair and sat upon it. However, just as he sat down, Hannah noticed her father’s face displaying an ‘I forgot something’ face’.
“One more thing… Take your time to consider your options now that you are no longer in danger. However, let me give you a warning as well.”
“If you indeed decide to become a Dreamer, it is best if you decide fast because a strong Nightmare will be the key to overcoming your inborn limits.”
“As such, choose wisely, my daughter.”