Welcome to the Dream Realm, Sunless!

Throughout his stay in the Academy, Sunny slowly got used to his Aspect, the dreams, the visions, the amplified senses, his memories, but he couldn't quite understand his peculiar Attributes.

Particularly [Bastard of Shadows].

For [Mark of Divinity], Sunny could somewhat understand, it probably meant a connection with the divine, which had allowed Shadow God and -unknown- to answer his sacrifice in his First Nightmare.

As for [Child of Fate], honestly Sunny hoped it would be a better version of [Fated], but he knew that was just a hopeless wish. 

But [Bastard of Shadows]? What did it even mean?

Summoning his runes, he once again stared at them, trying his best to figure out what secrets they could hold.

Attribute Name: [Bastard of Shadows].

Attribute Description: [The shadows recognize you as the disgraced heir, they will not ignore you when you most need them.]

What did it mean by not ignoring him when he most needed them?

"Forget it…" Sunny muttered in the darkness of his room, "It's the Winter Solstice tomorrow, I'm sure I'll know its secrets soon."

Lying still on his bed, Sunny's eyes fluttered close, and he was off to the realm of sleep.

That night, Sunny dreamt of something harrowing, ominous, and… foreboding. He dreamt of a crimson coral, of humongous creatures with deadly scythes digging their giant claws into the flesh of a dead creature, of shining stones with a brilliance that now words could describe, and a crimson, crimson spire that always lay within eyesight no matter where the dream brought him to.

He did not understand it, not one bit, what was the dream trying to tell him?

That was how Sunny found himself waking up feeling tired and drowsy. No matter how much he tried to shake off this listlessness, it wouldn't go away. In the end, he just stayed in bed for a while, wrapping himself in a blanket.

He was already familiar with this feeling of never ending, ensnaring sleepiness. It was the same one he felt as before his days in his First Nightmare. It was also quite similar to what he had experienced while slowly dying of hypothermia in the Black Mountains.

Remembering the cold embrace of approaching death, Sunny couldn't help but shiver. 

This was his last day on Earth… at least for a while. By nightfall, the spell is going to take him away once again, this time to challenge the vast expanse of the Dream Realm. What was he going to face in that ruined magical world? Would luck be on his side this time, or would there be another disaster?

'Ugh.'

There was no point in guessing, he had done everything he could to prepare for the inevitable. He studied hard, trained hard, and tried his best to combat the blindness his Flaw had given him. His Aspect was still unknown and strange, but his will to survive was long tempered by living in the outskirts and the ever harsher ordeal of his First Nightmare.

Sunny nodded, 'That's right, I have survived against those innumerable odds. I will survive this as well, blind or not.'

All in all, he was ready.

Amplifying the feeling of touch, Sunny stayed there, wrapped in the sheets of the bed, and engraved the feeling in his mind. 

He reluctantly got up, and whispered goodbye to his comfortable room. 

"Damn it! I'll come back as an Awakened…" 

Getting out of bed, Sunny went through his routine with practiced ease, he had long memorised the intricacies of his room. If this was going to be his last hot shower in a while, then he'll make the most of it. If this was going to be his last day eating scrumptious food…

Actually, he had no appetite.

The cafeteria was full of Sleepers, but no one was talking. Everyone was in low spirits and seemed to be uncharacteristically introspective. There was no usual laughter or boisterous conversations — only the Legacies were calm and collected. However, even they kept to themselves. 

Sunny thought about the last time he was preparing to enter the spell and, with a bit of trepidation, approached the coffee machine. He had heard of people adding cream and sugar into their coffees during his stay in the Academy. So, on this auspicious day, he decided to give it another try. 

After all, it was nice to have tradition.

A few minutes later, he had taken his usual seat with Cassie, and patted himself in the back that this time, he didn't need her to guide him through the cafeteria. He was learning to adapt.

Taking his first sip of the coffee, Cassie suddenly asked him, "Are you nervous?"

