He saw it in his deep slumber, the sceneries. The one he had for three years. First was his memory from fifteen years ago. He never forgot even in his waking state, the only happy scene of his dream.

Walking through the busy playground filled with kids his age, little Rein had an enthusiastic look on his face. He was fat and healthy and cheerful. A contrast to his current condition.

Most kids were playing seesaw, slide, and other things you would expect of children of those ages, but something different caught his attention. Three kids sat on the corner, facing each other and talking.

Even now he didn’t know why he approached them. There was no reason to do so. He wasn’t the type to console or cheer up a sad friend. He wasn’t the kid who got attracted to things that stuck out and wasn’t the person who would approach strangers on a whim. But he was glad he approached them. He couldn’t recall what they were talking about, but they all had a blast and the four of them became friends by the end of the day.

Then the nightmare started.

They left one by one. He remembered their sour face when their parents come to get them, and the accompanying pain in his chest.

By the time the sun set, he was alone in that park. Neither the stars nor the moon accompanied him. A storm brewed and swept away his long dark hair. And when thunder struck a nearby building, ‘she’ showed up for the first time.

A grotesque monstrosity no larger than him. A lump of bloodied flesh, hair, and limbs stitched and glued into one twisted amalgamation with countless eyes and mouths sprinkled all over her body. Watching him from afar. Silently.

He always wondered what he felt, witnessing ‘her’ for the first time. Was it crippling fear? Morbid fascination? Panic and confusion? His current self couldn’t recall. But what he remembered was, he immediately ran away from that thing.

She was a monster taken straight from a horror movie. There was no need to ask or wait or see what she would do. He ran and ran and ran through the darkness and pouring rain while she chased him.

He shouted for help, but there was no one to hear it. Something extinguished all lights in the city. There was no sound of human activities, no pedestrian or car sighted on the street. The city was deserted, silent and empty. Even animals and insects were gone.

No matter how fast he ran, no matter how far, she and the horrible sloshing sound of countless tongues and footsteps wouldn’t fade away. He couldn’t shake her off. He couldn’t outrun her.

The world became darker and darker the further he ran, until the buildings and road and everything except him and her remained, on a game of eternal cat and mouse. But he was a child, and never the toughest one.

His small body betrayed him and went tumbling in the pitch darkness. His limbs ached and his knees bleeding. It was only after he fell did he saw a light in the distance. A warm glow in the middle of complete cold darkness.

Forcing the strength to come back, he dragged his body and crawled to the fire in the distance, away from the monster and the darkness and the cold and the loneliness.

The more he pulled himself, the worse his injuries became. He wasn’t supposed to have those wounds, not in this dream. His left arm fractured and broke, cut wounds appeared all over his body along with stuck pieces of shattered glass, and a sharp smell of gasoline assaulted his nostrils.

When he reached the fire, the world changed. The tall buildings were now suburban houses, the empty street now filled with worried onlookers, and the park became burning wreckage of an upturned car.

He knew this. This was another dream he often had. A car-crash from twelve years ago.

Despite his broken bones, torn muscles, and a plethora of minor and major injuries, he somehow pulled himself out of that ticking time-bomb. After crawling to a safe distance, someone approached him. It was a man, but his face and hair and other features, he couldn’t remember.

His hearing returned just in time to hear the wail and cries of his aunt and uncle, his foster parents of the last four years. They cried for help, stuck and trapped in their overturned burning car. There were dozens of people searching for ways to help, but the leaking fuel tank sent away any would-be helper. It exploded not long after his vision became clear. As if the fire waited for him to see their death. As if fate decreed that he must witness their demise with his own two eyes.

It was then ‘she’ appeared again, coming from the blazing wreckage. No one freaked out, no one reacted, no one saw her but him. He screamed, but no voice came out. He ran away, but no strength come to his body. He struggled, but consciousness failed him.

Then he returned to the place. Another dream he often had. A place not from his past neither was it a mash-up of his memory. It was alien and bizarre, a twisted reality.

He was standing on a street, so wide four cars could drive through side-by-side. To his left and right walls soared to the sky, disappearing behind the thick dark-green cloud that forever hung above him, threatening a storm and rain but never delivers. Gargantuan slabs of stone made the floor and walls, each bigger than a house and polished to a wet shining black.

This place was limbo. There was no escape, he knew from the times he visited this place before. The road went on for all eternity. The walls too tall to climb, and the surface too flat to even try. Punch or kick till his body break, the walls remained unscathed and untainted. Blood and water slid down the shining surface as if falling down thin air.

In this place abandoned by gods, only the sound of crashing waves and the salty smell of sea accompanied him. Behind the impenetrable walls lay a great dark ocean where abyss swallowed stars and all hope. There monster and horror slumbered under the surface, ready to be awoken when the time was right.

Green fog rolled from front and back and the cloud fell unto him. There was no escape. The fog would engulf him and he would be once again assaulted by dread immeasurable. Incomprehensible words and ideas would be injected to his mind, driving him to the edge of the abyss called madness. He would have fallen many times before if she wasn’t there. Iris. One of the three friends he made that day in the park. Her voice rang out in the middle of the insanity and pulled him back to reality. That’s what usually happened when this dream visits. And each time he woke up, the anomaly or his condition got worse, or both.

For there’s no escape and for there’s always Iris there to help him, he didn’t fight it. Not like there’s any way to run or fight.

He stretched his arms, embracing and letting the fog engulf him. ”Rein.” But before the fog even touched him, her voice already rang out.

”Iris.” Rein turned around and saw a silhouette, a shadow of her, extending her arms just outside his reach.

”Rein.” Her voice sounded desperate unlike the usual when she appeared in this dream. ”Quick! Grab my hand.” He was confused what to do. ”Rein, please, we don’t have much time. You don’t have much time.”

The fog came closer and closer, but still, he hesitated. Her appearance wasn’t as usual. She was blurry and shadowy, unclear even when seen from close, and her tone was in panic and desperation. She never appeared like that or sounded in distress before. Not in this dream.

”Rein, what are you waiting for?!” She shouted as the fog rolled down around them.

With little time left, he grabbed her hand. But unlike his previous experience when the moment he felt her smooth touch he was instantly brought back to the waking world, this time Iris pulled him closer and whispered in his ears. ”Finally~” She put her palm on his chest, right where his heart is.

Burn. Unimaginable pain struck him as her hands lit up like a great lighthouse.

The fog rolled upon them, swallowing them in its mad embrace. There was nothing, nothing but the searing pain on his chest and the scream he let out.

”You’re mine now~” Iris whispered.