While I had gotten stronger, digging a six-foot grave was still tough. I didn't dare dig any shallower either, since I knew for a fact some people were desperate enough to consume a corpse, even one belonging to an old and diseased man. I had seen enough of that while wandering over the past two weeks.
It took most of a day, my thin arms aching as I dug a shallow grave in the hard, unforgiving earth behind the last church we'd sheltered in. I said the prayers he'd taught me, my voice the only sound in the vast, empty silence of the outskirts. The words felt hollow, but they were all I had to give him.
When it was done, I stood before the mound of dirt. A profound loneliness, colder than any wind, settled deep into my bones. He had been my tether, my guide to this broken world, and now he was gone. My fingers found the blank silver cross around my neck. It felt heavy now, a chain of duty and memory. In my other hand, I hand his own crucifix and then sighed.
Slowly, I knelt and carefully hung it from a rough piece of stone I'd wedged at the head of the grave to mark it. It was a better monument for him than for me. He was the faithful one. I was just the fool who'd been left behind.
I stood there for a long time, watching the dull grey light of afternoon fade into a deeper, more profound grey. The emptiness inside me was a void. The Curator's grand promise felt like a sick, cosmic joke. A Beyonder pathway? In a world with no magic, no monsters, just endless, grinding human misery? What was the point? Unless I could unlock the Sun Pathway, or the Eternal Aeon's redemption-no, wait. I had removed that Pathway from the list. Sighing bitterly, I gave one last bow before the grave of my semi-teacher and turned to leave. Perhaps getting Abyss, Chained, Red Priest or Hanged Man wouldn't be too bad. Delivering catastrophe to this world would hardly make a difference, given how far it was broken.
A deep, overwhelming exhaustion washed over me. My eyes stung. My limbs felt like lead.
I let out a long, uncontrollable yawn that seemed to come from the very depths of my soul. It was a yawn of utter surrender, of a system shutting down. The world swam before my eyes.
Stumbling away from the grave, I barely made it back inside the crumbling church before my legs gave out. I collapsed into a corner on a pile of old sacks, my last conscious thought a silent apology to the old priest for being too tired to even properly mourn him.
The sleep that took me was not peaceful. It was the sleep of the dead-to-the-world, a black, dreamless void of pure escape.
And then, the dream came.
It was not a normal dream. There was no logic, no narrative. There was only a door. A colossal, ancient door of black stone, covered in intricate, maddening carvings that shifted when I wasn't looking. It stood alone in a featureless grey plain.
And it was opening.
A crack of impenetrable darkness appeared between the doors, and from it seeped a cold that froze my very soul. A silent, invisible pressure began to crush me, filled with a hunger so vast and ancient it made the emptiness in my stomach feel like a trifle.
This was no mere dream. This was a summons. An invitation.
The Nightmare had found me.
My eyes flew open in the dark church. I was drenched in a cold sweat, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. The yawn, the exhaustion… it hadn't been surrender.
It had been a symptom.
The Sleep was starting. The true nightmare was beginning. And I no longer had an experienced Awakened to guide me.