Once again, she was dreaming the same dream.
A gigantic web of golden and silver strings stretched before her, so vast that only the smallest corner of it could fit within her vision. It spun endlessly, infinitely, threads crossing over and under one another in patterns too complex to follow. From one angle, it looked chaotic and meaningless, an incomprehensible tangle without order or purpose. From another, it resembled a cage—or perhaps a net—cast across the void to ensnare everything beneath it.
She no longer panicked at the sight.
She had learned what to do here.
Ever since she had escaped the Spell's grip in her First Nightmare, this place had returned to her again and again. The first time, the dream had terrified her so completely that she had snapped awake almost instantly, heart pounding, mind blank, unable to grasp even a fragment of what she had seen. But repetition had dulled the fear. Familiarity had bred not contempt, but discipline.
Now, she observed. She focused. She learned.
She fixed her attention on a single node in the vast web.
The dream shifted.
A massive castle stood in solemn vigilance over a majestic yet ruined city, its walls scarred by time and calamity. Towers lay broken, streets cracked and overgrown, the grandeur of the past lingering like a ghost. On the horizon, a sprawling coral expanse shimmered faintly, alien and immense. Far in the distance, a crimson obelisk pierced the sky, its shape unmistakably deliberate, as though it had been built not merely to stand—but to challenge the heavens themselves.
The vision fractured.
She stood upon a vast open plain, yet she instinctively knew it was no plain at all. It was an island—one of many—floating within a black void. Colossal black iron chains connected it to countless other islands of varying sizes, stretching outward in every direction like the framework of a broken world. Below, a dim sea of stars glimmered softly, mirroring the night sky above, as though reality had folded in on itself.
Her attention narrowed to five islands.
One bore an ivory tower, pristine and severe.
Another held a temple of black stone, heavy with solemnity and dread.
A third cradled the wreckage of a massive wooden ship, shattered and overgrown with vines, as if nature itself had claimed the remains.
The fourth island supported a raised dais, atop which a knife had been driven into the stone, its presence sharp and absolute.
The fifth lay far below, almost lost in the sea of stars, housing an ebony tower submerged in darkness.
She was torn away again.
The world was frozen.
The land, the sea, the air itself—locked in absolute stillness. Ice and darkness and death ruled everything. Across the frozen expanse, vortexes of blackness tore open reality like festering wounds, roaring into existence one after another. From them poured an endless tide of monsters, beasts, and horrors beyond comprehension, their forms so alien that her mind refused to fully grasp them.
Yet her gaze was drawn to one vortex in particular.
It began to turn translucent.
Through it, she saw another world: a vast desert, shimmering beneath oppressive heat. In the distance, half-obscured by wavering heat haze, a massive black pyramid rose from the sands, ancient and implacable.
The scene dissolved.
She was on a boat, drifting down a river beneath a sky lit by seven golden suns. The boat moved backward—yet somehow, she knew she was progressing forward all the same. Islands, rafts, and strange structures passed by, each wondrous in design but abandoned and decayed. Time seemed to lose all meaning here.
No, she realized numbly. The river was time itself.
As she approached the horizon, the seven suns began to dim, their light fading into shades of dusk and amber that heralded an ending. At the river's edge stood a city of gold and ivory, radiant even in decline, banners fluttering in a wind she could not feel. But at the city's very heart, a writhing mass of poisoned flesh pulsed and twisted.
As she watched, it sensed her gaze.
And it looked back.
She was gone again.
She stood in a cold, dark palace beneath the ribcage of a skeleton so enormous it could only belong to a god. Its bones arched overhead like the vaults of a cathedral. Upon a throne sat a man cloaked in shadows, his face hidden, yet the hollow pits of his eyes glimmered faintly from within the darkness.
The vision shattered.
She was in a mirror maze, reflections of herself stretching endlessly in every direction. One by one, the reflections began to smile—slowly, unnaturally—and then they shattered, glass exploding outward into nothingness.
Another shift.
She wandered an expansive city cloaked in murky fog, passing creatures that cast no shadows at all. Their absence felt wrong, deeply and instinctively so.
She was—
She was—
She was—
She was on the moon.
Behind her, Earth glowed softly, a gentle blue gem suspended in the darkness. She froze, overwhelmed by its unspoiled beauty, drinking in the sight. Then she noticed something else.
A shadow.
It crept from behind the planet, emerging from the folds of the universe itself. Slowly, inexorably, it reached out toward Earth.
And then there was no Earth anymore.
Stunned, she turned, driven by instinct rather than thought.
A figure sat nearby on a simple chair, hands resting loosely over his knees. He wore an astronaut's suit. The visor was shattered, yet his face remained obscured, hidden by shadow. He sat perfectly still, like a corpse, as though he had been watching the Earth for millennia—and would continue to do so for millennia more.
Then he spoke.
"You're blocking my view."
Before she could respond, the dream tore her away once more.
She found herself back at the beginning, surrounded again by the endless loom of golden and silver strings. This was where the dream always ended. This was where she was supposed to wake.
She waited.
Nothing happened.
Instead, a new light bloomed within the void.
Slowly, inexorably, it expanded. Against its radiance, even the golden strings and distant stars dimmed, eclipsed by its brilliance. Her eyes widened, her thoughts scrambling as the light rose like a sun and began to take shape—vast, overwhelming, too large for her mind to properly comprehend.
Only then was she violently yanked backward, falling away, tumbling toward reality.
Yet just before the dream released her completely, she was far enough away to finally understand what she was seeing.
Ah.
It was a cross.
Then she was gone.