“Teach?” I asked. My tears had run dry, my throat, hoarse.

“Fin?! I hear you! Fin! What did you see?!” her voice came through loud and clear and her eyes had locked on me.

“You died, Teach. You, Ange, the village, mom…. Me. I wasn’t strong enough… Again.”

“Fin! You’re in a nightmare!”

Huh?

“Fin, listen to me! What you saw wasn’t real! Your body is with me! We’re outside on the roof! You’re in a trap!”

My teacher’s words lit a spark in me.

A nightmare?

Hearing her voice, hearing her name the nature of the reality I experienced got the gears in my head turning. I faced what I saw, putting together the scenes in my memories and started noting the irregularities.

“How?” I asked. I could feel my awareness of my body returning to me, sinew by sinew, limb by limb.

“Fin. Listen to me carefully. It’s Hanna. Hanna’s the source of the strange smoke. If you breathe in the smoke, you’re dragged into a nightmare you can’t wake up from.”

I sat up, surrounded by darkness and held Teach’s head in my lap.

“I-I still don’t understand! Did you figure out something about Hanna?”

“I think so! With what you told me- I think so! The secret was in what she said, ‘I need to protect the temple, by inviting people in.’ Fin, I think Hanna’s what’s called a Nightmare Womb.

I didn’t figure it out sooner because the literature always referred to Nightmare Wombs as just some kind of magical tool. A nightmare womb being a sentient like you and I- well that wasn’t ever considered!”

“What’s a nightmare womb, Teach? Give me all the info!”

“Of course, a nightmare womb is a sadistic tool made by the Gods during the Age of Antiquity, that far off age. Listen carefully. The Gods made nightmare wombs in order to hide their precious places and treasures. The nightmare wombs create a space on the Plane of Dreams, the womb, essentially. In that space, the God sticks whatever it is they’re trying to protect. According to the literature, adventurers and enemies of old would go snooping around and would soon find themselves stuck in a neverending nightmare if they took a whiff of the Womb’s Invite, the smoke that you sniffed. Did you get that?”

“I did. Why is it sadistic though? That just sounds like a typical trap you’d find in a ruin?”

“Fin!” Deleim barked, “Don’t be so foolish! There’s no reason for the nightmare womb to ever invite people in! The plane is made, the temple is hidden. The only way someone would be able to get to the temple is by traversing the Plane of Dreams and finding the area the nightmare womb claimed. In other words, the Gods just made nightmare wombs to make other sentients suffer. And then consider Hanna! She’s not some trap, she’s a real sentient. And she believes the only way to protect what she has is to trap people in a nightmare!

Do you not see how twisted that is?!”

“I do, I do! I get it now! What do I do then?”

“Fin, everyone that has breathed in the invitation is in a nightmare. That smoke has spread throughout the entire inn.”

“Wait, so Ange?!”

“Yes, she should be in a nightmare as well. Fin, we need to get everyone out. They’re guaranteed to suffer.”

The moment I heard those words, I thought back to how I felt. To how I just started questioning everything. A little bit more, and I would’ve slipped away.

“How do I save her?” I asked. If there was someone that could have an answer, it would be Deleim.

“Races that can traverse the dreamscape have escaped nightmare wombs!” Deleim explained. “There should be a space that actually contains whatever the God wanted to hide. What does the space you’re in look like?”

“I-I’m in pitch black, there’s nothing but your head in my lap.”

“My head is in your lap? What kind of drea- No, nevermind! Okay, you might be trapped in a sub-space within the womb. Fin! Perception is everything, believe that you’re in a nightmare and find the boundary and get out!”

“That’s a whole lot of loose words, Teach, but okay.”

I ran forward, carrying Deleim’s head with me.

This isn’t real, but I know I need to find Ange. So…

“Let me find Ange, Hanna!”

Ahead of me, a point of light swelled until it enveloped me, and then, I opened my eyes.

“Huh?”

I found myself in a yellow-orange bulb, filled with thick liquid. I punched and kicked and struggled until finally I heard a pop and felt myself falling until the sack hit the floor. The impact caused it to rupture and I came out, sliding on the ground, slime and all.

“Fin!” I heard Teach call though her head was nowhere in sight. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I am. Just… Something weird happened,” I reported, looking to the left and right frantically. “How are you talking to me?”

“I’m using the Telepathy spell, Fin.”

The telepathy spell that my teacher could use was a short range one that would allow her and the targets to speak between each other mentally. Normally, it wasn’t a useful magic due to its incredibly short range of ten feet, but considering my body was right with her, I could piece together how this was working.

“Okay. The environment changed, Teach, my eyes are still getting used to it though. What’s going on here, Teach?”

True enough, it didn’t feel like I was dreaming. The fall, the consistency of the liquid, the lag before my eyes stopped being blurry; these all felt very “physical” to me. I hoped Teach would be able to clear this up for me.

“Listen closely, Fin. The Plane of Dreams is ruled by subconscious perception. It applies rules on your body based on the rules the majority acknowledge. In other words the rules of our world are going to be enforced unless your perception can overwhelm the dream’s perception.”

“Okay, if I get hurt here, do I get hurt in real life?” I asked just in case I ran into danger.

“Yes, most likely. The body you have in there is your mental body, it represents how you see your body. If you perceive that you take an injury, your mind’s belief of that injury will transfer over. If you believe you died, then you might very well suffer an ego death.”

