Sleep took 99 the way a tide takes sediment, slow and inevitable, until the last edge of awareness folded in, his thoughts were carried away by longshore drift.
Then he was standing.
Standing on water…
The sea around him was black glass, flat and reflective, cool against his ankles. There was no breeze, yet faint lines of current drifted beneath the surface as if a slow hand was pushing water from one place to another, never creating, never destroying, only moving, transferring.
The sky was the same color, a smooth vault without stars. The only glow came from him, a soft warmth that clung to his skin the way heat clings to a kettle.
'Lucid dream? I can think. I can steer this dream, a little?'
'I've never experienced a lucid dream before, is this the influence of this strange area or world? An aftereffect of transmigration or being placed in a government restricted zone? Maybe it's because of the trials or spirit that I've subordinated? Or is it because of the ship?'
Thoughts splashed in his mind, rippling and inundating his brain like a tsunami.
'If this is a lucid dream, then I should be able to control it…'
He tried to pull the horizon closer. The world did not obey. It yielded only by degrees, like a great door moving against a heavy latch. He could influence, not command.
'Strange, if this was a lucid dream, wouldn't I have complete control over it? I'm no expert on dreaming but this is what I've heard from friends and podcasts…'
'If I could lucid dream back on Earth, then I'd have so much more time! I'd be able to study in my dreams and surpass all my competition!' 99 lampooned.
The second this thought entered his mind, he suddenly felt groggy.
'On second thought, studying in my sleep sounds like a nightmare and not a boon…'
'But anyway, I can use this opportunity to organise my thoughts!'
'Let's see, where should I start?'
Just as this thought dissipated to his surroundings, the water shook, his environment changed as if obeying his will.
Symbols rose from the water and hung in the dark like lanterns. A coffin, its lid nailed shut at the bottom of the seabed. A shark with button eyes and red hide. Four velvet wings and a jagged crown. A ship's wheel lashed in tarred rope. A glass shard that caught the eye and would not let it go. A catalog of items written in pale script that shifted when he tried to read it. A spirit that obeyed his will. An illusory raving that muffled his mind.
'I should start from the beginning…'
He reached toward the coffin. The symbol brightened, showing a narrow space, planks pressed close, the world muted by water. He saw his own chest from above, marked by a faint sigil he could not quite read, like letters seen through a veil. When he pressed his palm to the image, the wood felt real, grain against skin.
'I woke in a coffin at the bottom of the sea that was nailed tightly shut… I was at Death's door when something within me suddenly snapped awake and alien-like vitality flooded into me causing me to escape the coffin. Is this adrenaline? No, adrenaline is supposed to wear off, but this alien-like vitality is something that I can still feel within me, even in this dream, as if it's alive, slumbering in the deepest recesses of my soul and coursing through my body, waiting for a moment when it can escape…'
'When I got out of the coffin, the spirit greeted me and a voice reverberated throughout my being, congratulating me on completing the first trial and giving me a catalog of items to choose from…'
'The voice was emitted from the spirit as if it was a telepathic speaker, so it's fair to conclude that the voice belongs to some entity and the spirit was its conduit… This proves that there is other sentient life in this world and it wants something from me…'
'Furthermore, I was numbered Nameless 99 and a million other Nameless are also partaking in these 'trials', 5 perished and I was 1 of the last Nameless to pass the first trial, being in the 800,000s…'
'I'm in the bottom of the barrel when it comes to other Nameless? This can't be… I've always been at the top of my class…'
As these thoughts flowed through 99's mind, he suddenly felt a sense of competition invigorating his spirit, coruscating through him and refreshing his depleting motivation.
'No, this might not necessarily be a competition, I might have to work with the other Nameless, wherever they are…'
'Speaking of Nameless, why can't I remember my Name? A sharp piercing headache perforates my brain whenever I try to recall it, but I can clearly remember other things such as my family and friends and life on Earth, other memories have also seemingly been taken like how old I am…' 99 seriously considered his circumstances before realising he had no answer for his endless sea of questions and so chose to move onto another train of thought.
The coffin drifted aside in the dream sea.
Now, the puppet shark turned to face him. Its red skin was broken by seams. Between the seams, small black cogs turned, chewing at nothing, these gears sent a shiver down 99's spine. Parts of its body were simply missing, as if a bite had removed not flesh but the idea of flesh. Those edges did not look cut. They looked erased.
The sea murmured. 99 looked down and saw, faint and far below, a slow pulse of deeper dark, like a second ocean beneath the first.
Another symbol brightened, the catalog that had appeared behind his eyes when death swam near. Its items flickered like fish in a school, changing position every time he looked. Swords. Guns. Glasses that saw half a heartbeat ahead. A seashell to breathe underwater. A rod that always reeled in something even when nothing was hooked. An ocarina that spoke to beasts. Then the Luminous eye he had chosen, a pupil of gentle gold that watched him as much as he watched it.
