Jack was choking.
Cold water filled his lungs before he even understood he was alive. His body jerked violently as instinct took over, arms thrashing against the dark surface of a lake that stretched far wider than his eyes could grasp. He broke through with a desperate gasp, dragging in air that felt too thin, too sharp, like breathing through a blade.
For a moment, he could only float there, coughing, clinging to consciousness as the world slowly assembled around him. This wasn't a room. It was not even a maze in the way his mind tried to define it, and definitely not the maze Tristan had told him to expect.
It was a world.
Vast fields of dark green grass rippled under a wind he could not feel. Towering trees, pale and unnatural, stood in clusters like silent witnesses. The lake he struggled in stretched out like a fractured mirror, reflecting a sky that did not exist just a dim, endless glow with no sun, no clouds, no depth. And beyond it all, cutting through the landscape like the bones of something ancient, were walls. Colossal. Monolithic.
Rising so high they vanished into the haze above, forming pathways and boundaries that turned this entire expanse into something far worse than wilderness.
A maze large enough to become a city.
Jack's breathing slowed, but his heart only pounded harder as sound reached him. At first, it was faint, barely noticeable over the lapping of water. Then it grew. A distant, fractured chorus carried across the open space. Screams. Dozens of them. No, hundreds. Raw, desperate, filled with the kind of terror that didn't belong to anything human for long. They echoed between the massive walls, twisting and overlapping until it became a cacophony that clawed at his ears.
He was not alone.
Of course, he knew he was not.
Figures moved along the distant shores and across the fields, small, scattered, running. Some stumbled, others didn't get back up. Even from where he was, Jack could see it happening: something hunting them. Shapes that didn't move like living things, closing the distance too quickly, too smoothly. And when they reached someone, the screaming stopped.
Abruptly. Completely.
Jack turned in the water, dread tightening around his chest as the realization hit him fully. Every person here had been dragged into this place just like him. No explanation. No warning. Just… dropped into a living nightmare and left to survive it.
The surface of the lake rippled beside him.
Not from his movement. Something shifted beneath the water, slow and deliberate. A shadow far larger than it should have been, gliding just out of sight. The reflection around it warped, bending unnaturally, as though reality itself recoiled from its presence. The distant screams continued.
And now, something much closer was coming for him.
'Where is that damn system..'
He got up as fast and he could, and bolted towards the distant shores of the lake. The clear waters of the lake were not deep, barely reaching above his knees, but running was still such a chore. Luckily, he was a well-trained soldier and was equipped with techniques for dealing with something like that. So he used his experience.
James and Benji were nowhere to be found. He had expected that to happen. Tristan did make them aware of how the Dream works. He did tell them that there was a high probability they would separate on the other side, and if that happened, their primary goal would be to find each other and regroup. And was exactly what Jack was planning to do.
He could feel something was not right though. A feeling he could not describe, as if something was closely following him. Watching, observing,... hunting. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, or whatever it was waiting for. That made sense too, give that Tristan had explained everything they needed to know about the nature of the Dream.
He not only knew that they were not alone, but also that not only humans were found in the dream. Monstrous abominations were found here as well. And that was the reason for the chorus of screams and cries that filled the air. The stench of blood permitted by it.
And so when he was sensing something gazing upon him, he was not being paranoid. He was certain that a creature was preying on him, and so he had to do something about that. But before he fought monsters, he had to find his team, and potentially wait for the others to arrive.
As a soldier, learning how to survive in the wilderness was compulsory, so Jack had confidence that his small cohort would be able to survive just in case he did not get to them in time.
Not that there was any miracle he was capable of.
He scaled the rippling waters of the lake as fast as he could, until he felt them growing more and more shallow. The shore was drawing near, so increased his speed before the creature preying on him could reach him.
***
James came back to consciousness the hard way, like being dragged upward through thick, resisting water. His eyes opened to a dim, sourceless light, and for a split second, he lay perfectly still, letting his senses take inventory. Cold ground. Open air. No immediate cover.
Not safe.
The realization settled faster for him than it had for most. He did not waste any time questioning where he was, only what kind of place it was. The silence pressed in, heavy and wrong, and beneath it he could already hear it: distant screaming, scattered and frantic, echoing across a space far too large to be contained.
His jaw tightened.
