More Than Just Dreams

After another of school, the sack was almost done processing whatever it was I fought yesterday. Only thing of import that happened was Violet telling me that she's thinking of what abilities she wants. She said that she'll tell me when the thinking is done. Bas was normal too, energetic, bold and knocking around people in his matches.

Now I was alone in my room in the evening. I was eager to get the analysis of my enemy as they too used Ima. That alone tells me it wasn't a demon as demons use mana for their magic. This is the first time I've encountered a being that uses Ima like I do. My questions were soon to be answered though. That is, until my sack stopped digesting the foe and had a conflicting order error,

"Huh? How is there a conflict in the order?"

I go inside my sack to see what the problem is. What I find is a big transparent fish egg that is housing children inside.

"How the hell are there children inside my sack. Wait, that guy did mention a soul cairn. This fish egg looking thing must be what he was talking about. Then those children must be souls. Let's take a closer look inside."

I move closer so I can peer inside the soul cairn fish egg. From outside, I could only see a couple of souls. Now that I'm peering inside I can see thousands of should of children. They were all crying and terrified like they're all having the worst of nightmares.

"I should've made that thing feel more pain for this. This is worse than a crime against humanity. How long have they been like this?"

I take my hand and turn it into a magic blade using day magic. I then cut open the soul cairn fish egg. The souls of children all rush out. Now I have thousands of souls within my sack and I don't really know what to do with them. I used some day magic to soothe them so they'll stop crying and being terrified. It was working, but it wasn't an instant fix. It would take a minute to soothe them all. The sack then continues its order of digestion.

Once all the children are calm, they all start thanking me and the ones closest to me started to hug me. Then, I blink for a second and they're all gone. The only thing left behind as a clue was a pure white feather that glowed gold that faded away after a few seconds. Then a fading whisper that said, "You did good %$@!#$".

The last part of the whisper sounded like a name, but I couldn't make it out. From the feather, I had my own speculations about what happened. It wouldn't that far fetched either since this is a crazy world. Although I will keep those speculations to myself for now.

The digestion then finished and I received information on my defeated foe. To make the information transfer simpler, I had it appear as it would on a computer report in my mind.

The report read as,

[ Identification: Living Nightmare

Name: Heisythfor

Summary of Identification : A being born from a nightmare that was honestly believed in. Once believed in, the nightmare was able to spread to other dreamers to terrorize their dreams for Ima too. The nightmare became powerful enough to imprison the souls of children which were used to fuel it's existence so a host was unnecessary for continued existence. The more souls imprisoned, the more power it had. Living Nightmares target only children as their torment produces the most Ima for them. They exist only to cause terror and get stronger so they can manifest with the waking world and continue their evils in reality.

Individual background: Heisythfor was a nightmare who first terrorized a child in 1891 A.D. in a small western village that no longer exists. He was believed in and eventually took control of the children's bodies one by one to kill the adults as they slept. It then imprisoned the souls of the village children, hence killing them soon after. Except for one, who's body was used to travel to a nearby town to continue it's work. It continued imprisoning souls and killing until Faas Pantera defeated it.

End of report]

"...…..", I was shocked that such a thing had even existed. "To think entities like this exist. Now I wonder what other horrible things reside and are born on Earth. I shudder to think what terrors exist beyond it too."

I want to see if there is any record of these Living Nightmares in the academies library. Surely, they couldn't have been overlooked by the heroic world which is as ancient as thinking life.

So, I head off to the library incognito.