Chapter 307
NIGHTMARES
IAM stepped out of the shower and glanced at the sleeping figures of Reuel and Yohan. He had dressed in plain shorts and a T-shirt despite the cold creeping into the air recently as the seasons changed. Since he spent most of his time without using his Avien, he felt it the same way any regular person would.
However, he always activated his Avien when he went to sleep. The others in the room already knew. It was a precaution—one that allowed him to prepare for any unexpected danger. He assumed that anyone who would try to sneak into the room in the middle of the night to check his level would not have good intentions.
So it was a calculated risk he was willing to take.
He put his things away, then sat on his bed and leaned back against the frame, staring into empty space. It almost looked as if he had no intention of sleeping.
And the truth was… if he could avoid it, he would.
The reason was embarrassing, to say the least. IAM Grimm was… afraid. Afraid that he would have nightmares.
Yes. After everything he had endured, he now dreaded sleep itself.
But there was a reason. He wasn't just being weak or childish. There was a reason!
His mind drifted back to the day he had woken from his coma. As he sorted through his memories, he had eventually reached the moment when that massive spawn had smashed into him and released its gas.
The world had twisted. Shapes and sounds warped into things that should not exist. Reality itself had become unstable.
He remembered everything. The desperate acts he had committed just to survive in that distorted world. The years that had passed for him there, even though only moments had passed outside.
And he wished he did not remember any of it.
Those memories were like shards of glass buried deep in his mind. That place had been a boiling pot of madness and insanity, a chaos that corrupted everything it touched. He could not bring himself to look too deeply into it again.
So, in an attempt to escape them, he had relied on that strange attribute within him. He had willed those memories to fade—to dissolve into nothing. One by one, the horrors weakened, their edges blurring, until they were erased completely.
At least, that was what he thought.
To his shock, some of the most horrific experiences—the ones that had carved themselves deepest into his consciousness—remained. They were faint, distant, but undeniably still there, drifting in the back of his mind no matter how much he tried to erase them.
He had tried again. He pushed that strange attribute harder, forcing it to dig deeper, to reach further. The memories trembled, flickered… and then stopped changing.
They would not fade any further.
No matter how much will he poured into it, those fragments clung to him, as if they were etched into the very fabric of his existence.
He had wondered why. Was the ability weaker than he believed? Or was it his own lack of understanding—his incomplete control over it? The question went unanswered.
In the end, he exhaled slowly and let it go.
All he could do was bury what remained. He pushed those fragments into the deepest corner of his mind, into the same sealed cavern where his experience of death rested—a forbidden place, cut off from everything else.
And he had thought that would be the end of it.
But no… not even close.
Ever since the day he woke from his coma, those memories returned every single night. Without fail, they surfaced in his dreams, forcing him to relive everything again and again. Every moment of terror, replayed as if time itself refused to move on.
To be honest, it felt like a form of torture. At times, he even wondered what kind of abhorrent sin he must have committed in a past life to deserve such an exhausting and turbulent new one.
He let out a quiet sigh.
IAM continued to stare into empty space, unwilling to fall asleep, unwilling to return to that place he had named Dushlok. But exhaustion crept over him all the same, wrapping its lazy chains around his body and slowly dragging him toward unconsciousness.
In the end, he could only accept it.
He lay down properly, facing the ceiling, wondering what kind of nightmare awaited him this time. His eyes flickered, struggling to stay open, until darkness finally claimed them.
…
He dreamt of his first day in Dushlok.
One of the most disturbing moments of all.
...
He could only watch as it closed the distance in seconds. Before he could move, two of its limbs shot forward like spears, stabbing clean through IAM's legs and pinning him to the ground.
A white-hot pain exploded through his mind—raw, electric agony that tore the scream straight out of his throat. He writhed, trying to pull free, but the creature only pressed harder, its weight bearing down on him.
Another blow followed—one of its jagged limbs driving into his left shoulder, the impact sending a violent jolt through his entire frame. His vision burst into white, his breath hitching as the pain spread outward in blinding waves.
Above him, the clicking grew louder—frenzied... Almost ecstatic. It echoed through the chamber like it was savoring the sound of his suffering.
IAM felt another jagged limb slam into his stomach, tearing through muscle and gut with a sickening, wet crunch. The impact forced the air from his lungs, and he choked, gagging as hot tears streamed down his face, stinging his eyes. Pain radiated from the wound in searing waves, each movement of his torso sending shock after shock through his entire body.
The creature gripped him with its other limbs, lifting him off the ground in a slow motion. IAM flailed violently, his limbs thrashing in both agony and desperate resistance, but the bony pincers held him unyielding.
The clicking of the creature swelled, filling every corner of his mind, drowning out even his own screams. It consumed his senses entirely, echoing in his skull with a symphony that felt alive and malevolent.
The creature began dragging him toward one of its vast, hollow openings, the darkness ahead seeming to widen with every step. IAM's chest rose and fell rapidly, his eyes fixed on that void as he was pulled closer, powerless to stop it.
He could only stare in helpless fear as the last traces of light vanished and his head was forced inside, the world around him collapsing into suffocating blackness.
Cold surrounded him, pressing in from all sides, and the grip holding him tightened as if the creature wanted him fully aware of what was about to happen.
Then, without warning, a pale mist burst toward his face at point-blank range. It rushed over him in a sudden wave, overwhelming his senses before he could even react.
He tried to clamp his lips shut, to hold his breath, but it didn't matter. The fog was alive. It twisted and writhed like something sentient, forcing its way past his clenched teeth, snaking up his nostrils, and crawling down his throat. He could feel it burning through his insides, slithering deeper until it merged with it, as though it had always belonged there.
He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. His mind began to fracture under the onslaught as the poison spread, and soon, the world around him dissolved into chaos.
Faces began to appear in the dark—bloated, eyeless, whispering his name in voices that gurgled like water rushing through broken glass. Reflections of himself appeared on every surface, each one twisted in some subtle, unsettling way, like broken versions of his own existence.
The surroundings pulsed, as though the very space around him were alive. Gravity seemed to lose meaning; dark streaks flowed in impossible directions. Blood trickled upward instead of down, and somewhere, distant but clear, a child was laughing—a hollow, echoing sound, sending a cold knot of unease through him.
Then the laughter warped into screams, jagged and piercing, tearing through the air. His hands weren't his anymore; they convulsed violently, the skin mottled and rotting, fingers bending in grotesque ways that made his bones feel like they were snapping inside him.
The fog thickened, seeping into his lungs like smoke, curling into his veins, clouding his thoughts. Pain clawed through him from every direction: sharp spasms in his limbs, a nauseating twisting in his stomach, a burning in his skull that screamed for release. Colours bled into sounds and sounds twisted into smells, and the world became a writhing, chaotic storm of sensation—an unbearable blur that made his mind fracture.
And then—it all began to spiral. Reality itself seemed to stretch and twist as if the universe had turned inside out. The spinning, the pulling, the twisting—it coalesced into a singular point, a dark vortex that shimmered faintly like a galaxy seen through a cracked lens. Stars of impossible colours burned along its edges, swirling in hypnotic, maddening patterns, dragging everything toward it.
He tried to resist, at the impossible gravity of it all, but his strength was nothing. He felt himself drawn inexorably toward the maelstrom. The screams, the illusions, the burning colours, the twisting pain—they all merged into one consuming vortex of madness. And then he was falling, spiraling through the blackness, body and soul yanked toward that singular point, the world dissolving around him, leaving only the dizzying endless pull.
Finally, the world faded to black.