He shrugged, "Who wouldn't be?" 

Continuing to drink his coffee, he found it not as bad as his first time, after all the sugar and cream were making the most of the work. However, he did feel a little bit more awake after drinking it.

Which reminded him… The winter solstice was also his seventeenth birthday.

He let out a wry chuckle, "Seventeen, huh? I really have the worst luck…"

"What's wrong, Sunny?" Cassie asked, her voice laced with confusion.

Throughout their four weeks together in the wilderness survival course, and him relying on her with certain things, they had gotten closer. They would chat about the most casual things, and he shared a few details about his previous life as a kid in the outskirts.

'Is this what a friend is? Someone to engage in casual conversation with.' 

Somehow, Sunny thought they were now in the stage of 'friends'. 

'I did tell her some of my secrets, the less serious ones. And she told me hers as well. Those spying sessions in my dream did tell me more of her secrets though…'

It was unfair really, Sunny knew almost everything about Cassia, but she knew 'Sunny', the blind kid from the outskirts. Not Sunless, and certainly not Lost from Light.

'Could we still be friends like this? I do hold the higher ground after all, we aren't equals, no matter what others would think. Heh, I bet they think I'm worse than Cassie, well… it's actually the opposite!' 

Sunny mused, before he mentally shook his head, 'I could never be a friend.'

Friends required trust and he didn't have any left. The Spell did call him treacherous after all.

Yet Master Jet's words echoed across his mind, she had said that because of his blindness he had to trust, and he definitely had no chance in surviving alone in the Dream Realm.

Sunny let out a sigh, why was his life so difficult?

"Nothing important, really," He said, lifting his head up and looking at Cassia, "I'm turning seventeen."

"Today?"

He nodded, not speaking anymore.

"Happy Birthday!" Cassie exclaimed 

"Thanks."

Sunny was never sure he'll make it to this age alive. And yet, despite everything, he did. Life sure was unpredictable at times. If anyone had told him a year ago that he was going to celebrate his seventeenth birthday by drinking real coffee with real cream and sugar, he would have laughed in their face. But now, it was reality.

Unwillingly, Sunny remembered all the people who used to celebrate his birthday with him, a long time ago. Before his mood turned sour, he forced himself to dispel those thoughts and forced himself to smile.

'This is not bad. Let's do it again next year, when I'm anAwakened.'

Cheering himself up like that, he finished his coffee and left the cafeteria with Cassie.

There were no classes today, but they still visited the Wilderness Survival classroom and said their goodbyes to Teacher Julius. The old man got pretty emotional when sending him off. He gave them 'one last tip' a dozen or so times in a row and even promised to apply for a research assistant position to be opened after the young man had become a full Awakened.

Sunny thanked him, grateful there was someone who believed in his survival, and Cassie did as well before they left.

After that, there wasn't much to do.

When the sun was close to setting, Instructor Rock gathered them in the foyer of the Sleeper Center and led them outside. 

In the snowy parks that surrounded the white building, other Awakened were leading their own batches of Sleepers to the same destination —- the Academy's medical center.

To Sunny's surprise, after entering the medical center, Instructor Rock did not directly take them to the wing containing Sleeper pods. Instead, he led them to a comparatively deserted floor. 

It was eerily silent, and Sunny had to ask Cassie countless times what was happening before she finally replied.

"Hollows." She croaked out, and Sunny did not get the meaning until Instructor Rock spoke again.

"There is a reason I brought you all here. Look well and remember. Some of you may know who these people are… for those who don't, they are called Hollow."

Sunny focused on his senses, and he found something shocking. The 'Hollow' that Instructor Rock had been talking about… They didn't produce sound, and they didn't emit the warmth humans naturally produce.

They were corpses, literally and figuratively. 

He shivered 

'I never want to be like that, all the more reason to survive.'

Instructor Rock gritted his teeth, "Each of them was once either a Sleeper or an Awakened. Some of them were weak, some of them were strong. Some were even incredibly powerful. All of them have perished in the Dream Realm.

