A clean man wearing the attire of the sickeningly wealthy entered the room. He avoided the glare I shot from my spot tightly tucked in bed. "Awake and well, I hope?"

"Who are you?"

He headed for the shelves on the opposite side of the room. "You may call me The Watcher of Dreams, The Dream Watcher, or simply: Watcher," he said while plucking various glass containers from his cupboards, placing an assortment of bulbous flasks onto the table at my side. "Now, what might work? Flying… too risky," he mumbled to himself, before facing me with two bottles in hand. "Tell me, would you prefer the deep aquamarine of a happy family or this crimson-looking blood of your enemies?" He waggled the glass.

"Excuse me?"

"Yes, I suppose I'd have guessed the blood too." He placed the red flask back on the shelf, adding the happy family one to the table.

He asked this sort of question a few more times. Eternal wealth or eternal health? Flippers for arms or hooves for feet? A pure maiden or a backstreet whore? Whether I answered or not, each time he would place the less appealing option on the table to my side. Once he'd satisfied himself, Watcher began uncorking, dripping one or two drops of the mysterious liquids into a bowl, and recorking each container.

After waiting in silence for a bit, I asked, "What are they?"

"Wonderful question! The Essence of Dreams."

"So, why do you pick the ones I dislike?"

"Oh, did I?" A sly grin peeked through his polite mask. "Good to hear, this should work then," he said, dumping half the liquid from a flask that had particularly offended me: The respect of the noble class. "By the by, Keeper has instructed me to inform you of one key piece of information, if you should awake while she slept."

"Instructed?" I scoffed. "Did she waste all your paper?"

Watcher glanced up from his careful work. "Actually, you've been asleep for several nights. She broke silence not too long ago. Though, I suspect she spoke because she couldn't hold her eyes open much longer. It's rude to keep a young woman waiting like that, you know?"

"She didn't sleep?"

"Precisely. Longest I've seen her awake. She used to sleep half the day, you know." His eyes fell back to the concoction. "Anyhow, she told me you were assailed. Do you mind if I ask, why didn't you simply devour the Nightmares that attacked you?"

"I don't think I could have—Nightmares?" I shifted in my bed, my legs felt excessively heavy. I must be exhausted.

"That's precisely what they were. Nasty bunch, I might say. From how Keeper described them I'd assume a pack of Chasers." A couple of flasks clinked against one another on the table, he picked it back up to check the contents, muttering: "Is this labelled wrong?"

"Shouldn't I have eaten them, then?" I asked. "I thought I had to consume the Nightmares."

He shook his head and waggled a finger. "No, no. These were common beasts, your duty is to the ones we've named. They're different."

I sat for a beat. "I'm sorry, duty?"

He nodded excessively as if to scold himself. "The Nine Ancients are you duty now," he said, waiting for a reply. "You will be following your duty, won't you?"

"Oh." As far as you're concerned, "I guess I will be."

"Wonderful news. Now, I'd bet you're rather curious about The Nine, aren't you?"

"I know I have to eat them," I said. "I imagine that's enough."

Watcher frowned. "You're rather fun, aren't you?" He capped the last flask and began returning them to their spots on the shelf. "I suppose it'll make this more bearable, then." He continued buzzing about as he spoke. "The Nine Nightmares are the setting sun. They are the lack of light and the cold of night. They are rarely seen and hardly dreamed. They are most assuredly not the kind of thing one stumbles across in the woods."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Realm almighty, now you're curious?" The sleek man flicked his wrist. One of the flasks slipped from his fingers, shattering against the hard stone floor.

I flinched, and again I noticed my legs didn't really move. My toes still wriggle, so I'm not paralyzed. Am I that exhausted, though?

"Well, isn't she tired," Watcher said, tip-toeing across the broken glass.

Keeper had remained completely still throughout the piercing noise. Maybe we're both just exhausted.

"Was that to scare me?" I asked, keeping a judgmental tone at bay. Keeper did it when I exploded earlier, wouldn't surprise me if it were a common practice.

