Chapter 18 – The Dream of Shadows and Blood
Titus didn't fall asleep. He collapsed into darkness.
His body surrendered instantly—muscles trembling, mind exhausted, heart still beating too fast from fear, training, adrenaline, and the echo of his father's roar.
And then the darkness… moved.
It wasn't empty. Shapes drifted inside it. Not people. Not creatures. Just silhouettes—shadows without edges—stretching and collapsing like ink bleeding through water. They had no faces. No voices. But they watched him. He felt it. A thousand unseen eyes inside a world made of breathless black.
Then the sky rippled open above him.
Two moons rose. Two blood‑red moons. Beating. Throbbing. Pulsing like twin hearts suspended in a wounded sky. Each pulse shook the ground beneath his feet. The shadows around him bowed to the moons. Or trembled because of them. Titus didn't know.
A throne appeared next. A throne carved from bone, obsidian, and something that looked disturbingly alive. It stood far away, on a hill of cracked stone. Empty.
But in front of it stood a king. A king without a throne.
A tall silhouette wearing armor that flickered like metal and flame. The king stared at the throne as if it belonged to him… and had been stolen.
The scene shattered—like breaking glass—and a new image bled through: a boy and a girl running through a corridor of moonlight. Twins. Not children of now… Children of later. Future silhouettes. Blurry. Distant. Yet somehow familiar.
Another flash: Cristal, standing in a field of snow, her silver hair whipping in a storm of ash and feathers.
Another: a girl with black hair, her face half hidden, her eyes filled with a sorrow that didn't belong to someone her age.
Then—
A wolf. A massive wolf sprinting across a mountain ridge, fleeing from something Titus couldn't see. Its fur was black as burnt charcoal. Its breath came out in clouds of frost. Behind it, the moonlight twisted like hands trying to drag it back.
Titus reached out—
And the world turned red.
A new silhouette rose from the ground. Tall. Graceful. Wrong. Wings unfurled from its back—not feathers, not membrane, something in between, like bones wrapped in shadows. Its body was a wolf's. Its stance was human. Its eyes burned like coals dropped into oil.
It smiled without a mouth. And leaned toward someone Titus could not see.
A whisper cut the air: "Take it."
Claws brushed a shoulder—not his—someone else's. "You want power."
The ground beneath Titus cracked like old stone. The demon's wings opened wider, blotting out the moons behind it. Its presence was ancient. Older than the shadows. Older than the two moons. Older than the throne.
It turned its head—and though it had no true face, Titus felt its gaze lock onto him.
Everything stopped. Breath. Light. Sound.
And then—
A roar. A metallic shriek. A crash of thunder inside his skull.
The dream shattered.
Titus woke up choking on his own breath, drenched in sweat, the echo of wings still beating inside his ribs.
The dream shattered like glass hitting the floor. Titus woke up with a gasp, jerking upright, his heart pounding against his ribs as if trying to escape his chest. Sweat clung to his skin. His mouth was dry. And for a few seconds, he didn't recognize his own room.
Everything looked the same… yet something inside him wasn't.
He wiped his face with a shaky hand, trying to erase the images: the two blood‑red moons. The throne with no king. The king with no throne. The winged demon… staring at him.
The echo of the dream trembled inside his bones. As if something from the other side had reached through and touched him.
A soft creak in the hallway made him look up. His door opened slowly. His parents stood there. Both of them. Silent. Still. As if they had been listening to his breathing… or waiting for the exact moment he woke up.
His mother moved first. She stepped inside and sat on the edge of his bed, her hands gentle but slightly trembling as she touched his forehead.
"Titus… sweetheart, are you okay?"
His father stayed by the doorway. Unmoving. Watching him with those cold eyes that always seemed distant… But now there was something else. Something alert. Something studying him.
Titus swallowed hard, trying to steady his breath.
"I had…" He exhaled shakily. "I had a nightmare."
His mother traded a quick glance with his father. Brief. Sharp. Full of meaning.
His father answered first. "That's normal," he said, his voice unusually soft for him. "It was a difficult day. Too much stress. The brain processes that while you sleep."
Titus frowned. Something about his father's tone felt… rehearsed. Manufactured.
His mother pulled him into a tight embrace, pressing his head to her shoulder as if trying to wrap herself around him completely.
"It was just a dream," she whispered. "Nothing can hurt you here. You're safe. Okay?"
Titus nodded, though he wasn't sure he believed her.
They held him for a moment longer—too close, too quiet, too attentive. As if they weren't comforting him… but evaluating him. Looking for signs. Waiting for something.
Finally, his mother let go and smoothed the blanket over him. "Try to rest a little more, honey."
His father turned off the hall light. "We're right here," he said.
And he closed the door.
Titus stared into the darkness. The dream slowly began to fade. But the feeling—the tension, the pressure in his chest, the certainty that something had reached across from another world—that did not fade.
The two red moons flickered once more in his mind.
And he knew, without knowing why, that hadn't been just a nightmare.
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Hook: Without knowing it, someone was watching him very closely…
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