Within the sleeping mind of Elias, the Nightmare moved slowly through a boundless field of darkness.
As a Sequence Seven of the Sleepless pathway, entering dreams was a familiar task. Most minds produced landscapes almost immediately; they normally consisted of scattered memories, distorted scenes, and fragments of emotion woven into unstable environments that shifted as the sleeper's thoughts wandered.
Taking the form of a bubble above their island of consciousness
This one however did not. There was only darkness.
The Nightmare extended his perception further, searching for any form of structure within the sleeping consciousness. Usually even the simplest minds contained something; a faint memory replaying itself, a meaningless scene shaped by subconscious thoughts, or a chaotic amalgamation of all, guided by unstable emotion forming the foundation of a dreamscape.
None of those appeared here.
"This is strange," he thought.
He had encountered unusual dreams before. Some were chaotic and constantly shifting, some were mad, while others were almost still when the sleeper was deeply unconscious. But even in those cases there were always traces of the mind that produced them.
Here there was nothing to follow.
He paused and examined the darkness more carefully.
After further examination, a realization slowly formed. "This isn't a dream at all." The darkness was not concealing a dreamscape. It was simply the absence of one.
The Nightmare attempted to impose structure on the space. Normally, even when a dream was unstable, it was possible to influence it slightly and guide the subconscious into forming images. That was often enough to produce scenes that revealed hidden memories or suppressed thoughts.
He focused his will and attempted to conjure a simple image. But the darkness remained unmoved.
He tried again, pushing deeper into the sleeper's mind and attempting to stimulate the subconscious layer where dreams normally originated.
Even though this dreamscape was empty, he could still try to guide the existent consciousness to create a dream.
But nothing changed. The darkness remained completely still.
After several more attempts, the Nightmare withdrew his perception, his soul returning to his body still standing in the quiet empty street. The surrounding buildings were still dark, and the other residents remained asleep inside their homes.
'The investigation on the case of the dead beyonder has led to uncertain results, revealing the existence of a person with possible capabilities of resisting the powers of a sequence 7 nightmare.' he calmly recounted the results of the search.
He was about to leave when he thought of a possibility that would explain the bizzarness of the situation, and he rushed to Elias' house through the window.
Even in his haste, he still made sure to remain undetected. The only possible explination he could think of was that the target was dead, so he made the decision on checking the body, but when he saw him sleeping on his bed, he found no abnormalities, he was breathing evenly.
He frowned 'His alive, that's fortunate, but this just makes him even stranger' He stayed like that for a few seconds deep in thought, he then raised his head and scanned the dark room and started his search.
He found some documentations, this gave him basic information on the suspect to conduct a more thorough search later.
"Elias Nova" he whispered slowly. "This is more complicated than we thought"
He returned the papers to their place before leaving the room and district. A few minutes later he reported his findings to the other members of the Nighthawks.
Their investigation of the seemingly normal case has evolved into something more complicated.
.
.
High above the physical world, Elias observed the scene from within the distant halls of the Celestial Spire.
His consciousness remained separated from his body, connected only through the thin thread that anchored his existence to the physical world.
"As I thought, they sent a Nightmare after all."
He watched the investigator leave the area and considered the situation carefully.
"This will definitely attract attention, what a pain."
The Nighthawks might not immediately connect him to the death of the Hunter, but the fact that a Sequence Seven Nightmare had failed to examine the dreams of a supposedly ordinary resident would raise questions.
"A normal human mind should always produce dreams," he thought. "Even if those dreams were faint or unstable, they would still exist."
Elias looked down at the motionless body resting on the bed below.
"Of course… this body doesn't have any."
The realization was obvious once he considered the structure he had created.
'When I first reconstructed this body after the Celestial Spire, I had only established the most essential connection between its island of consciousness and subconsciousness, and the main body. The arrangement functioned well enough to control the body and interact with this world, but several secondary aspects of the human mind had never been implemented.
Dreams were one of them.
"I only linked the consciousness from my main body to this new one," he reflected. "and naturally the dream bubble formed sequentially."
Normally, the human mind produced dreams through the interaction between the conscious and subconscious states. This process generated the dreamscape that Beyonders like Nightmares could enter and manipulate.
"I totally forgot to link my real dreams to the new structure" his hand moved to his face in thought.
"But I guess that's the lucky part, If I had tried to connect the dream layer of the main body to this one, it would create a direct channel between me and this reality."
He dismissed the idea immediately.
"That would be catastrophic, on many levels. Those things are crazy."
Without a functioning connection to the subconscious layer of the island to the dream bubble, the sleeping body simply produced an empty dream space. From the perspective of dream-based Beyonder abilities, that absence appeared as a void.
"That doesn't mean dream abilities are useless against me," Elias continued to analyze.
If a Beyonder possessed the ability to actively create dreams rather than merely influence existing ones, they could still affect him by constructing an artificial dream environment.
"But they would have to create the dream themselves by actively drawing from the island in the Mind World" he concluded. "They can't manipulate something that isn't there."
His thoughts returned briefly to the Nightmare who had attempted the investigation.
"The reason he failed is even simpler than that."
The body lying in the bed was not truly asleep.
It lacked consciousness entirely.
"My consciousness is here," Elias thought, glancing around the quiet halls of the Celestial Spire.
The body below was merely an empty shell waiting for its owner to return.
And with no more intruders in sight, he returned to his body and fell asleep for the night.
The next morning Elias was in the kitchen preparing his breakfast, he was slowly tunning in to this new rotine.
After setting his table, he calmly browsed through the newspaper while drinking his tea.
"It's about time I start integrating into this new society" he thought "I need to find ways to make money and enter the noble circles, I can't let my wallet go cold and empty"
After reading through the news for a few minutes, he found a few opportunities for investment and promising projects, one of them was a newly discovered mine of coal, and investers were needed.
This investement project carried the names of two parteners, and the easiest to get in contact with was living in Böklund Street.
"This world should have many sources of minerals berried and undiscovered, it could be a great opportunity, and creating a monopoly shouldn't be hard either"
After further thought, Elias decided to write a letter expressing his interest in investing as a potential partner.
He brought a paper and an ink pen to write, and the receiver's name was
Maury Macht
Address: Böklund Street.