"Would I rip my own hair out, spill my own stomach open, and spit on my robes to scare you?" he asked, shuddering at the mere mention of ruining his clothes.

I sat silently to take it in. "Then, could you tell me anything else about The Nine?"

"Nothing that wouldn't do me harm," he said, making a point to end the last word abruptly. I didn't interrupt again, feeling his desire for me not to.

After toiling with the bowl for another few minutes, adding various sprinklings of things, stirring, and heating it, he poured half into a stone cup and handed it to me. "All at once."

"What'll it do?" I asked, sniffing the mixture. It bore a sickening sweetness, not too unlike the passing fad of bitter medicines diluted with sugars and syrups back home.

"Oh, so many things! It's a wondrous drink, really. Please, I insist." The well-groomed man offered his best attempt at an earnest smile.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I eyed the suspicious liquid once more, unsure if my reticence was born from a concern for my health or a concern for my tongue. I huffed and shot my head back with the cup to my lips, emptying it in one strained gulp.

"Perfect! You'll be dead in an hour," he said cheerfully.

I coughed on the remaining liquid, most of it deep in my stomach. "What?"

"Yes, an agonizingly torturous hour, mind you. If you drink the other half I imagine it'll go much quicker. Something closer to a tenth of that." The man hummed happily, putting away various additives and equipment he'd used to mix the apparent toxin.

"You're—I'm sorry—are you poisoning me?" I tried to shift my legs off the bed. They didn't move.

"You might want to stop that, you'll open your stitches," he said.

I ripped off all the blankets covering me to unveil a heavy metal contraption strapped onto my calves. They couldn't move.

"So did Keeper also instruct you to murder me?" The restraints on my legs seemed to jiggle somewhat, but there were so many seams and bolts that I couldn't even tell how it might open.

"Actually no, I decided that on my—"

"KEEPER!" I screamed at her as loud as I could. I could swear her body flinched a touch but her head remained rested on her shears. "KEEPER! WAKE UP!"

"Now, now, that won't work. I may have told a slight falsity. She isn't entirely asleep, it's closer to a hypnotic sort of state." He smiled at her proudly.

A red-hot rage ignited in the pit of my stomach. "What did you do?"

"I fed her a similar thing to what you've had. She's far too resilient to kill, but making one to sleep her mind wasn't so difficult."

"You're dead," I growled, lunging at him with as much mobility as the restraints on my legs allowed. My fingers just barely clasped the man's velvet-smooth overcoat. He spun and allowed the garment to fall from his shoulders. I followed with it, but my face stopped short of the floor. My own contorted body stopped me, hinging directly from the stitched gash on my flank, and weighing heavily on the wound. The shock of pain forced the air from my lungs, and I clawed desperately after the man. He stood barely out of reach.

"My oh my, ferocious." He took another step back. "I wonder, are you feeling it yet?"

Right as he asked, a sort of bubbling began in my stomach, and my face went pale. Watcher merely laughed at my dread.

I was a caged animal. Terrifying to the unknowing eye, perfectly harmless to the beast's handler. My stitches are open, I can smell the blood dripping to the floor. It smells like death. Is this how I die? Maybe I'll be reborn again, brought back to Harry and… the other guy. Something tells me that's not how it works.

"If you don't claw my face off I might help you back up, the other half of your drink could take the edge off," the man taunted.

I forced myself to glare up at him. He smiled. A sickeningly sweet smile, more putrid than the most wretched batch of candied ale. But the smile hid another emotion. I hadn't noticed it before, but from below, I could see his hands. They shook ever so slightly. He's afraid. Of course he is. I'm Fear.