'Their… their souls are gone,' Sunny realized, horrified.

"If you're lucky, once your spirit is destroyed, your body dies with it. But if not, you'll become just like them. Hollow."

Instructor Rock paused.

"So don't die out there."

—-

Half an hour later, the Sleepers had been led to their personal rooms and were about to enter the pods.

In one of the rooms, Cassie closed her eyes, before opening them, whispering worriedly to her shadow, "I have to live." Her shadow determinedly nodded back and gave her a thumbs up. She gave it an unsettling smile.

In the other room, proud Legacy Caster was staring listlessly at the floor. His lips were moving, repeating one strange phrase over and over again. He was trembling.

Somewhere else, Changing Star Nephis, the last daughter of the Immortal Flame clan, was looking down at her hands. Underneath her skin, a soft radiance was slowly growing brighter and brighter. Her face was contorted in a grimace of harrowing agony.

And finally, there was a room where Herald of the End Sunless, Lost from Light, was standing outside of the Sleeping Pod, holding a mysterious silver cane.

"Well? Are you ready?" He said to the cane.

He received no answer.

Sunny sighed, "What would I know? Even if you somehow came to life, and tried to converse with me, I wouldn't know. I can't see, can I?"

With that, he stepped forward and climbed into the pod with such confidence, that he did not look blind.

In the vast echoing darkness, he heard the Spell whisper:

[Welcome to the Dream Realm, Sunless!]

Sunny's eyes were forced shut once the optimistic tone of the Spell ran its course, and distantly, in the dark abyss, he saw strings upon strings connecting and interweaving before his consciousness was gone.

—-

Sunny was expecting the first look of the Dream Realm to be some place above, like in his First Nightmare. Back then, time had been going in reverse, giving him an opportunity to see hints of what he was going to face.

He laughed.

'Heh, do I even hear what I'm thinking about? I'm blind, how can I possibly see the Dream Realm?'

Oh. 

So he'll never see the Dream Realm.

'I've heard that it is a beautiful place, a place that is like Earth when it was still habitable…'

He had wanted to see it with his own two eyes when he was still a child.

Sunny shook his head, this was no time for childish dreams, he had to focus and survive!

Taking a deep breath, he…

It was then, Sunny realized that something was wrong, very, very wrong. His open eyes were sore from pain, and what he felt wasn't the air, but water, cold, cold water. 

What he had breathed was not oxygen, but water, water as in salt water. He was drowning.

'Damnation! Why do I have to be so unlucky!'

…His thoughts were immediately interrupted by sudden choking and twitching.

'Damn it all! Why did I even drink salt water like a stupid person!' 

Waving his hands around in the water, Sunny thought back about all those lessons with Teacher Julius on how to swim even while blind, with much effort of course. Kicking his legs desperately, Sunny channeled all his strength and reached out for the surface.

At least, that's what he thought…

Even after a few seconds, or maybe it was minutes, he still hadn't broken through the surface, and Sunny… Sunny was starting to run out of breath, among other things. His muscles were also starting to be numb, not that they were that notable, and his mind was slowly slipping away.

But most importantly, with each second passing by, his lungs were burning more and more, he had never held his breath for that long! Any normal person would have given up by now.

'What should I do!?' He screamed, and a part of him whispered to give up, and the pain wouldn't last that long.

Sunny pondered over that for a few long, hard seconds. 

No. 

He couldn't die yet.

He didn't give up even in the face of his flaw — complete blindness.

'That's right. I decided to survive!'

His eyes shone with the madness of a desperate person, yet they held the will of survival. Sunny did tell Hero so long ago that he would survive, to spite the world.

'I'll live, not for myself, not for Rain, but to spite you all!'

With the determination of a dying man, he reversed his direction and swam as hard as he could, hand outreaching to the surface. 

A silver string suddenly appeared in front of him.

And… it sunk into his soul, where his core was.

