Asher, Violet, and Alaric lay comfortably in bed, all of them asleep after the blissful experience. When suddenly, Asher's eyes fluttered open, an unnatural purple glow pulsing within his familiar gray orbs.
For a second, they stayed that way. Just watching without blinking. Then, just as suddenly, his eyes closed again like nothing had happened at all.
But something had.
Asher Nightshade found himself standing in the dream realm. Something was wrong. He had not walked into this shift, rather, had been pulled into it.
The space around him stretched endlessly, a vast, shifting kaleidoscope of colors, like reality itself had been stripped down to its bare bones. The ground beneath his feet existed, but not quite, rippling each time he moved, unstable and uncertain.
Silence pressed in from all sides as he waited for the culprit to reveal itself.
Then something moved, not through the space, but from it.
