As Dein slept, he dreamt of a dead forest.
It stretch endlessly in every different direction. Vast yet hollow. Desolate. Not a single spark of life stirred withing the forest, while the trees, ancient and brittle, stood in various states of decay, their branches crumbling, falling to the seemingly ashen soil like an old paper.
No sound could be heard nor scent could be smelled from the dead forest. Not even wind invaded its reaches. And yet, scattered throughout the lifeless trees were remnants of broken structues, particularly inside the strangely wide clearing that spread far into the distance.
Inside that clearing lay shattered wooden remnants of seemingly forgotten past. The remnants were so badly destroyed and so deeply embedded into the ground that Dein couldn't even start to fathom what kind of ancient structures they were once.
But just then, something change and a strong, chilling, gust of wind blew past him from behind, washing over the dead forest.
It was the first movement in this forgotten place followed by a vaporous mist that rushed up from the ground. It swept over the landscape, erasing the dull gray color of the soil.
All around, fallen branches lifted itself into the air, reattaching the next second back to their trunks. Trees straightened, healed, before bursting into a vibrant green. In a quickened pace, the world moved in reverse before Dein's eyes, and he saw everything rebuild themselves.
With uncanny speed, the fallen wooden structures begun moving on its own, attaching to one another and returning to its past glory. The fallen bridges formed, connecting to the trees and wooden structures that had rebuild themselves on top of it. In a blink of an eye, tree houses stood on top of the trees connected only using the bridges.
Then, wooden homes rose again on the clearing before Dein, and the whole forest comes to life.
Everything moved in reverse, but what truly caught his eyes were the gigantic bonfire that blaze in a blinding flare in the middle of the clearing. Illuminating everything that its light reached.
Finally, comes the fog.
Thick and unnatural, it billowed up from the ground like a steam, smothering the world in a blanket of white. Yet the light of the bonfire pushed it back, within the fire's glow, the fog dared not enter, clinging only to the edges as if afraid.
Then, everything finally stopped.
The wind, the fog, even the movements of the blazing flame on the bonfire stopped.
It was as if time itself had been frozen…
Before moving once again, only this time, not in reverse but forward.
Flashing before Dein's eyes…
And when it did, the space around him cracked, distorting and contorting at the same time…
The scene on the ground continued.
On the clearing, movements begun to show and the great bonfire collapsed to the ground, spilling fire everywhere. Chaos bloomed as people scattered in panic, running around. Others holding spears and bows while strangely enough, only one of them holds a black wooden looking sword.
'What the hell is happening?' Dein thought, but sadly, he had been given no time to dwell.
The cracks in reality widened and strange lines started flickering in and out of existence, as if pieces of the world is being erased on the fabric of reality itself. Then, the being responsible for destroying the tribe below finally revealed itself.
Unfortunately though, Dein failed to see it.
Because just then, the ground beneath him started to glitch, pieces of it blinking in and out of place – sometimes above, sometimes behind. Fragments of earth floated where they shouldn't, all while the destruction happening on the tribe continued.
By this time, Dein started feeling dizzy all of the sudden, his eyes starting to blur as he notice pieces of his body flickering, dissapearing, and then appearing elsewhere the next second.
'Wha… is this… still normal!?'
But the situation itself answered his question when the fabric of reality shattered and the golden strings – the very weave of reality and space – erupted from the broken seams of the world and started springing out out of nowhere, as if being pulled out.
The golden strings that had sprung from the ground reached for the sky like a tentacle while the one on the sky moved as if being forcefully peeled off.
The world twisted and then compressed in on itself…
And finally, it exploded.
It was only this time that Dein finally realized the truth.
The spell…
The nightmare spell had somehow made an error…
And reality itself had bugged.
Before he knew it, everything went dark.
*****
Under the gaze of the moonless night, a vast cloud of fog covering the whole forest stirred. Beneath the fog, buried under the brown soil that stretch all over, a small hand made out of darkness with sharp claws all over it suddenly twitch and in the next moment, the ground where the seemingly monstrous hand begun to tremble.
The hand twitch again, and the quaking strengthen.
Then, finally, the hand who seems to be reaching for the sky twitch for the last time and the ground erupted.
With a gasp, Dein opened his eyes.
Half of his body is still buried underground for some reason and he is breathing heavily, gasping for air. Finally, oxygen entered his lungs and Dein was able to breath again.