He tried to grasp two items at once. The list slid away, leaving the spirit eye in his hand, the eye then suddenly leaped out from his hand and BANGED into his eyelid, replacing his current eyeball or fusing with it…
'When I tried to control the spirit after grasping the Luminous eye, there was a voice that resounded, "I'll allow it…" is what it said, did this spirit originally belong to that voice? He transferred control of the spirit to me? Why?!'
Again, more questions than answers… I'll have to discard this train of thought for now.
Then he saw the letters of light that looked drawn into the very essence of the sky itself, runes of a language he didn't know but could understand read:
Nameless 99
Class: [Illegible]
Level: 3
Item in possession: Luminous Eye.
Item description: Control light in a small radius. Shape it. Speak to it.
Spirit in subordination.
Nameless's First Spirit. The name can be changed.
Level 2 - weakest sentient spirit.
Subordinated after - [illegible]
As these letters of light etched onto his retina, he frowned…
'I'm level 3 now? And my spirit is level 2? I distinctly remember my spirit being level 0 when I first obtained it, also I subordinated it after [illegible] which matches my theory that this spirit was in possession of some entity beforehand, only falling into my hands after he took pity on me…
'Also, I can change the spirit's name? Why would I do that? What's the point?' As more questions floated to the surface of his brain, he decided to name the spirit, curious as to why he could do it and what changes it would bring…
'Let's see, this is a spirit made of light… What are synonyms for light? Illumination, Luminescence, Shining, Gleaming, etc.'
'Hmmmmmmmmm, none of these names really fit my taste. Luminescence is too long but it does sound nice… Lets shorten it, Lumi?'
Just as this thought was born, a subtle change echoed within 99's spirit, he instinctively conjured his spirit's runes and they read:
Lumi.
Level 3 - sentient spirit.
Subordinated after - [illegible]
'It's level went up? It's no longer the weakest… Strange, so naming something causes it to level up and get stronger? Names hold power? Then I should name myself…'
Before he could think of a name, an illusory raving penetrated his skull. "Naming something that has already been named is sacrilege… Take the risk at the expense of your life"
'That voice again? It warned me? It seems like giving myself a name that doesn't fit can lead to life threatening consequences, this confirms my theory that names really do hold power in this world…'
'Also, my spirit feels stronger, increasing level leads to a qualitative change in strength? Just like a video game? I'm gonna need to increase my level if I want to survive this harrowing place…'
He abandoned this train of thought and the image of the ship surfaced in his mind.
The ship symbol rolled toward him and stopped at his feet. Its deck appeared around him in perfect silence. The veiled figurehead rose from the bow, almost alive. The veil was carved so thin it seemed it would tear if he breathed on it. He could not see the face beneath. The urge to climb down and lift that veil was sudden and intense, like thirst.
'Something tells me I'm not ready to look…'
Resisting the urge to lift the veil took all his might but he pulled his gaze away by force and the urge faded as if a hand had loosened on his throat.
He walked the deck. The ropes lay neatly coiled, each loop the same size. The wheel was lashed. The lantern glass shone as if polished a moment ago. Under his feet, the planks murmured, a sound like breath through a sleeping throat. He knelt and pressed his hand to the wood. The grain lifted to meet his palm as if the ship were leaning up to greet him.
'You found me. There was no wind to do it. You stopped without hands. Something guided you. Something watches me.'
He did not speak the last thought. The dream did it for him. The lantern chain clicked once, like a coin touching glass.
'If you are a refuge, you are also a leash. If you brought me, you can take me.'
He left the deck and returned to the black sea. The symbols gathered again, rearranging themselves into a ring. In the center rose a throne of water that did not spill. On it sat a shape he could not look at directly. When he tried, his eyes watered, like looking at the sun from too near. Not because it was bright, but because his mind could not reconcile the edges. The shape shifted, many selves folded into one. Sometimes it felt like a woman drawing matter through her like a tide pulling shells. Sometimes it felt like a mirror that returned nothing of what looked into it. Sometimes it felt like a ledger where numbers were always balanced, never created, never lost.
'Law.'
The shape tilted, amused without smiling. The sea around the throne circulated in visible bands, dark rings moving opposite each other without mixing, the way a conveyor carries
A distant bell chimed under the water. The throne fractured into endless silhouettes that radiated the faintest sense of character. Cold patience that smelled like coin on iron. Gentle suffocation that tasted like brine. Hot hunger with the sound of insect wings. Stillness that made his teeth ache. Joy edged in knives. Sleep that felt like drowning. Witness that never blinked. Chance that always required a price. And a mild, careful glow that reminded him of sunlight on clean water.
The sea rippled. For a heartbeat, the black surface was a mirror and showed him standing with no reflection.
He shivered and the image broke.
