“Many find fear to be the emotion of the weak. The worst possible motive emotion, so to speak. Those people haven’t been thrown in a room where their fears become reality. They haven’t had to deal with the things an Existential Nightmare can do to your mind. Fear is just as natural, and more importantly just as strong as any other motive emotion. Respect it.

-Augustus West, Writings on Motive Emotions and Awakenings

“At least you two get to take it easy during combat exercises, yeah?” I said, turning to include Aminci. Stephen didn’t look up to moving yet, so it was up to me to make sure everyone got included.

“How so?” Stephen questioned, raising an eyebrow at me. He was way better at it than me, I noticed. Not that I’m jealous or anything.

“You get to have what’s likely the three strongest direct combatants in your group. It also means we’re going to get the most outside help, if only because the Houses have to compete in everything” I stated exasperatedly, rolling my eyes to the sky for effect. “Means y’all won’t have to do much of anything, at least in those exercises.”

“So we get to be dead weight?” Aminci stared at me as she responded. It was with less hostility than shortly before, but it was still intense. I wasn’t sure how to feel about the energy she was bringing to what I thought was casual conversation.

“I mean not if you don’t want to. I’m just saying that I know the three of us all have at least our Primaries already, and I know I have a Secondary. That level of manifest is going to keep us ahead of the rest of the class for at least a year, probably two.” I said, backpedaling slightly. Then I realized that it sounded like I was trying to brag and tried to backpedal from that too.

“Not saying that nobody here can compete, especially if they work hard or we mess up somehow, just that we kind of have an unfair advantage. Means you guys can spend more time on the personal than the tactical if you want to” I added, hoping to avoid sounding like some spoiled Scion.

The time it took me to try my best to not sound like an asshole(and hopefully succeeding) must have been more than expected, or Amora just spent less time in the Panic Room than Emily. Either was good at this point honestly, I felt like I was flailing, trying to make a good impression on them, and it was making me anxious. The platform raised up again, and Amora looked in slightly better shape than Emi had been when she came up. Mentally, at least.

Physically she looked like she had not had a great time. Her clothes were slashed up and barely still functional. I counted at least four separate wounds on her arms and face, each just starting to coagulate, which really doesn’t make sense. It also looked like the poor woman had been through several different fights, if the exhausted way she was leaning on the spear she hadn’t had on her going in. I also noticed a new bracelet on her left wrist, looking like an elaborate series of golden spheres. Guess she did have a Secondary manifest then. She wasn’t gone long enough for any of that to have happened thought. This fucking room was hurting my brain already and I wasn’t even in it yet. Fantastic.

Speaking of being in the room, my examination must also have taken longer than I expected, because before I could really try to figure out how much of the paleness was physical instead or mental trauma, Polar had called my name. Fun.

“Aiight, I’m pretty sure this is gonna suck. But hey, I get to explain at all of you for a little bit once we’re all done, so that’s something you can look forward to.” I winked at them as I turned to walk towards what I assumed is going to be a great time. Surely they thought that was at least a little funny. One can hope.

Walking around to use the stairs like a normal person, and not at all because I was delaying the inevitable, I was stopped by the Headmaster before I could step onto the platform.

“Due to your…. interesting personal issues, Mr. West, your experience will be slightly different. We can’t risk any nightmares getting out, so you will be shadowed by professor Walkins. Don’t assume they will keep you from failing, they’re just here to prevent a worst case scenario. I’m just warning you ahead of time because you deserve to know that a member of the faculty will know a lot more about you than you might otherwise be comfortable with.” He told me, in a low and calm tone. It sounded vaguely like what you might use to keep somebody from freaking out. I didn’t know if I should be offended or comforted and decided on somewhere in between.

I didn’t really have anything to say so I just nodded to him and walked over to the platform on the stage. A closer look at it revealed that it didn’t just look like jade, it actually was, and the expense of transporting this much of the rare stone from the mountains astonished me. There was no way the Institute had acquired this much of it without anybody else realizing, so where did it come from? I couldn’t think of many uses for jade beyond the fact that it was tangentially used in some types of high quality armor for Awakened. Something about the armor becoming more reactive when precious stones were involved in its creation. There was no way this was for that though, because this had already been shaped into a stage.

My musings on the strangeness of the stage were cut off by it dropping out from underneath me, and I got to experience the joyous time that is being suddenly dropped and your stomach attempting to free climb out of your chest before landing more quickly than made sense. My Primary seemed to respond to my confusion, Manifesting on my head from wherever it had been while talking to my teammates. It brought familiar comfort with its covering of my ears and the music from my surroundings.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro51SuLyh8A)

I just wish the music had been more comforting, this “room” really didn’t match up with my knowledge of what is possible, and I didn’t like it.

“Alright. Time to figure you out.” I said out into the void of darkness around me.

And boy was that a fucking mistake.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

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Before I had any real chance to react to the changes around me, there was a flood of sensory information. My secondary manifested in my hand, but for some reason the weapon didn’t reassure me like it should. I get the distinct feeling that whatever I’m confronting here it wasn’t the type of thing I could stab easily. Maybe the solution was a lot of stabbing, but I doubted it.

Then something knocked the sword out of my hand, and shit went from spooky to worse very quickly. The void around me lit up slightly, and if I’m being honest, I wish that it hadn’t.

Surrounding me is pretty much every creature that somebody might be afraid of. Spiders, snakes, every type of insect I could name, larger forms creating waves in the distance. All coming together to form a living ocean around me. Now that was bad enough on its own, but the second I could see it, the ocean stopped parting around me. I started to drown in the mass, unable to breath due to the sheer pressure and movement of the biomass around, and quickly to my great horror, in me. There’s nothing quite like trying to throw up and being unable to because something alive is pressing down your throat. It was awful, disgusting, disturbing, and every other unpleasant adjective I could think of. I didn’t really have time to think about it, just a brief experience of something that will likely haunt me to my deathbed. What I did have time for, was to feel, and there was one predominant thought.

