I'm trying to reach a wordcout of 2500ish words every chapter but this one might be a lil shorter so uhh enjoy.
■■■
"Mother died today, or maybe yesterday... I can't be sure."
A young teen said somberly, his back sliding on a tree as he slowly slumped until his bottom touched the ground. A few silent seconds passed before an equally youthful but gloomy voice came from the other side of the tree.
"I'd normally say that makes us even. But she treated me like her own child... I'm sorry Gorsa."
That he would have to agree with, the gloomy teen was like a brother to Gorsa, from the moment they had encountered each other six years ago to today. They essentially had been inseparable.
'Well that might be an exaggeration, he did try to rob us a few times when we first met—'
The gloomy teen circled around the tree, revealing himself. His hair was jet black, like his eyes — both contrasted with his pale skin enhancing his looks, yet that was all trumped by the crass he was covered in, along with a brutal and cunning gaze. But the gaze of said teen softened as he approached Gorsa.
Putting an unnaturally caloused hand for a teen on Gorsa's shoulder. He hesitated for a moment before taking out a pocket knife and... carving a third streak on the originally two streaked bark of the trunk they were resting on.
Gorsa snuffed out the few tears that had left his eyes, standing up without a word. As they both looked at the tree's bark, each remembering different things about the ones that had raised them. The somber teen finally voiced his thoughts.
"You don't have to be sorry Sunny, I doubt my or your antics were the root of the problem, truth be told... Mom was sick, afflicted with such an ailing that I don't know how she persevered, yet she did, so we should."
Both Gorsa and Sunny had been somwhat well fed for the last few years, a feat almost unattainable in the Outskirts, yet through the efforts of their now deceased caretaker, both had grown to above average heights for rats their age.
But this ended now, hence Sunny couldn't help but ask.
"What do we do now? We've been banned from the fighting rings, and gangs are too risky after our last stunt... Why don't we—"
"I got infected by the Nightmare Spell."
A few tense moments passed before their eyes met, Gorsa's own widening as he came to a sudden realisation.
"Hah!"
He exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger toward Sunny. The gloomy teen simply offered a mischevious smile, it seemed that he too, had been afflicted with the Spell's disease. That meant that, in essence, the next step for them to achieve was pretty obvious.
■■■
"And they call this a hot-dog??!" Sunny exclaimed, they had never bothered leaving the Outskirts till now after all, what good would it have been to see what you yearn for but can never have physically?
Right now Gorsa sat on a bench, accompanied by his mischevious friend, simply taking in the scenery of the City he had read about but never visited.
Truth be told, he wasn't originally from this World. No, while Gorsa's body was birthed and grew as a human of the War Realm. His Soul was much older, unfortunate circumstances had him reincarnate immediately, they weren't that important truth be told but the result was—
He was not that young, while you could somewhat put forward that his frontal lobe had never developed and hence he never actually became an adult, the fact that he had lived twice his body's age surely still meant something.
Watching citizens pass, he couldn't help but feel jealous at how tall everyone else was. He tried, he really did, but nothing could trump having enough nutrients in the end. If it became an issue later, he might have to find other ways to increase his height...
'That is if I survive my Nightmare first' He idly thought, Sunny had already spent 'their' economies on good food, truth be told Gorsa stash was originally a lot more heavy than Sunny's before the mischevious teen declared that as brothers they didn't need to each have their own hiding place, sharing a same stash would be easier.
Well, the hot-dogs were better than coffee, so maybe they did something right.
Standing up, Gorsa dusted off the slight wrinkles on his shirt, not minding that half of it along with part of his face were stained with soot. He gave one last distant look towards the Outskirts before calling out to Sunny.
"We should go, waiting too long until we start the Nightmare will just drain our minds..."
Sunny was still wolfing down on the hotdogs they had bought, but even then he rolled his eyes at Gorsa words, they could and most likely would die in the Nightmare. Indulging in one's last moment was a practice that was never lost, a gift for those sentenced to death.
At least in the waking world it was still practiced.
"I've never seen you this emotional. Well, given all the events that happened today I'll give you some advice..." A dangerous glint appeared in Sunny's eyes as he stood up.
"Don't lose yourself in your emotions Gorsa, when you next fall asleep, do everything in your power to stay alive, please."
Gorsa smiled before putting an arm around his mischevious friend's shoulder, as they walked he made a promise to himself.
To live, for their sake.
■■■
"....As demanded by the Third Special Directive, I am here to surrender myself as a carrier of the Nightmare Spell."
Gorsa stifled a laugh, seeing how his friend was made to recite the law just to be taken seriously, yet when the officer sent a look toward him, all he could find was an innocent smile on the teen's face.
As fate, or [Fated] would have it, Jet was once again the Awakened that oversaw Sunny's Nightmare, simply this time they were able to wait until she arrived. Gorsa himself wouldn't know, he had been taken to a separate room, having only been notified of the Master's presence rather than directly seeing her.
Wriggling on the hard platform to find a good way to lay down, he waited for the officer to strap him, yawning as he did. Resisting the Spell was mentally tiring and at this point, even all the adrenaline that had run through his veins upon understanding what happened to himself was gone.
All that was left could be summarised as a yearn for rest. But he knew, once he closed his eyes, he might not do so for a long time.
Then again, there was no rest for the wicked.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
■■■
Gorsa dreamt of a City.
Towering skyscrapers were rubbing against the sky, each bigger than the last while below, modern cars moved in perfect unity. There never was an accident, there never was trouble.
Looking more closely one could also simply infer that every man possesed the same face and so did every woman. Nothing happened since everything was tailored for absolute order.