He breathed until his chest loosened. When he looked up again, the ring of symbols had drifted. In their place, a city of water rose from the surface, transparent towers and domes held together by pressure and will. In the deepest dome, a throne of coral sat empty. Beside it, three small altars. Each held something simple. A blue ribbon tied in a bow, neat and careful. A wooden puppet, its strings cut, its button eyes blank. A bone needle threaded with hair.
The three objects darkened as if a shadow lay over them. Parts of the ribbon were missing, not frayed but gone. The puppet had lost half a cheek and a quarter of its chest and the string was sliced to nothing where it should have coiled. The needle pierced nothing that could be seen, yet on the far side of the altar, a mirror shard lay with a hole that was the shape of the needle.
He stepped closer. He could hear faint laughter that was not happy. It had the brittle ring of porcelain knocked against a table. When he blinked, the city was gone and the sea was flat again.
He was not alone. Far out across the black, other small glows moved, barely brighter than fireflies. Some flickered and went out. Some steadied and shifted direction with purpose. He counted and stopped when the number felt like it matched a thought that was not his.
The number 10.
The water at his feet stirred. A small circle formed and began to spin. It did not dig down. It did not lift up. It moved water from the left to the right and from the right to the left, like hands trading a coin without ever creating one. The circle was gentle, almost pretty. After a time, he felt thirst watching it, not because it took from him, but because it promised that if he leaned in, it would let him lay down and close his eyes.
"That is how you lose. Not with a bite, but with a lullaby. Be careful with gentle things."
'Another warning?' 99 almost jumped in fright, 'The voice was different this time…'
He turned from the circle and found a clock. It rose from the sea like the skull of a bell tower, half submerged. The hands ticked in uneven jumps. Every tick plucked a thread behind his heart. He approached and the water thickened to syrup. He forced himself closer and the hands slowed, as if his nearness threatened them. He reached out and the glass face trembled.
'One week. Do not touch the timer. Touch the things that feed it instead. Food. Shelter. Skill. Information. Bonds.'
The last word startled him. It felt both true and dangerous at once.
'Bonds give identity. Identity gives power. Attach wrongly and you will become a tool. Attach rightly and you will become yourself.'
Something moved beneath the clock. He saw the outline of wings too broad to belong to any bird, and a head crowned in stone. The creature that had tried to spear him rose like a memory, then sank. A second shape passed below that was larger and more diffuse, as if it were made of cold fog. Where it passed, the marks on the clock face went pale, as if a cautious hand had wiped the ink.
He backed away. The water loosened around his legs. The hands ticked faster, then steadied.
A soft clink sounded at his left. The glass shard lay on the surface, impossibly buoyant. It looked empty, yet he knew it was anything but. The shard was a door, and doors lead somewhere. He did not want to know where. The longer he looked, the more he felt hunger curl under his tongue, the way a starving person smells bread and forgets their name.
'Not now. I will not feed that hunger while I am alone.'
He wrapped the shard in a strip of dream cloth and set it on the deck that was not there a moment ago and now was. The ship's rail rose at his back, real as anything he had ever leaned against. The lantern glass winked.
'Okay, I've organised my thoughts, something brought me here, to a different world. This can't be a government facility on Earth because it's too vast, too strange and too different, this space seems to be as big as a country and no government could keep that amount of space secret? Could it? Yes, this must be another world… I've truly transmigrated into the watery pits of hell… Something brought me here and it wants something from me… This thing that brought me here also brought a million others. We all lack names for some reason and unite under the banner of Nameless… 5 have already died. This voice is giving us trials, testing us? It wants something from us… That much is for sure.'
'This voice can grant us strange powers and items like the Luminous Eye, there are creatures here that border on insanity here and Names definitely hold power… Naming Lumi made it gain power, but the voice also warned me to not Name myself, as the wrong name can result in devastating consequences…'
'There are strange ruins at the bottom of the sea resembling a sunken kingdom akin to the lost city of Atlantis if the city was as large as a country instead…'
'Inside this city lie 3 thrones and what seemed to be a puppet?'
'Also, a power within me awakened when I was at Death's door and struggling to escape the coffin, it can't be adrenaline because I still feel it even in this dream, I'm at the bottom of the barrel compared to other Nameless when it came to passing the first trial, I was almost last and placed in the 800,000s… How were they so fast?'
'Were their trials easier? For some reason, I doubt it. They were that much stronger than me?
'The ship also seems alive but it's friendly for now… Is it protecting and giving shelter to me for free? There's no such thing as a free lunch on Earth and Im willing to bet it's the same for this world…'
'Regardless, there's a clear way for me to get stronger and I'm gonna need to if I want any chance at surviving this harrowing place, I need to level up…'
'One week. Survive'
'F*** you hoarse voice that etched a time limit on my soul, who gave you permission to touch my soul? Damn perv… Watch me, I won't just survive, I'll thrive and escape this shi*** world.'
'I won't be a pawn in your game!'