Fuck This. Fuck this SO MUCH. This is NOT OKAY.

My Primary, somehow still on my head, reacted to that feeling, and everything around me was pushed away from me, violently. They didn’t attempt to return, which was infinitely preferable to whatever else could have happened. I hadn’t actually been aware that I had ability, but I was eternally grateful for it, as I coughed out the stragglers, throwing up on the ground beneath me. I was tempted to try to crack a quip, not just for my own benefit but for whatever professor was out there watching. I was convinced otherwise by two things. One, I was really not feeling up to talking after that brief but suitably traumatizing incident.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRFLvrBHI0E)

Two, I noticed I was bleeding. A lot. Like a dangerous amount.

And not from bites or whatever else I could have reasonably expected. There were deep slash marks down each of my forearms. Familiar ones. They looked self-inflicted. But that didn’t make sense? I had promised. I wouldn’t break that promise. Right?

Right?

I hit the ground, not sure when that happened.

Why is everything spinning?

Everything dizzy….

Sorry.

.

.

.

.

.

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Waking up after that was one of the most surreal moments of my life. I didn’t know where I was, and I sure didn’t feel right. Everything was too light, there was no weight to any of my movement. It was kinda like I was floating in the air instead of existing normally.

Then I saw what was around me and things became both clearer and much, much worse.

It was me. In a coffin. And it wasn’t a glass coffin. This wasn’t the Hall of Honored Dead. It meant I hadn’t died in service to the City, that I had made no notable contribution during my life. My friends and family were gathered around, but this wasn’t right. This couldn’t be right. I had promised. I didn’t break promises. It was one of like two things about myself that were indisputably good. No. No. No. No. No. NO!

I could feel the panic attack coming on, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember what Dr. Stevens had said about those. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t right. People were depending on me. I had shit to do. I was better now. People who were better didn’t kill themselves. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.

Then the scene was gone. The weightless feeling didn’t leave, but I was seeing life play out. It didn’t help the ongoing panic attack, and I can’t say I was really conscious for the next however long. All I know is when I finally started to calm myself down, remembering some of the breathing exercises taught to me, things had moved on. It looked to be a couple weeks later, and I was looking down on my parents. They were fighting, which was weird because they didn’t usually fight, especially not where other people could see. My mom threw something at my dad, and I saw him begin to walk towards her before the scene changed.

Then the next time it was Emily, with some guy that I had never seen before. They were getting intimate is all I’m going to say, and the sick feeling that induced was almost as unpleasant to experience as I imagine it is to hear. I tried to not look, but it felt like my eyes were being held open, to see her kiss him like she never would me, and the way she looked at him and I finally managed to tear my eyes away before anything happened. My heart felt like I’d rather go back to the swarm-thing, and my brain didn’t even try to disagree.

Then I was above the City, watching it burn. Screams from people down below echoed in my ears, and I couldn’t get them out of my head. They echoed, getting louder and louder. I could feel my ears begin to bleed and my eardrums burst as I watched Nightmares run unopposed through the streets. slaughtering civilians. I didn’t even process how impossible that was at the time, too concerned with clutching my skull as the screams continued to echo louder in my head, to the point where I couldn’t even hear myself think.

Then I was back at my funeral, except this time there was nobody there. No friends, no family. Nobody who cared. The only reason I had even gotten buried was that my corpse would have started to bother people. The only real way I could get noticed, really.

Then it was my parents again, except this time they didn’t even notice that their son was gone. He hadn’t done much while he was here anyways. If you didn’t lose anything, is there really much reason to change? Sure he had that weird thing about the girl and the other thing with his brother, but that had never really been their problem.

Then above the City again, except this time nothing was different. Nothing. It continued as it always had for centuries, like it would long past my existence. My personage had added nothing to it, and its subtraction was similarly uninteresting.

The visions continued, showing all the different ways my death would and wouldn’t affect people, none of them palpable. None of them were ones I really thought I was handling, still on the verge of another panic attack.

Then it was a coffin again. Except this time it wasn’t my coffin. It didn’t say Damien West on it, like the previous two. And if I wasn’t handling the previous visions well, this one really set me off. This grave was marked with a rather more upsetting name on it.

Jayth West

I began to scream. My Primary vibrated at a rate that couldn’t be safe, but I felt nothing. The scream became louder and louder, but unlike the previous scream this one came from me. I made it louder and louder, determined to drive out any thought, any effect, anything from out there. I didn’t want to process what was in front of me, so I wouldn’t. The feeling of weightlessness began to fade, and I kept the scream up even as I could see a droplet of blood fly out of my mouth. My throat hurt, torn to shreds by the strength and continuity of the force being applied to it. My lungs were as empty as a church at midnight. There was no air to exhale, but Awakened have never needed that, really. I continued to scream. Screaming hurt better. Screaming didn't cost me a brother.

The vision around me broke, and I remembered where I was.

I was back in the void I had dropped in originally, except I was much less chill now. I looked around, ready for a fight. Fuck anybody who stepped to me right now, especially if they had more than two legs. Except dogs, dogs are cool. I heard skittering beneath me and dove to crush the singular spider trying to run from me. I stamped on its corpse a couple more times, just because mostly. Then I noticed that the floor was starting to run with fluid, and decided I didn’t want to think about what was in that any more than “exploded spider" and began preparing mentally for whatever came next.

Bless the Dreams, it was just the platform beneath me raising up again. I could see real sunlight above me, and collapsed.