"What th–"
But he wasn't able to finish his words as a sudden pang of pain exploded on his side. He grimace, turning his attention to it only to find a gaping wound, one that he was sure wasn't done by a human because of the bite marks on it.
Pulling himself up from the ground, Dein gritted his teeth to ignore the gnawing pain before falling to the ground.
"Aah, fuck… it hurts. What the hell happening now?!"
Earlier, Dein had saw the world gets ripped apart and the nightmare spell seemingly bugging and now… now this? Just what is happening in this damn nightmare!
Finally, he breathed heavily and looked up around him. Currently, Dein is surrounded with nothing but trees and fog, the same fog and trees the spell had showed him before the distortion. It seems that even after all those shit that happened his first trial would still continue…
'Wait, my trial would continue?'
He looked up again, this time at the sky. Above him the moonless sky stretch clearer as the day. A sigh of relief escaping his lips when he did. Moonless night or whatever, Dein is damn happy to see that the world wasn't glitching anymore. For a moment there, he thought the trial of the nightmare spell would continue all while the bug was happening but luckily, the spell had a good mind to fix it first before anything.
'Now then…' This time, his gaze fall to the ground and slowly moved up, studying his body– 'this body, I mean, because for spell's sake this body isn't mine!'
Dein have a short black hair that perfectly suited his small but slightly slender body, not athletic in build but still capable. This one… this one he's currently inhabiting however, has a skin and flesh made out of pure darkness, each hand ending with sharp fingertips that resembled a claw of crimson color, as if dripping blood and a long thin tail moving around behind his back.
And although slight, he could also feel something strange on his ear, as if now it's longer, more heavier.
The legs and arms of his new body are strangely normal, in fact, his body right now – though some parts were bestial and speaks that this body does not belong to a person but of a monster instead – is strangly humanoid in shape and is about the size of his original one.
And although he would have to look into a mirror to actually see its face, just by using his hand to feel it, he could tell that his mouth is also slit all the way to the ear, leaving his razor sharp teeth bare and exposed. With how wide Dein could open his mouth now, he could probably split someone's neck in to two…
'Not that I'm gonna do that of course'
Still though, in all of Dein's life, he had never heard of anyone being sent inside a nightmare creature on their first nightmare!
All he know is that, once inside, you would take the role of one of the original people that had actually lived that moment and would've to fight the adversary that they've once face and triumph – at least, that's what his father and Freya had said.
Dein sigh, this time his wound ache again, making him grimace slightly.
Luckily, blood wasn't falling out of his wound anymore – probably due to the dirt that had went inside it when he's buried on the ground. Come to think of it, why the hell is this monster buried underground.
Did this monster died before he took over? Dein could only guess.
'Anyways…'
Covering his wound with his other hand to keep it from from bleeding again, he closed his other hand and opened it again, familiarizing himself with his new body, which of course, did not take long. His new body was humanoid in shape after all, in fact, besides how it looks, his height, structure, and maybe even his weight, closely resembled his original one.
In a weird way of course…
With a grimace still on his twisted face, Dein looked around once more, the solid ground scraping his bare foot. According to his knowledge, one given to him by the spell before it glitched.
There should be a huge clearing housing a big tribe somewhere in this forest, with a gigantic bonfire blazing around. At that time he saw the tribe gets destroyed by something, so logically thinking. Dein thinks that killing that "something" would be the key to ending this nightmare.
That said…
"Where the hell is that tribe?"
And why did he get sent in the middle of the forest? Isn't he supposed to spawn close to his adversary?
'Just what is wrong with this nightmare? Am I supposed to find the tribe myself or what!'
Dein clicked his tongue, lifting his feet to take a step but just then, he remembered something.
'The runes!'
That's right, his runes! Freya had specifically told him that at the start of his nightmare, the first thing he should look for was his runes, saying they might come in handy. And considering that the spell had thrown him far from his supposed goal, buried underground and have a gaping wound on his side, it would probably also give him some strong aspect and attributes right?
With that in mind, Dein stared experimenting to find out how to summon the runes. He started by focusing on himself, concentrating perhaps, but didn't work, then he focused on word "runes" and repeated it over in his mind, but still to no avail.
Then he started thinking of different words such as "Status", "information" or "myself" all while concentrating.
Sure enough, in the next moment, words written in ancient alphabet appeared in front of him.
However, when it did, his smile dissapeared. Confusion and irritation replacing it.