Mature Content Warning: This story will involve primarily graphic violence, crude humor, crude language, and adult themes that include mean people getting their meanness murder-stabbed out of them on a semi-regular basis.

Author's Note: This story has been rewritten. You may continue to read the original version by simply following the links at the bottom of the chapter. However, if you want to start reading the new version please skip ahead to this chapter. Rewrite Chapter 1.1: Let's All Sleep Together

---and now the story---

The day the world dreamed as one, that was what they had called it. Everyone, everywhere, regardless of what they were doing, had simultaneously fallen asleep. The death toll was immense. Cars littered the highway, boats ran aground, planes fell from the sky and surgeons fell asleep atop their patients.

Young and old, man or woman, it did not matter. In the end, the survivors of the beginning of the dream time woke up as one. However, their lives were forever altered.

The universal dream that had united the surviving members of humanity was a most peculiar one. It was the dream of another world, a world where monsters roamed and people could gain power in various ways. It was a fantastic reality reminiscent of a game.

Chapter 1: Blackthorne Begins

The endless grassland stretched out before him. Music, ephemeral, yet jubilant, could be heard with perfect clarity. “So, this is the dream world, huh?”

He had only been here once before. It had been three days since the event that would change humanity forever. No one knew why it happened. No one knew how it was even possible. Yet, it was the truth. When someone went to sleep, they would enter into an alternate reality that was both fantastic and impossible.

The man tapped his iron cuirass then unsheathed his copper sword. He placed his weapon back into its sheathe then raised his hand.

~ Anger of the disquiet soul, become my weapon and strike down my enemy...~

“Jolt!” cried the man.

Dark energy skittered out of his fingers like tiny bolts of black lightning. He immediately felt weaker after the spell was unleashed. His vitality had been drained to power his magic.

He shook his head for a moment, trying to fight back the wave of weakness. “I wonder if everyone has the same problem.”

During the last three days, the Internet had been alive with people posting information about the dream world. A lot of it was inconsistent, but everyone seemed to agree that it felt perfectly real, and time seemed to pass much slower while the dreamer dreamed.

Much like a dream in the past might feel like minutes or even hours had passed, life in the dream world seemed to flow at a different rate that in the waking world. No one knew much about the place, yet. It seemed that everyone shared the same dream world, but also started out in different locations.

“I’m a little behind, but I can’t help that.” After awakening from the first dream, the time when everyone had fallen asleep at the same time, he had stayed awake for nearly three days. At first, he had simply been awake because he was not tired. However, once he had learned that the dream was real and that everyone had undergone a similar experience, he had forcibly remained awake to learn as much as possible.

He looked around the area, but saw nothing but endless grassland. It was disconcerting. Where should he go? What should he do first? There was no handy map screen to use.

“One direction is as good as another, I suppose.” He decided to walk forward. If nothing else, moving forward meant that he was going somewhere.

The humming drone of insects combined with the heat of day and the all-consuming visual of the unending grass in a dedicated effort to drain his reserves. After a while, his every step became an exercise in stubbornness. He had to move forward or he would never leave the grassland.

A shuffling sound broke the monotony of his travels. He turned his head to the left and saw that the grass had begun to sway and shake like a small animal was moving through it.

Nerves on edge, he whipped out his sword and took up a fighting stance. Suddenly, the ephemeral background music changed to an eighties style synth-guitar track.

“What the...?” he asked in surprise. The grass parted and a tiny bulbous creature emerged. Above its head a name and a level were shown clearly.

The orange skinned creature hopped on one foot and then the other. The sword-wielding man stared at it for a moment. What was with the ridiculous little thing?

Suddenly, the onion bulb opened a slit in the front and it screamed “Cry for me!”

The dreamer staggered back as a strange power overcame him. He felt weaker and he began to cry openly. His vision became blurred and he could not see clearly enough to attack the wee little kitchen supply.

The onion screamed again then launched its tiny body upward with great force. It impacted against his armor, and the man was knocked back.

The copper sword lashed out wildly several times in rapid succession. Most of the desperate attacks missed their intended target, but the final strike managed to catch the little screaming bastard with a shallow cut.

