“Kill him, father!” The whiny teenager pointed at me. “Send him to the gallows! No, to the guillotine!”

What the fuck was he talking about? I glanced around the bright room. Well, room was a bit of an understatement. It was like the inside of a castle or something. Red carpet, stone walls, giant pillars, the whole deal. Why was I on the ground? Did I pass out somewhere? I couldn’t remember anything.

Oh god. It wasn’t just the teenage kid, who by the way, was dressed in some kind of black cult robe. No, this room was filled to the brim with people. People staring right at me. Well… uh, maybe ‘people’ wasn’t really the right word.

Some looked human, I guess, but they had horns poking from their foreheads. Not a typical feature of humans last I checked. Others had bat wings or cat ears. Kind of hot, but also not normal. Some were literally just blobs covered in eyeballs. Yeah.

Okay. I tried to calm myself down. I had heard about this kind of thing before. This was one of those lucid dreams. The dreams where you realized that you were in a dream. All I needed to do was wake myself up and this would be over with.

I moved, and the room fell silent.

Did I do something wrong? Was I not supposed to realize it was a dream or something? Just then, a pair of boots appeared in the corner of my eye. They stopped just a few feet away from me, in front of a few chunks of broken marble.

The boots belonged to a long raven haired man in a black robe that stretched down just above his feet. If it weren’t for the bright gold crown and horns coming from the sides of his head, I swear I’d have thought he was ripped straight from the cover of a trashy romance novel. Well, when it came to trashy romance novels, horny guys on the front would probably make it sell better, no pun intended.

“And… who might you be?” the man asked, his voice deep and clear.

“Uhh… me?” I laughed nervously. He was talking to me, right?

“I am Demon King Hooks Brinestein.” The man’s voice boomed, echoing through the high ceilings of the room. “If you are an assassin that has come to make an attempt on my son’s life, I ask that you give your name.”

I mean, I knew I was pretty stressed with finals coming up, but this was one of the dumbest dreams I’d ever had. It was definitely time to wake up.

I tried pinching my cheek, but nothing happened. For good measure, I tried again. Nothing. Come to think of it, every time someone did the same thing in a movie, it never seemed to work. It always turned out that they… weren’t… in a dream at all.

Uh-oh.

The teenage boy who had been screaming about various neck and head based death penalties started to heave. He was crying so hard, it sounded like he could throw up at any moment.

The boy was sitting behind a long table covered with food I’d never seen before. Well, I suppose I recognized the cake, it was just the ugliest cake ever. It was like someone literally just took three wedding cakes and smashed them together. Good job. Ready to go.

“I don’t care who he is, father,” the boy said, practically gagging. “He broke… He broke my Violetta!”

I narrowed my eyes. “Violetta?”

“Minzfel!” The guy in the crown’s voice ripped through the air again. “You are a prince. Pull yourself together.”

“You don’t get it, father,” the boy, apparently named Minzfel, cried. “That Violetta statue was life size. Life size! Destroying that statue is the same thing as making an attempt on my Violetta’s life. Kill him! Throw him in the pit of spikes!”

“P-Please, Minzfel,” the King stuttered. Somehow, he wasn’t quite as intimidating as before. “You’re… You’re embarrassing me…”

“Hurry up and kill him!”

“Just c-calm down, now,” the King went on. “There’s no need to yell.”

“No need to yell?” The brat’s face turned dark red as he grinded his teeth. “No need… to yell?”

“N-Now, Minzfel…”

“My birthday’s ruined!” Minzfel flipped the table, which was, as many would describe, an absolutely reasonable reaction. The crowd let out a gasp as the giant cake splattered all over the floor. “I want him dead!”

Wow. This whole ruined birthday thing? Yeah. Clearly my fault. Apparently even royalty had to deal with temper tantrums.

“Hey, uh, King… your majesty?” I finally spoke up. “I don’t really know what’s going on, but… I didn’t break any statue…”

The King let out a deep sigh, motioning down at the chunks of marble sitting around his feet.

“…Oh.”

“I see the gravity of the situation has finally hit you,” the King sighed again. “Guards.”

One of the eye-covered blobs slinked its way over to me, leaving a slimy trail in its wake. Of course it would be this guy. Would it really be too much to ask for a cat girl guard to take me away? I’d settle for a dog girl. Anyone other than the eyeball monster, really.

“Sorry about this, bro,” it said.

“Wait, this is some kind of mista-…” Before I could finish speaking, a tentacle wrapped around my waist, jerking me up onto my feet.

“Now show some assassin’s pride.” The King took a step forward in my direction. “Tell me your name.”

“I’m telling you, I’m not an assassin,” I said. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

“Fine, then we will prepare for your execution.”

“I don’t even get a trial?”

“Trial?” The King rose an eyebrow. “What is this ‘trial’ you speak of?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I yelled, struggling to break free. Bad move. Really, really bad move. The tentacle wrapped tighter, squeezing me like a boa constrictor.

“Enough of this,” the King said. “Your name!”

“It’s… R-R,” I choked out. Unsurprisingly, it was difficult to talk without air. “Ryley… Ryley Allard…”

Ugh. The tentacle felt disgusting slithering all over my bare skin. Wait. Bare skin? Oh god. I was completely naked. This was the exact opposite state one wanted to be in when they were being attacked by a tentacle monster.

“Take him to… the dungeon.”

This… was just one of those nightmares right? The kind where you were in your underwear standing in front of your whole class? That had to be it. I would be waking up any second. That, or I would be passing out. The tentacle wasn’t exactly letting me breathe.

Okay, passing out it was.