Then they stopped for a second before time flowed in reverse. Even then, Gorsa only way to infer that was from the cars and pedestrian moving in reverse as well as the moments when the sky dimmed to black. It had no stars, no sun, no moon, looking up and observing the world above the clouds simply showed an endless blue sky or a pitch black nothing.
Again time stopped before resuming as if nothing had happened, and in a way, wasn't it right?
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
The Spell resonated in Gorsa's mind, reminding him that he now possesed a body. He stopped typing on the computer that was in front of him and instead started furtively looking around.
Gorsa was in an office, possibly in one of the skyscrapers that he had observed before, truth be told, he didn't know. He seemed to be writing some news article about interesting events wich involved...
A car not starting yesterday, someone's forgetting his tie to the office and as for the big header!
Neo-Salem stays the most orderly city in the New World.
That was... vexing.
This complete lack of individuality even extended to most people apparatus, apparently half of the stuff he wrote for the newsletter weren't even true if he distinguished between the titles containing a check mark and those that did not.
And so, Gorsa figured his task quite easily, escape this place or do something more radical whatever that could be.
'Before thinking about how to do that, let's see those runes.'
Summoning his own runes came easily, a thought was sufficient for the shimmering set of words to appear. As he read them, Gorsa didn't know wether to cry or laugh.
Name: Gorsa.
True Name: —
Rank: Aspirant.
Soul Core: Dormant.
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: [-Unknown-], [Common Sense], [Sound Sleep] [Matrioshka's Slave], [Best Friend].
Aspect: [Dreamer].
Aspect Description: [Your mind is connected to other places, when you dream you can hazily see through the veil of reality, letting you get a glimpse of it's nexus.]
He assumed that the first unnamed attribute came from himself, the other two from his Aspect and the last two... He'd read carefully each of them at a later date since unfortunately, the sky had started dimming.
'Time to go home it seems.'
He stood up and with him, every other person in the room did, weirded out by the situation he muttered a quick goodbye before gathering everything that he assumed was his and left.
Yet in the room everyone said goodbye to each other, shaking the hands of one another, for thirty minutes. Until every single hand but Gorsa's had been shook. When the people came to his cubicle, they exchanged pleasantries with nothing, shaking the hand of nobody.
But no one seemed to notice.
■■■
'I shouldn't have done that, next time I'll stay and observe, maybe participate.'
Getting in what he assumed was his car in the parking lot, Gorsa let out a heavy sigh, he had been ready to claw his way out of an arena, plot against kings and behead dragons. The situation he was thrown into was completly different from what he expected.
It seemed like a place similar to Earth before the Nightmare Spell infected it, the people of this City and possibly this World didn't have anything to do with the Path of Ascension as a whole.
So it was either a reenacting of an old mortal realm by the Spell or...
Before Gorsa could continue that thought he arrived home. But rather than immediately get out of the car he froze.
'I don't remember driving. Matter of fact I don't remember starting my car.'
And then again time blipped out and he was inside his home. A terrifying premonition came to Gorsa's mind as he remembered his Attributes.
Quickly summoning his runes he read each of them, hoping to be proven wrong.
Attribute: [-Unknown-].
Attribute Description : [You can move through nothing, crossing Worlds and entering their boundaries, unimpaired by their laws.]
Attribute: [Common Sense].
Attribute Description : [Once you sense something, it becomes common sense to you.]
Attribute: [Sound Sleep].
Attribute Description: [None can disturb your sleep, nor what comes before and after it. In your mind, only you exist.]
Attribute: [Matrioshka's Slave].
Attribute Description : [01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100001 01110100 01100001.]
Gorsa sunk in his couch. The realisation simply made him take a resigned look.
He was data.
If the fact that he instinctively understood the binary description alone wasn't enough the fact that it quite literally translated to what he had just thought sufficed.
His weary eyes continued to trail the shimmering runes, this time letting his eyes fall on the last attribute, it's description made Gorsa's eyes widen.
Attribute: [Best Friend].
Attribute Description: [The Spell's most adored companion, you are rewarded more generously and put in the situation where you can gain the most benefits, although it sometimes involve getting in the most dangerous ones as well.]
'So the last two are not that related to me, their just... product of my situation I guess?'
The weary teen was frankly disturbed. Knowing that the normally impartial Spell favored him. He hoped it wouldn't act like [Fated].
Those concerns would have to take a backseat as the most important thing to do right now was learn how to get out of this simulation.
■■■
After a day passed, Gorsa blipped to his bed. He roamed freely in the City for a day, hoping to find some clues, from this he realised a lot of things.
Every hour or so the Matrioshka Brain would check on this specific simulation's data and see it that every task it had set was completed to a T. If it wasn't, it would provide corrections, possibly correcting the whole world it had made into what the 'average' was in other simulations, that part seemed like common sense to him now.
That was another thing he joyfully realised as the day went, the power of [Common Sense.] anything he sensed with any of his senses would become simple logic bordering on innate knowledge for him.
The correction became common sense to him, how to work his job did too and so, as long as his body permitted it, he could easily replicate it. That was a terrifying attribute.
He infered the reason why he was able to remember what happened after a correction was due to [Sound Sleep]. Gorsa realised why the Nightmare Spell had sent him here now, because while his task was unfair, he existed as an antithesis to the simulation made by the Matrioshka Brain.
And what a task it was.
'...time to find a way to control this megastructure I guess.' He idly thought while completing his tasks for the day.
■■■
That's it for today, I'll try to post one or more chapter within the week.