“Svilran?”
She was just staring at me... Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to carry on like nothing happened, but... Didn’t she know I had this power? Wasn’t that why she picked me?
“Svilran, I need you to talk to me—"
“What was that, Fainn?” Her lips quivered. “Aren’t you supposed to be human?”
I tried to calm down my panting. “I am human, Svilran. Didn’t you know I had that power?”
“No! Humans aren’t supposed to have any power unless they were looked at favorably by deity. And in that sense, there were only a couple hundred humans—most certainly, the last era only had three or four with real power.”
“Huh?” Something didn’t make sense. “No.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “In the last stages of the apocalypse, a lot of people gained powers. How did you think I survived?”
Svilran stammered. “What? I didn’t know that.”
“How? Weren’t you a goddess?”
“I mean—yes! I was! But I was kind of preoccupied at the time.”
“Okay. Well. This is me. I’m Fainn, and I have a power.”
“And that power lets you turn into that.”
I sighed and had to take many breaths—I was exhausted. “Okay. My power has a name. +Nightmares ARE Fiction+... It’s a weird name, but that’s it. The power—one aspect of it lets me create a special zone where I become a reflection of the other person’s nightmare.”
“And that’s what happened with... her?“
I nodded slowly. “That’s right.”
“You were gone for five hours... Were you—“
“Yeah. I was terrorizing her for that long... That was the longest I’d ever done it. The power... It’s not actually one that lets me kill something. It’s more like a battle of endurance. The nightmare that I become—it poisons the person’s mind until they either reach lucidity and lose the will to fight—in effect, waking up—or they fall unconscious after being overwhelmed.” I looked at the nun. “This girl—she wasn’t going to wake up and stop, so I had to whittle down whatever will was keeping her in the fight.”
Svilran stepped out of the fountain, kneeled, and looked at the nun. The tentacles were gone. All that was at our knees was an unconscious woman with torn-up skin where her mouth would be.
“She... She’s hurt, but not as much as I would expect someone who fought for five hours to be.”
“Because nightmares aren’t real. I only damaged her mind. Every physical wound disappeared when the nightmare ended.”
“Wow.” Svilran looked at me, stunned. “That power is... That power is too complex. No god that I know of has such a power.”
I shrugged. “It’s what I have. I’m here in front of you because of it.”
Svilran turned frantic and showed the crown of her head. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just processing all of this!”
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“I... really thought you knew about it...”
The nun made a sound, and we both looked at her immediately. She was still unconscious, but that lantern she had with her started glowing a little more strongly.
“Fainn, this lantern...”
“No idea. It and the stick it’s hanging from are connected to her spine.” I looked at Svilran, wholly unsure of what to do. “What do we do, Svilran? I’m not knowledgeable enough for this.”
“I... Okay!” Svilran put on a brave face. “We can figure this out. You made a wish, and the Imaginal Will responded by sending this woman down. What was the wish?”
“I wished for another Hero we could nurture.” There was a small lie of omission in there, but she didn’t need to know it.
“Okay... We need to identify whether she has heroic potential or not.”
“Can you do it?”
Svilran shook her head. “Not now. We as a Hero Hub can only do it through the
“Then...”
“Can you carry her to the
I took many breaths and then lifted the nun. “Got it.”
“Are you okay, Fainn? You’re really panting.”
“I can do it.” I looked down at the unconscious nun. “We’ll help you out, Miss.”
***
In the
“Okay, just set her down there.”
Svilran went to the telescope, tinkered with it a bit, and pulled out the eyepiece.
“This is where half of this observatory’s magic resides. This should be able able to help us.” She closed one eye and put the eyepiece up to her other eye.
“We can do that?”
“Many of the Hero Hub facilities reach their true potential when user creativity gets involved...” Svilran scanned the girl up and down. “Hmm... She’s definitely a good one. She’s got the glow and everything.”
I felt elation, but then I got concerned. “And her injuries? She didn’t have her body reconstructed the way Elma did.”
“It’ll be okay,” Svilran said, still examining the nun with the eyepiece. “She’s been recovering ever since she arrived, albeit slowly. The Hero Hub has a natural, albeit, extremely minor regenerative effect—though we wouldn’t see it with normal arrivals.” Svilran turned one of the rings on the eyepiece and peered at the nun closer.
I wiped the sweat from my brow. “That’s great! What are you doing now?”
“I’m starting the process of extracting information from her—“
The room shook—no, not the room—all the Hero Hub shook. Svilran almost fell over, but I caught her in my arms.
“Svilran?! What’s going on?” The shaking was intense. Even the telescope was creaking.
“I’m not sure!” Svilran squealed. “I don’t sense another being entering—I don’t know what’s causing this quake!”
The shaking stopped as suddenly as it started, and I looked at Svilran while nervously chuckling.
“What a day, right?”
She looked at me, exasperated. “Right. What a day.” She left my embrace and went back to examining the nun.
“Should we not investigate the shaking?” I asked.
“I don’t sense any abnormalities within the Hero Hub. You shouldn’t either... We may have just hit turbulence.”
“‘Turbulence?’ Really?”
“The Hero Hub sort of floats in the Imaginal Realm, so yeah. Turbulence could happen.”
“Oh wow, that’s interesti—“
I shut up immediately and flung my head toward the building’s door. I glanced back at Svilran, but she was focused on the nun. Turning my gaze back to the door, right as I was thinking I was just being paranoid, I saw a shadow shift... Or, I was sure I saw it shift... I wasn’t sure anymore.
I stood up and looked around the room. It was definitely there—fear. A cold sweat was running down my spine.
“Fainn?” Svilran asked, confused.
“Sorry. I’m just checking something,” I replied, stepping away from the telescope’s platform.
“Okay... I almost have all the information... It’s kind of wild,” Svilran said.
“Ahh. Well, I can’t wait,” I said with my eyes on everything but Svilran.
Honestly, I didn’t think I was being too paranoid. My +Nightmares ARE Fiction+ made me a bit more sensitive to terrifying existences... That said, it didn’t make sense to think there was a terrifying existence here, but I wasn’t thinking straight.
“Fainn!”
Svilran’s sudden call almost gave me a heart attack, and I turned around to see Svilran excitedly beckoning me over.
“I got all the info,” she said.
I took a breath, looked over my shoulder for good measure, and then walked over to Svilran. “So what do we got?” I asked.
“This is... There’s a lot... But... given that she is actually a Hero candidate, could we get her into a dorm room? It will help her better. We can keep speaking there.”
“Very well.”