Karl's sleep deepened into restless unrest, the Royal Azure flames still pulsing softly around him, cocooning him in warmth. But sleep is rarely kind to a mind like his. The warmth shifted into cold gray mist, swirling thick around him like smoke through a shattered city.
The rooftop beneath him faded. Concrete, rusted guardrails, and the faint wind all disappeared. He found himself in a dim, ruinous courtyard, gray stone cracked beneath his feet. Smoke and ash clung to the air.
The fog came first—gray, suffocating, endless. Then the world warped into a ruined courtyard of crumbling buildings, the air thick with ash and silence. Karl's legs moved, but only in his mind; his body stayed rigid, trapped beneath the lingering pulse of the Azure flames.
And then… she appeared.
A girl. A small figure, barely twelve years old. Her hair was dirty-blonde, tangled, hung in clumps and plastered to her face. Her tiny frame trembled violently, knees bent as she knelt over two lifeless bodies—a man and a woman, sprawled unnaturally across the ground. Her golden eyes—two pupils each, like molten suns trapped in darkness—glimmered in the gray fog.
She cried quietly at first, then louder, her sobs jagged and uneven, tearing through the mist.
"Please… forgive me… forgive me…" she whispered, voice cracking with despair. Her small hands clutched at her face, pressing against the corpse of the man and then the woman, as though trying to erase what had happened.
Her small shoulders shook violently as she wept, hands clutched to her face. Her sobs echoed painfully through the empty space.
"K-k-kill… me… forgive me…" Her voice was broken, a child's, trembling with unbearable grief.
Her eyes… four molten-gold pupils stared straight into Karl's chest, unblinking and terrifying, each one burning with sorrow and pain beyond her years.
Karl's chest tightened. Fear clawed up his spine, though he could not move. His feet felt like lead; his arms refused to respond.
And then a laugh.
A dark, undulating aura began to rise from the corpses, writhing like smoke, curling above the bodies like a mocking shadow. Then, a dry, harsh laugh echoed through the courtyard. Not her laugh. Something else. Malevolent. Echoing in Karl's mind and rattling his bones.
High, cruel, mocking. It rolled through the fog like black fire, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once. A dark aura spiraled upward from the corpses, coiling over them like smoke alive with malevolence. It hovered above the bodies, twisting, mocking, almost sentient. The child's tears glistened in its reflection, but she did not flinch. Her gaze hardened.
Slowly, her small hand lifted. Her golden eyes burned brighter, pupils contracting to pinpoints of molten light. Her lips moved, and Karl heard—not with his ears, but inside his skull.
"I swear… I will kill your kind… all of you… once and for all."
The words struck him like a physical blow. Her small figure radiated an aura of wrath far older than her age, and the fog itself seemed to recoil from her vow. Karl's heart hammered. He tried to speak, tried to move, tried to run—but his body ignored him.
The girl's sobs faltered. She looked up, eyes burning brighter, the molten-gold pupils glowing through tears, her gaze piercing Karl even through sleep.
"I… I swear," she whispered, voice trembling but resolute. "I will kill… your kind… all of it… once and for all."
The dark aura above the corpses pulsed with each word, as if feeding off her promise, mocking her grief while amplifying it. The laughter grew louder, twisting into an unnatural chorus of mirth and malice. Karl's mind, an unbearable echo alongside the child's grief and resolve.
Karl tried to step forward, to reach her, to stop her—but his body refused. Legs stuck. Hands frozen. His chest thumped in terror. The ground beneath her feet cracked faintly, shadows crawling across the rubble like black rivers.
Her small hand lifted, trembling but steady. The vow was complete. The aura above the corpses writhed violently, shrieking soundlessly, the very air vibrating with the weight of her rage and despair.
Then she vanished. The corpses dissolved into smoke. The dark laughter faded into a low, echoing hum, leaving only fog.
Karl thrashed in his sleep, muscles jerking uncontrollably. He thrashed, trying to wake, panic surging through his dream-bound body. His limbs jerked violently, fists swinging into the fog.
And then—heat.
The Royal Azure flames around him, attuned to his subconscious stress, flared upward uncontrollably. The warmth he had felt before twisted into searing heat. Concrete beneath him began to soften, melting slightly, bubbling in eerie waves—but Karl did not burn. Neither did Agnes, who hovered protectively above him, observing the nightmare's crescendo with alarm.
Karl's panic increased. He kicked, flailed, and shouted in his sleep. The flames rose, licking higher, glowing cobalt and admiral with unrestrained power as the the flames combusted into an inferno.
"Karl! WAKE UP, YOU IDIOT!"
Agnes struck his cheek with a hard slap of her holographic hand. The impact jolted through him, pulling him violently from the dream.
Karl gasped, eyes snapping open. Sweat soaked his brow, chest heaving. The Royal Azure flames swirled wildly around him, still intense enough to melt patches of the rooftop concrete, but leaving him and Agnes untouched.
Agnes hovered close, holographic form flickering, cyan cheeks blazing with relief and exasperation.
"You're… okay! But seriously—you almost fried the entire rooftop! And you were thrashing like a maniac!" she scolded, hands hovering protectively over him.
Karl swallowed, blinking rapidly, trying to steady himself, pulse hammering, remnants of the nightmare still vivid in his mind.
He whispered hoarsely, voice shaking:
"…The girl… the two pupils… the corpses… the… laughter…"
Agnes' gaze hardened slightly, protective, possessive, almost feral. "Shh. It's over. You're awake. You're fine. I've got you."
The Royal Azure flames settled, curling around Karl like a living blanket once more, warm, soft, and comforting, while the nightmare lingered faintly in the edges of his mind—a dark promise he couldn't yet comprehend.