I was back in the Inverse, standing on a shadowy surface and surrounded by shadowy walls. I looked to my right.

"Fainn, it's good to see you..." said Narlivs, wearing the same thing as last time. "Though, I didn't expect we would have to see each other so soon and during such dire circumstances."

"What? Didn't you send that message through Svilran? The thing about dreams?"

Narlivs giggled, touched her finger to the corner of her lip and winked. "Did I do that? Svilran is capable of her own ideas, you know."

I put that thought aside then looked to the bed where I thought something would be.

"Is she not dreaming?" I asked. "I wanted to ask her what happened before she went unconscious."

Narlivs closed her eyes. "No, she is. We can see her near the fountain."

I was on my feet and out of the room with Narlivs close behind.

"Doesn't the dream follow the dreamer's location?" I asked.

"Not necessarily. Spatial relationships are not so stringent between the two realms. The Inverse you currently see is heavily influenced by our perception of it as well... The dreamer's fog can roam a little too, depending on the dreamer. In Elma's case, her dream started in front of the fountain. That was where the viewport was created."

"Learning something new every episode," I said as I shot out the door. Over by the fountain's double, I saw the fog and one more thing that made my blood boil.

"Seriously?! A Parasite?!"

There it was, latched onto the fog and sucking out whatever energy it liked.

"Oh my," Narlivs said. "That may cause some trouble if it actually drains the fog. Elma may be fine, but the fog would disperse and leave us without a way of touching her dreams from here."

"That's it." I held out my right hand and touched my middle finger and thumb together.

"Fainn, wait--it may be better to just speak to her quickly--"

"I'm not chancing it! Don't follow me any further!" I snapped my fingers. "Don't get caught in +Nightmares ARE Fiction+ too!"

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My power's dome expanded over the dreamer's fog and the Imaginal Parasite. I turned my sights on that indescribable thing.

"All creatures feel terror, so you--what do you feel?!"

I put my hand on the impossible-to-describe skin and my power connected quickly.

"The form your terror takes"--I stepped back--"here it is!"

My torso started ripping, and--immediately--I felt something was wrong.

"Raaargh! Damn it! What?!"

+Nightmares ARE Fiction+ was a power that attacked the mind. Within its dome, the pain it inflicted all came from the mind. That was for true for the opposing side. On my side, the transformations didn't actually hurt me. Even so--

"Why does it hurt?!"

--I was screaming bloody murder, feeling every tear and snap of my muscle fibers as my body warped. My torso was on fire. My organs--I could feel them being pulled down into the new space as if someone with sharp claws had hooked them. My arms went numb from the shock as my point-of-view rose from my body stretching. I wanted to rip my bowels out everything was wrong. Strange suction made it feel like the rest of my body was constantly being pulled toward the middle now--what was going on?!

With one final, blood curdling roar, the pain stopped, and my body settled. I panted as I looked myself once over. My chest had been separated from the rest of my body and sat on top of a swirling white hole. The rest of my body was below that hole... That was the Parasite's fear--this one-way ticket to oblivion.

I shook myself free from that pain-induced daze and glided toward the Parasite. The moment I got closer, I saw its skin warping--the white hole was sucking it in. The moment it felt that tug, it unlatched itself from the dreamer's fog and ran--or, I guess, floated--the opposite way.

"Oh no, you don't!" I hovered after it at a higher speed--thank god I understood how to move in this form. "I'm not stopping until you're catatonic with terror!"

I came upon the creature, and the moment my swirling vortex grazed one of its stringy feelers, the vortex sucked it in. It fought for a second but then was sucked in, screeching and letting out a ghastly body-reverberating wail simultaneously.

Immediately, I noticed something was wrong. It was sucked into the vortex and ripped to shreds, but this time, the damage wasn't negated. The creature didn't come back. It wasn't just a manifestation of its fears--it was--

"I killed it..."

My body gurgled, and the pain surged through my senses once more. With the creature gone, the fear that warped me seemed to disappear. My body started warping back into the body of a human on its own. Bones reformed, and tissue was forcefully welded together like someone had lit a forge inside my soul. The process continued until I was panting on my knees and coughing up blood left over from the process.

"I... What's going on? +Nightmares ARE Fiction+ was never this real."

Fortunately for me, the pain subsided as soon as the transformation was over. In that sense, it was still like a dream. The moment it was over, all that was left was the memory of it. Freed, I looked toward the dreamer's fog and lost all sense of relief I previously had.

"Elma!"

I got up and ran to the fog. It--that small cloud-like thing--was diffusing into the environment. Had the Parasite actually drained it enough? It was only when I reached it that I noticed what had actually happened.

"What the--Elma?"

"Huh? Fainn?" she replied, looking at me with wide eyes.