He rolled onto one knee, scanning. Grass stretched out around him, uneven and wild, broken only by clusters of pale trees and the looming presence of something far worse, walls. Colossal slabs of stone carved into the land like the edges of a god's design, rising impossibly high, their surfaces smooth and indifferent. A maze, but not one meant to be walked.
One meant to be survived.
And he was not alone, just like Tristan had said.
'Damn it!'
The shift in the air came first, subtle, but enough. Then movement. Three figures circled into view, closing in without hesitation. They were roughly human in height, maybe a little taller, but wrong in every other way. Limbs were slightly too long, their movements too fluid, heads tilting at angles that suggested curiosity without humanity. Their attention locked onto him immediately.
No hesitation. No fear.
James exhaled once, slow and controlled.
"Of course."
He very well what to expect, so he was not surprised. He was just glad to encounter creatures that seemed to be the weakest, and most importantly, the least intelligent. He could easily deal with those. As a well-seasoned soldier, he had battle experience many only dreamed of.
Even though he majors in Software Engineering.
He assessed the environment around him. Open ground. No obstacles. No choke points. Exactly the kind of terrain he hated. Fighting here meant being surrounded, overwhelmed, killed. His eyes flicked once more to the towering wall in the distance. Hard surface. Limited angles. Control.
And so he made the decision.
During training, he had wrestled bear-like mutated animals with immense strength. A few creatures like these would be relatively easy to deal with. But he knew better than to let his guard down, so he let his instincts take over.
The creatures lunged almost in unison, but James was already moving. He pivoted sharply and broke into a sprint, boots tearing through the grass as he angled straight for the nearest wall. Behind him, he could hear them give chase– fast, too fast for comfort–but not disciplined. They spread as they ran, instinctively trying to flank him.
Good.
Let them try.
The ground seemed to stretch as he ran, the wall looming larger with every step until it became an all-consuming vertical cliff of stone that swallowed the horizon. He did not slow. Not until the last second.
Then he turned.
His back came within a meter of the wall, and suddenly the battlefield shrank. No more angles. No more circling. Just a front. The first creature reached him with a distorted shriek, lunging forward with clawed hands. James stepped in, closing the distance before it could fully extend. His arm shot up, deflecting its strike with brutal precision, while his other hand drove forward, slamming into its throat with controlled force.
The impact snapped its momentum, staggering it just long enough.
He followed through without pause: pivot, elbow, strike. Efficient. Ruthless. The second creature came from the side, but the wall forced its approach into a narrow angle. James shifted, letting the stone guard his blind spot. It lunged,
and he met it halfway.
He grabbed it. Not cleanly, not gently, he seized it by the upper limb and used its own forward momentum, twisting hard and slamming it into the wall. The sound was sharp. Final. It dropped without a cry. He heard a voice inside his head, but he paid it no attention.
[You have slain a Class F Shade, Hollow Elk]
[Your kill count increases.]
The first one tried to recover.
Too slow.
James stepped forward and drove it back into the stone again, the force echoing against the massive surface. One precise
strike ended it. Silence did not return. It never did. He heard the same voice inside his head again, this time he listened.
[You have slain a Class F Shade, Hollow Elk]
[Your kill count increases.]
'The system...'
The third creature had stopped just out of reach.
Not retreating, waiting.
It moved differently now, more cautious, circling within the limited space James allowed it. Its head tilted, studying him, as if trying to understand what had just happened. Then it lunged again, faster, sharper–
but predictable.
James shifted his stance, letting it commit, then stepped aside at the last moment. Its body glanced off the wall, just enough to break its rhythm. That was all he needed.
He struck low this time, targeting its leg, forcing it down. It hit the ground hard, limbs twisting unnaturally as it tried to rise again.
But he did not finish it.
Instead, he stepped back, breathing steady, eyes locked on the immobilized creature as it writhed weakly against the stone. Alive, but no longer a threat. For now at least.
Behind him the colossal wall stood unmoved, indifferent to the violence it had just witnessed. In front of him, the endless maze stretched on. Fields, trees, distant water, and far beyond that…
Screams.
James exhaled slowly, rolling tension from his shoulders.
"Yeah,"
He muttered under his breath, gaze lifting toward the maze ahead.
"We are in deep shit."