Sunny dreamt of a mountain.
Jagged and lonesome, it dwarfed other peaks of the mountain chain, cutting the night sky with its sharp edges. A radiant moon bathed its slopes in the ghostly, pale light.
On one of those slopes, an ancient road leading toward the summit was littered with the remnants of a gruesome struggle. The corpses of both humans and abominations had stained the snow of a deep, crimson red.
Suddenly, as if by the hand of some dark witchcraft, the blood began to flow from the snow back into the corpses. One by one, they rose from the ground like broken puppets; their wounds vanished into thin air, their shredded flesh and shattered bones mended themselves. Those who had been dismembered found themselves whole once more, those who had lost limbs or even worse to the bellies of the monsters found them restored to their place.
The two fronts, now recomposed, engaged in a frantic, reverse battle.
The sight sent a cold shiver down Sunny's spine, paired with the chilling realization that something was wrong. Nevertheless, time continued to flow in reverse, like a movie running backward.
Sunny was now looking at the ruins of a once-majestic shrine; the flames that had razed it to the ground were long gone. Suddenly, up in the sky, a silver eye fell over the horizon. Then, a golden eye rose from the west. In a blink, a month had passed.
During the first cycles, soldiers bearing a red banner were seen desecrating the shrine, plundering its treasures, and enslaving its people. Anyone who attempted to flee or resist was executed on the spot. Sunny did not fail to recognize that many of these soldiers were the same corpses he had seen on the old road of the black mountain.
Time began to slow. Now restored and intact, the dark temple stood in all its glory—shrouded in shadows and mysteries. Sunny found himself falling into its vast, lightless halls, as if swallowed by the abyss itself.
Time finally stopped, held its breath, and then resumed its usual pace.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial...]
***
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial...]
Silence. Absolute silence.
In that hollow quiet, Sunny opened his eyes. The moment his gaze swept over his surroundings, only one thought crossed its mind:
'No, but... Can I at least say "what the hell"?'
"What the-"
"Shhh!" A sharp voice hissed from behind, urging him to be still.
He turned to apologize, then resumed inspecting the environment.
Sunny found himself in a dark room. Despite the total absence of a light source, he could see everything with unsettling clarity, as if the room were bathed in high noon.
He wasn't alone. Six other children and seven women stood with him, arranged in two rows that formed concentric crescents. Sunny stood at the far right of the front row. They were all draped in white togas, their backs marked with a snake tattoo with pitch-black scales and abyssal eyes; the Mark of Shadow.
The women in the back, likely their caretakers, wore black robes but bore the same brand.
Looking up, he saw a ceiling supported by heavy wooden lintels. The walls were smooth, hewn directly from the limerock. The square room was centered around a ring of Doric columns, and the floor was a complex mosaic of black and white tiles. They stood at the very heart of that circle.
'So, I guess I'm in a temple dedicated to the Shadow God, eh?'
Seeing where he actually was, Sunny felt... Stunned.
'Seriously! What's going on? This wasn't supposed to be my First Nightmare! Then again, so much has already changed from the original plot, but still...'
Sunny exhaled a long, weary sigh. He glanced at the children beside him, then at the caretakers behind them, his mind racing.
'Let's just look at the runes first, then I'll see what to do.'
Sunny summoned his runes, hoping to find in them a sense of familiarity amidst all these divergences. Instead...
As soon as he read his runes; his eyes fell out of their sockets, his mouth agape to catch them back.
"WHAT TH-"
"Shhh!"
"But-"
"Shhh!"
"I-"
"Shhh!"
"E-"
"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"
"..."
"Shhh!"
***
Five minutes later, Sunny was leaning his face into his palm, staring at his runes in utter disbelief.
'What a headache.'
---
Name: Sunless
True Name: -
Rank: Aspirant
Soul Core: Dormant
Memories: -
Echoes: -
Attributes: [???], [Shadow Weave], [spark of Divinity], [Shadowspawn], [the Heart]
Aspect: [Empty Chalice]
Aspect Description: [You bear a marvelous chalice, a birthright for Lords. Whether to fill it or not, it's yours to decide — Until then, you are but a useless wretch. Regardless of the outcome, Fate will witness.]
---
'Nope! No, no! We're no longer off-script here. We're literally off-the-goddamn-map!!!' He thought enraged.
Sunny was really blinded by anger right now. Scratch that, he was seeing red. But before he could snap, an unknown presence—something hidden deep within him—stirred and quelled his rage. Sunny did not fail to notice it, but he didn't have the luxury of investigating it now.
It wasn't the changes themselves that truly bothered him, but rather...
From the first moment he became aware of being reborn in the world of a Novel, Sunny had also realized that he had two resources available right from the start:
Experience and knowledge.
Over the years, the Outskirts had taught him that is "experience" was often sloppy and short-sighted, so he had clung to his knowledge of the plot like a lifeline.
Now, even that lighthouse—more a comfort-zone to him—had vanished into the fog.
Regardless the difficulty, the Nightmare Spell never do executions; it did trials. Sunny know that much.
The problem didn't lie there.
The life of Sunless was a tragedy. A tragedy, nothing more.
And he, from these years to this part, is Sunless and has lived as such.
Here, in a world where the Gods lie dead and corruption spreads like a plague, fate rules all; only those who know the outcome can change things. Therefore, in between his struggles for survival, he had managed to formulate a plan or two to escape this tragedy.
But now... Given all the plot changes, including First Nightmare, that have come to light so far... What else was different? Would the major turning points still happen? Would the characters he knew even be the same people?
The silence of the room offered no comfort.
He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
'Why? Why? Am I really in an alternate timeline? No, Because I have memories of reading a completely different story back then. Or maybe, it's just fate playing tricks on me.'
He stood expressionless, lost in thought. They had been standing up for ten minutes so far, but nothing had happened yet. What exactly were they waiting for?
'You know what?' Sunny mused, 'For a First Nightmare, it's not that bad! In the reverse time, I saw the sun rise thirty times. So, I have at least a month to prepare. The problem is what comes next.'
The followers of War ravaging the temple, the enslavement of its faithful, the Black Mountain road littered with the corpses of humans and Nightmare Creatures alike.
The mental image still sent a genuine shiver down his spine.
'If the worst happens, I'll be ready.' He muttered to himself. Not as a possibility, but as a statement.
A sudden clang, followed by the grinding of stone echoing through the room, brought him back to the present.
At the center of the floor, a rectangular section of tiles slid into the wall, revealing a staircase leading into the depths.
If the room above was dark, whatever lay below was a solid wall of shadows—so thick it felt less like a basement and more like a gateway to some Realm of death; the Shadow Realm.
As the passage opened, the stagnant silence was replaced by a tension so dense it felt almost physical. Sunny's heart hammered against his ribs until that same mysterious presence intervened, unnaturally slowing his pulse.
Something was coming up from the dark. Its footsteps were silent to the human ear, but not to Sunny's.
What emerged was...