The slums stank of rust, rot, and despair—a place where dreams came to die and nightmares lingered long after sunrise.
A thin young man sat cross-legged in the filth, skin pale as bleached paper, cradling a stolen loaf of bread like a fragile relic. Hollow moons carved deep beneath his eyes. Six sleepless days had etched their story into him. Tomorrow, the whispers said, the Nightmare Spell would claim him for good if he didn't surrender to sleep tonight. So he chose to die with a full stomach.
He tore a piece of the crust and let it melt on his tongue. Real butter. Real wheat. Not the gray mush the shelters handed out. For a heartbeat, the world felt… slightly less cruel.
"This… this is actually good," he muttered, crumbs spilling onto the tattered remnants of his pajama shirt.
Then a sudden gust ripped the loaf from his fingers. It spun through the air like a fleeing soul, colliding with a dumpster twenty meters away.
He stared at the empty space where his last meal had been.
"…Of course."
Barefoot, he rose. His soles were blackened by the streets. Messy hair clung to his forehead. Once-light-blue pajamas now clung to him like the color of dishwater. Somewhere, a siren wailed its three-note dirge—the city's lullaby since the Nightmare began.
Everyone knew the rules.
Fall asleep → wake in the Nightmare Realm → fight or die.
Some came back missing limbs. Some came back speaking in tongues. Most never came back at all.
Television scientists called it a "global psychic anomaly." Governments called it a crisis. The rich trained their children in swordplay and survival tactics. The poor… stayed awake until the Realm took them anyway.
Orion had lasted six days on stolen energy drinks and spite. Today, the spite ran dry.
He shuffled across cracked asphalt toward Precinct 17—the Nightmare Intake Station, one of the few places still accepting walk-ins for the cursed.
Inside, bleach and gun oil choked the air. Bulletproof glass had been replaced with runed steel plates, etched with containment sigils. A single officer sat behind the desk, mid-forties, beard streaked with gray, eyes hollowed from too many vanished teenagers.
"You lost, kid?" the officer asked, eyes glued to paperwork.
Orion cleared his throat. His voice scraped out like gravel.
"I'm here… to turn myself in. Nightmare Spell. Positive."
The pen froze. The officer looked up.
"Say that again."
"I haven't slept in six days," orion rasped, swaying. "Started with little dreams… shadows with too many teeth. Then the pulling, behind my eyes. Classic symptoms. I'm done fighting it."
The officer studied him. Then pressed a red button beneath the desk.
"Attention all units. Code Red, lobby. I repeat, Code Red. Unsanctioned Stage-Three entering under own power. Deploy the chair."
Boots thundered down hallways. Four officers in heavy anti-magic gear burst through, carrying a steel restraint chair that looked like a throne designed by a torturer.
Orion didn't resist. He was too tired.
They buckled straps across his chest, wrists, ankles. Cold iron bit into his skin. One slipped a muzzle over his mouth—not to silence, but to prevent him biting his tongue when the Realm dragged him under.
His eyelids sagged. Six days. The room blurred.
"Hey," the bearded officer said softly, leaning close. "Name, son?"
"Orion," he slurred. "Just… Orion."
"Real name. Forms."
"…Doesn't matter anymore."
The officer sighed, scribbling something down.
Above, the containment runes pulsed a sickly violet. The air thickened, suffocating, like breathing underwater.
He felt it then—the tug behind his eyes, stronger than ever. A cold hand wrapped around his soul.
Orion smiled, broken and small.
"Tell the bakery guy… the bread was worth it."
Lights flickered.
Darkness swallowed the precinct.
And Orion fell.