A renewed flame burned in my core, setting my stomach ablaze, and melting the shiny veneer of self-preservation from my mind. My entire body writhed in the air, further ripping the stitches from my side, fresh blood spilling to the floor. I'll consume, like I did when I awakened. I'll twist and morph into the true beast that I am. Then I'll kill him. I'll kill this one-god rat. I'll kill this noble pig. This vile, loathsome, repulsive, worthless wretch of a man. He'll be DEAD. MURDERED. I'LL KILL HIM AND TAKE THE LIFE FROM HIS EYES. WATCH THAT SMUG FACE CONTORT WITH PAIN AND FEAR. I'LL DEVOUR HIM AND FEED THIS CEASLESS HUNGER. I AM FEAR. I AM DEATH. I AM—oh?

I am Death. The realization struck an otherworldly calm. A flood of understanding rushed my mind. I can kill him whenever I wish.

A soft laughter rolled out from my gut. It grew in intensity, soon filling the entire room with a savory smell. With full awareness and control, my legs melted out from the mechanism that had held me, and my upper body morphed into great growing jaws of tar, soon looming over top of the man.

"K-Keeper!" The voice cut through my laughter. I'd have expected it be my own, given the name it shouted, but it wasn't me. The man behind those words was afraid of death. And I was both those things.

My fangs snapped down hard onto The Watcher of Dreams. But instead of a satisfying fullness, my bite was met with resistance. A massive and elegant pair of shears scarcely stopped me from piercing the man's flesh. Keeper strained to hold the scissors open.

At first, pure ire kept me from returning to something human. But once Keeper struggled out the words "Ferrowill, stop—" I instantly flicked back into myself, standing before the both of them.

"Holy Dreams, I thought I was dead." Watcher crumpled to the floor, his chest heaving heavy gulps of breath.

Keeper beamed brightly and patted my head. "You've got a hell of a bite there, kid."

The shock didn't even allow me to ask a question. "I… I'm older than you…"

The girl split herself laughing. She ran over to Watcher, who had crawled into a corner, and slapped his cheek over and over. "Did you hear that one? Man, I love newbies."

The crumpled man's body ratcheted with staggered inhalation. "Would you stop with the words no one cares to learn?"

"Is 'neophyte' better for you?" she teased.

"Was that—That was all planned?" I asked, more as a sanity check than a question. Their playful banter had told me exactly what happened. "I awakened again…"

"Yep! Second time's the hardest so I'm glad we got that figured out. Third should be a piece of cake." Keeper sauntered back over. "You were out cold so we had plenty of time to plan it. How'd you think of Watcher's acting?"

"It was… accurate." My hand came to my forehead, gently rubbing away the confusion. "Are you going to trick me again for the third one?"

Before Keeper answered, she stuck her hand under my shirt and pulled it up, revealing my flank. "Totally healed, that's wild." The sudden physical contact surprised me, but it didn't quite prompt my brain to push her hand away. It just sat smoothly against my skin.

"It's a bit cold," I said.

"Yeah, blood loss…" she said. "And no. We won't have to trick you for the third one. Hunger is about control, so the last you'll do on your own."

"Right, and what does that entail? Getting hungry?"

The crumpled man in the corner chimed in, "More like getting full."

"Full? Wasn't it more like, getting rid of hunger?" Keeper spun to the slowly standing Watcher.

"I don't know, you're the one who talks to The Million Eyes every year," he said, dusting his pants.

"Either way," Keeper said, "one left and no help with it."

I grumbled. "I'm not totally sure I trust you. Seems like what you'd say to trick me again."

She shrugged. "Sure, believe whatever you want. I don't need to do anything more so I don't really care."

An uncomfortable burbling sounded from my stomach. "Oh gods, if this isn't poison what is it?"

"Poison." Keeper smiled.

Watcher swatted at her head while she giggled. "It's a pleasure-drink—Would you stop that? I'm afraid he'll try to eat me again."

An uncontrolled grin crept across my face. "You were looking delicious there for a moment."

Keeper burst out the most satisfied laugh I'd ever heard. It took a while longer for our joking to end, but when it finally did, the small girl gave a serious nod to the man tidying his room.

The edge of her lip twitched. "Well then, you think we finally oughta get to the magic?"