—

When Sunny came to be, he was floating a few millimetres from the sea, his mind still hazy from the near death he had. 

"What… What's this?" He asked, and looking around, he distinctly recognized this as a vision. No matter how strange it was to him.

'I only get visions while I sleep, what is the difference between this 'vision' and the normal ones I receive at night?'

His question was soon answered by a limp body breaking through the water, and floating into view. They had black hair, pale skin, a malnourished body, and… an empty gaze. 

Sunny felt bile rising in his throat, and he forgot to breathe in shock.

He was dead, or more correctly, he will die.

"How…?" He croaked out, how did this happen?

He had braved the impossible in his First Nightmare, deceived and murdered an Awakened, somehow killed an Awakened Tyrant by spitting, getting a Divine Aspect that was practically unheard of…

He had survived all of that.

Was he going to die? Maybe in another reality, but his Aspect was kindly showing him a way of possible survival.

The Spell was cruel, but it wasn't impossible. It gave him ways to survive even in the First Nightmare. Though it was a one percent chance.

'What a great motivational speech, Sunless,' He thought, smiling wryly, 'Almost rivaling those of Instructor Rock and Instructor Orum. Not as great as them of course.'

As soon as he thought of that, fate must have been mocking him, because something abdominal jumped out of the water and opened its mouth, devouring his dead body without a second glance. 

It had a large fin, jagged and scarred with injuries, sharp, pointy teeth that easily broke into his flesh, and eyes that kept scanning the sea, as if it was the prey, not the predator.

It sped away into the night, leaving no trail of its existence behind.

Pushing the thoughts of his death to the back of his mind, Sunny focused on the fin of the creature, and set his sights on where it went. 

In the far distance, he saw a black mass, slightly protruding from the water, lying to his west, which was also the location of where the creature was going to. 

Suddenly, out of the depths, a huge tentacle appeared, one even larger than the creature he saw mere seconds ago. 

Yet the creature barely evaded it by a few millimetres, it's tired features shining with desperation. 

It waited for something else to happen.

But the tentacle never came.

The water was still, and nothing happened. 

The hunt was over, yet his vision was not.

Setting his sights on the black mass in the distance, Sunny knew what he had to do.

"West." He muttered, "I have to reach westward."

His vision dimmed, and the white string returned, yet its brilliance was lost.

The vision was over.

—-

Sunny was back in the sea, and this time he knew where was up, and where he should go.

Mustering as much energy as he could in his oxygen deprived state, Sunny kicked off the water, frantically swimming to the west. Behind him, he could hear the crackling of teeth as the water gave way to the beast. 

'West, west…' He screamed in his mind, 'West.'

Sunny didn't know how long he took, or how many seconds passed until his head breached the water. 

He frantically drew in a deep, hoarse breath. 

'Breathe! Breathe! You're still alive!'

Not allowing a silver of rest, he set his sights onto the west, and kicked off once again, he had to gain whatever advantage over the incoming creature when he could. Sunny swam, swam, and swam, like there was no tomorrow.

Through his brain, he could briefly see shadows of the various objects around him, the sea, the creature, and the black mass. Trusting on what he saw, Sunny swam as fast as he could towards the mass, and when he finally did, with a grunt, he reached for whatever foothold he had, and pulled himself up.

And in that instant, he could hear the clacking of teeth, and the crumbling of stone, as bits of his foothold fell into the water. The mass he was on shuddered and groaned, and Sunny almost yelped when it tilted slightly.

He amplified his hearing, the ordeal was not over, what of the tentacle that had come from the water?

As he had expected, something pierced the surface of the sea, and he could distinctly hear the last breath of the creature being taken before it was towed into the darkness of the ocean.

Knowing it was not safe, Sunny gripped the black mass and climbed higher and higher, until he was a safe distance away from the sea, and on the top of a stone platform, before he breathed a sigh of relief.

It was at that moment, the Spell echoed across his mind, it's voice booming yet indifferent:

[Your Revelations grow clearer.]