“So I can’t take control of anything in this dream?”

“Not unless you have experience with manipulating dreams, like a succubus or a nightmare centaur would.”

“Okay got it. And hey, my vision’s settling I can see more now- Whoa.”

“What’s the matter?”

“This place is massive,” I was taking so much in, I didn’t know where to start. “First, there’s a castle-looking temple in front of me. Above me, there’s tons of yellow glowing bulbs dangling from some black roof, maybe twenty, and, I think, we’re all in some kind of bigger bulb, because, on the other side of some transparent looking membrane… Hanna’s there!”

True enough, I, the temple, the grey dirt we stood on and the bulbs were all inside a black and yellow bulb, the yellow parts being translucent enough for me to see that right outside, there was a giant sleeping Hanna resting on the bulb. She looked like she was caring for the bulb.

“Fin, that’s Hanna’s true form!” Deleim said, “Or rather the rest of her form! You’re in her womb. That’s the her that exists in the dreamscape!”

“Do I- Do I need to kill her?” She was the one trapping us. In other situations, you destroy the trap to get out of the trap, so this might not be any different.

“Stop being so muscle brained!” Deleim yelled, her voice coming in louder than before, “Fin do you think Hanna is a bad person? I don’t think she understands what she was doing. Fin listen, there’s so many stories of Gods creating races just to use them as tools; I don’t think Hanna is any different. She might just be a girl that was told to invite people in and she just does it.”

“I-I don’t know if I can trust that…” I apprehensively admitted.

Deleim was staunchly anti-deity. We all knew she had a slant against deity, that wasn’t made any better by me asking a deity for help and then subsequently being given a mission like the one we were on.

“Fin, the records of nightmare wombs have one thing; it’s the trait that tells you you’re in a nightmare womb.” Deleim paused before continuing, “There’s a guide who’s willing to take you around the hidden place.”

“What?” What was Deleim getting at?

“I told you Fin, this is sadistic. Call Hanna. I’m sure she’ll help you.”

“H-Hanna?” I asked aloud, confused.

“Yes, Fin?”

I froze once more at the familiar voice that came from behind me. I turned and behind me saw, standing many feet shorter, a child-like Hanna staring back at me with half-opened eyes. It was just like the Hanna I knew, just tinier. She was even wearing a variation of her sleepwear.

“T-Teach, Hanna’s standing in front of me… But why? Isn’t she the one trapping us?”

“I knew it!” Deleim rejoiced, “I told you, the Gods are sick! They’re cruel! Fin, all Hanna knows is that she has to protect the temple by inviting people in, nothing more. Beyond that one thing, she has no more directions.”

“So that’s why she’ll help?”

“Well, you tell me, Fin. Is she going to help you?”

Despite the situation, it seemed like Teach was excited. She was probably writing a new book as we spoke but I couldn’t deny this was working out like she supposed it would.

“H-Hanna?” I struggled to ask. She only looked back at me with sleepy eyes, “I’m looking for Ange, could you wake her up from her nightmare?”

Ange was Hanna’s friend right? So naturally she would wake her up. Hanna didn’t seem to be in a rush to put me back in the bulb so maybe she would be okay bringing Ange down here.

“I can’t wake her from her nightmare.” Hanna responded without batting an eye.

“Why not?!” I yelled; I lulled myself into thinking that we would be able to work together but that hope was dashed.

“Ange woke up from the dream all by herself. She went to the temple.”

“Huh?” I was confused, “Why’d she go to the temple?”

“She said she was going to go find the treasure that was in the temple. She said it was important she find it for you.”

I took a step back; “It was important? A treasure? For me?”

Everything clicked after a moment of thought.

Impeerio had intel about one of the Seven Treasures , but we only found a girl. There’s a temple, and nightmare wombs are made to hide things and-

“Sleep on it,” Impeerio’s words came back to me. Were they a coincidence?

Nevertheless, I knew what conclusion Ange reached, and she was able to act so quickly.

“Wow, Ange wakes up from a nightmare without any help and she just knows what to do?” I was in proud shock of my friend, I couldn’t help but admire her.

“Ange is amazing,” Hanna replied, a slight smile forming on her face.

“Yeah, she is. Say, could you direct me to her? We need to fig-”

“Ange found the treasure.”

“Whoa? Really?” Another impressive report.

“But she gave it to me for safekeeping.”

That’s weird. Why give it to the person who stuck us in here? That’s the last person I would hand it over to.

In her hands, in a ball of light, an ornate gold ball appeared. It looked like it was some kind of puzzle in the shape of a sphere.

“Is that the treasure?”

“Uhuh…”

Something didn’t feel right.

“Hanna? Why did she give you the treasure?” Something was wrong, I could feel a cold sweat coming on.

“Someone found her.”

“WHO?!” I yelled, grabbing Hanna by the shoulders. Though I was so forceful, the little Hanna didn’t flinch.

“Someone in biiiig armor with wolves on their shoulders,” she said, gesturing at the shape with her tiny arms, “and with scary claws. They’re very red.”

Why is he here?

How many times tonight would I feel that same inexplicable chill? The memories of my nightmare came back; of Ange being thrown aside.

“Teach, Blood Claw is here.”

***

At that same time, in the halls of the temple, a giant hulking mass with claws covered in blood and black, metal wolf heads adorning its shoulders came across a much tinier skull knight girl, both in the company of the guide called Hanna.