Orange onion skin tore free and the sweet white innards were revealed. The onion cried out in pain as its juices ran freely from its shallow wound.

The downed fighter managed to crawl back to his hands and knees. His sword lashed out again. He refused to be killed by a damned hamburger accessory!

The next strike tore deeply into the tiny little onion and it unleashed a final cry, one that signaled its death. The crying man started to cry even more intensely once the onion was completely cut open.

“Seriously? Damn this vegetable...” Onions were vegetables, he was pretty sure they were a bulbous root and a vegetable. Did it matter? Either way, the Screaming Onion had its own peculiar defense mechanism.

He openly wept for several minutes, but eventually the effect wore off and he was able to see clearly once more. “Man that sucked.”

The mighty onion slayer looked to his fallen prey. Somehow, the little thing was neatly bisected. It made no sense, as he could not have had that level of accuracy. He chose to ignore the discrepancy for the moment and searched the corpse.

“What’s this?” He found a tiny chunk of pale green material. “Some sort of gemstone?”

The music had changed back to the grassland traveling tune, but there had been no other change once the monster had been slain. He was not sure what he was looking at, but it was probably important.

He turned the monster remains over and saw that the onion’s feet were actually two roots growing from the bottom. He picked it up by its root feet then nearly dropped it when several tidbits of information appeared next to it in the air.

<<< Item >>>

Food Ingredient: Screaming Onion

Class: 1

Grade: low-quality

Nutrition Value: 1

Value: 1 Jerin

>>

“Food ingredient? Someone would eat this thing?” Well, it was an onion. Still, he had never eaten anything that was capable of speech before.

He opened the bag tied at his waist then placed the onion pieces and the little green stone inside. “I’ll hold onto them for a while.”

He blinked his eyes in order to clear the last of the tears away then chose to check his status. He needed to know how much damage he had taken.

<<< Status >>>

Name: Blackthorne

Level: 1 Skill Points: 0

Vitality: 6[12]

Weapon Attack: 3[3]

Durability: 5[5]

Speed: 5[5]

Spirit: 13[13]

>>

“Half vitality already. Jolt took three points, so that little bastard robbed me of two vitality points.” said Blackthorne.

The name Blackthorne was one that he often enjoyed using when playing as a mage type character in his beloved role playing games. It seemed fitting since he had chosen for his talent to be magic, and gone the dark mage route.

This world seemed to have no classes listed despite the fact that there was a status window. He had stats, skills, and spells annotated. Yet, the interface seemed minimal in nature. He could see the level and name of a creature such as the onion, but no screens popped up out of nowhere like they would in a real game.

“I wonder what it will take to gain a level.” There were a lot of unanswered questions. The first dream had been something like a tutorial for everyone, but it was minimal just like the interface in this world. He knew how to view his status and how to activate his spell. Other than that, he really did not know much about the place.

The fact that he was half-dead already was disconcerting. What could he do, though? It took a moment for him to realize that he did have one option. He took out a piece of the screaming onion and stared at it once more. “Should I...?”

He tore the orange skin away then took an experimental bite. He cringed and nearly spit it out, but he managed to swallow the thing down. “Yeah, it’s an onion alright.”

The onion had a strong flavor. He had never tasted an onion that was this potent before.

Nothing had changed, however. He was forced to eat more. Blackthorne ended up eating the entire onion before he noticed an actual effect.

“My vitality increased by one point... So, it was true. Eating food was the cheapest way to regain health.” said the man.

One thing he knew about this world. There was no innate vitality regeneration. Only eating something, drinking tonics, or awakening from the dream world and spending eight hours in the real world would completely restore your health. Certain magical abilities would help with regeneration, as well, but his access to those abilities would be limited. He was a dark mage after all.

He rubbed his chin for a moment then sheathed his sword. It was time to get going.

Blackthorne walked forward once more. He had no way of knowing whether he would find civilization, but he knew that it existed. Some people had been lucky enough to arrive near a town as their initial location.

Time passed as he walked. Onions began to appear more frequently. Unlike before, however, he attacked them immediately. They rarely had the chance to scream. He had slain over a dozen of them before he found something that made his eyes widen with joy.