Chapter 3: The Second Stage

Chapter 3: The Second Stage

Sleep was no longer a refuge; it was the enemy. Elle spent the hours after Ben was taken away by a shell-shocked paramedic in a state of high-strung terror. Every shadow in her small room seemed to lengthen and crawl when she wasn’t looking. Every gust of wind rattling the barred window sounded like a hungry whisper.

Her desire was simple and all-consuming: she would not sleep. She couldn't. Ben’s vacant, terrified eyes were burned into her memory. The System’s message—Threat Contagion Detected—was a death sentence hanging over the entire crew. She was the only one who knew the plague was spreading through their dreams.

She paced the cramped floor of her cell-like room until her legs ached. She splashed icy water from the grimy basin onto her face again and again, the shock a temporary anchor to reality. She tried to read her script, but the words swam before her exhausted eyes, the dialogue of her character, Catherine, blurring with the whispers of the Somnus Fiend. The obstacle was her own biology, the crushing weight of physical and emotional exhaustion.

Sometime after 3 a.m., she slumped onto the cot, her body betraying her will. Her eyelids felt like lead shutters. Just for a minute, she told herself. I’ll just rest my eyes for a minute.

It was a lie. The darkness didn’t creep in; it lunged. One moment she was in her room, the next she was yanked downwards, tumbling through a disorienting void. The sensation was violent, a psychic rip that tore her from the waking world.

She landed on her bare feet with a soft thud, not on linoleum, but on damp, cold earth.

The world around her was a twisted mockery of the asylum grounds. Skeletal trees, their branches like jagged black claws, clawed at a sky choked with bruised, purple clouds. There was no moon, only a sickly, ambient glow that seemed to rise from the ground itself. The air smelled of grave dirt and ozone. Rusted gurneys and pieces of archaic medical equipment lay scattered amongst broken headstones, half-buried in the mud.

This wasn’t the hallway from before. This was an arena. A hunting ground.

As if on cue, the crisp, digital chime echoed in the silence. The translucent blue screen flickered into life before her.

[Dreamscape Incursion Detected. Welcome back, Dreamwalker.] [Analyzing Environment… Hostile. Threat Level: 2.] [New Quest Initiated: Survive the Hunting Ground.] [Objective: Evade the Weaver’s Hounds until the cycle ends.] [Time Remaining: 15:00]

A timer appeared in the top right corner of her vision, its numbers a stark white against the gloom. Fifteen minutes. A cold, hard objective. A rule. A chance. Unlike last time, where she was just a terrified victim, now she had a goal. The knowledge didn’t make her less scared, but it focused her fear into a sharp, desperate point. She wasn’t just prey anymore; she was a participant in a horrifying game.

A low, guttural snarl ripped through the dead air, originating from the skeletal woods to her left. Elle didn’t hesitate. She acted.

She spun and ran, her feet slipping in the mud. The snarl became a chorus, punctuated by the snapping of twigs and the heavy, loping tread of something impossibly fast. She risked a glance over her shoulder.

It wasn't the formless vortex from her first nightmare. This was worse. This was a thing. A hound, as the System had called it, sculpted from solidified nightmare. It was gaunt and canine, but its limbs were too long, bending at unnatural angles. Its fur was a roiling mass of shadows, and its face was a blank expanse of darkness that split open to reveal a maw of jagged, obsidian-like teeth. Its eyes were the same pinpricks of malevolent light she remembered, burning with a cold, predatory hunger.

It bounded out of the treeline, covering the ground in great, impossible leaps.

Panic clawed at Elle’s throat, but her training kicked in. Not acting training, but the years of dance, of physical roles, of learning to command her body. She pumped her arms, her breath burning in her lungs. She couldn’t outrun it in a straight line. She needed to use the terrain.

She veered sharply, ducking behind a row of crumbling headstones. The hound crashed through them, sending stone fragments flying. She scrambled over a rusted, overturned gurney, its wheels screaming in protest. The beast vaulted it effortlessly, landing just behind her with a ground-shaking thud. Its hot, foul breath, smelling of decay, washed over the back of her neck.

It was toying with her.

It lunged. Time seemed to slow. She saw the claws—long, sharp, and glistening—arcing towards her back. There was nowhere to go. Her mind screamed, DODGE!

In that split second of pure, undiluted intent, something clicked. The silver-blue sigil on her wrist flared with a sudden, intense light, the glow visible even through her jacket sleeve. Another blue screen flashed in her vision, this one urgent and new.

[Condition Met: Evasion under extreme duress.] [Synaptic Pathways unlocking potential…] [New Skill Unlocked: Flicker Step (Tier 1)] [Flicker Step: Expend somatic energy to perform a short, instantaneous burst of movement in a chosen direction. Cost: High stamina.]

There was no time to process. Instinct took over. As the hound’s claws were a hair's breadth from her skin, she threw her weight to the left, pouring all her will, all her desire to live, into that single movement.

The world dissolved into a blue-tinged blur for a fraction of a second. She wasn't running; she was simply elsewhere. She reappeared ten feet to the left, stumbling, a wave of dizziness and profound exhaustion washing over her. The hound’s claws tore through empty air, its momentum carrying it forward into the gurney she had just been near.

She had done it. She had a weapon. A chance.

The beast let out a shriek of frustration and rounded on her again. The timer in her vision read 08:43.

The next eight minutes were a desperate, adrenaline-fueled dance. She didn't have the energy to use Flicker Step constantly, so she saved it for moments of absolute certainty, when the beast's claws were about to find their mark. She ran, she dodged, she weaved through the nightmarish junkyard, her body screaming in protest, her lungs on fire. Flicker. Stumble. Run. Flicker. Gasp for air. Run.

The timer ticked down. 00:05... 00:04...

She was cornered against the high, wrought-iron fence that marked the edge of the grounds. The hound gathered itself for a final, decisive pounce. She was out of breath, her legs trembling, her energy completely spent. One more Flicker Step felt impossible.

00:03...

The beast launched itself, a blur of shadow and teeth.

00:02...

She braced herself, throwing her left arm up in a futile gesture of defense.

00:01...

The hound’s claws connected with her forearm.

Pain. Not dream pain, not a fleeting, vague sensation. This was real. A blinding, searing agony that ripped a raw scream from her throat. It was the pain of torn muscle and severed skin.

00:00

The world shattered into a million points of white light.

Elle’s eyes flew open. She was back in her cot, the first rays of dawn painting the grimy window grey. Her body was drenched in sweat, her heart hammering. She was alive. She had survived.

A wave of dizzying relief washed over her, followed immediately by a sharp, throbbing pain in her left arm.

She looked down.

Her dark jacket sleeve was ripped clean through. And beneath the tattered fabric, three deep, parallel gashes were carved into the flesh of her forearm. They were ugly, angry wounds, welling with beads of dark, real blood that was already staining the sleeve and the thin mattress beneath her.

The nightmare had followed her home. The dangers of the Dreamscape were not just in her head anymore. They were written on her skin, bleeding into her world.