Orion awoke with a start from a dream that was already fading from his memory. He breathed heavily and gripped his sheets as the last fragments of whatever nightmare that had plagued him disappeared. He found himself clinging to those last few memories, as though they were important.
"Moss and bone…the undying void…shearing light…"
What did it mean? And why was it important? Orion nearly felt that his mind wasn't his own in that moment. He felt fear, and yet he knew no origin for it.
Orion wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and was confused to find a large amount of sweat had built up in his forehead. Had his nightmare been that terrifying? He was becoming grateful to not remember it now.
Orion had dreamed often in the past, and he was no stranger to nightmares. But this felt different. Nothing had ever stuck with him in the waking world like this had. Orion had to spend a sizeable amount of time to just regulate his breathing after the affair.
'This is really gonna mess with sleep tonight, and I have another long day of work tomorrow.'
The thought of work instantly put him in a sour mood. He had been working long, hard days, and it seemed there was no end for that in sight. His boss, a man who had received his job by being the nephew of some company higher up, had promised shorter days and higher pay for Orion eventually.
That was a year ago now, and neither promise had been fulfilled.
Orion hasn't gotten home until nearly eleven thirty that night, and needed to be up for six am the following morning. It was a miracle that Orion was surviving on that schedule. But the consistent lack of sleep and poor eating habits was beginning to take its toll on his body.
He had lost nearly fifteen pounds, and was skinnier than he had been at any other point in his life. He had bags under his eyes, and his light brown hair had now grown to reach his shoulders. His mother had described him as a zombie the last time she had seen him. It was a hurtful, but fitting comment.
Once his breathing had stabilized and his heart rate reached a normal-ish level, Orion took in his surroundings. He was familiar with his bedroom, he had lived in the apartment for nearly a year at this point, but he felt as though the environment was alien to him. Had it changed at all?
It looked the same as it always had. A room lacking any real decoration, just a bed and a dresser with a night stand to hold up a singular lamp. Orion had purchased a desk for the room a number of months back, but he hadn't found the time to build it. It still sat in an unopened box in the corner of the room. Scattered among the box -and admittedly across every other surface of the bedroom, were papers from work. Even when Orion was home he couldn't truly escape the endless torrent of papers and assignments.
The room felt dangerous, or perhaps more accurately- like it was inhabited by something dangerous. Orion was slow to the realization that he felt watched, as though by some lurking predator. He checked the dark corners of the room, desperate to ease his paranoia. And when his fear was not quelled, he reached over to the lamp at his night stand.
Click.
Nothing happened, the room remained dark. He pressed the switch several more times to no avail. Had the bulb gone out? Or was it the power? Turning to his alarm clock, he saw the device had mysteriously turned off in the night. The apartment complex must've been having electrical issues.
It was only at that moment that Orion realized what had been bothering him. All the lights in his apartment were off, and supposedly every light in the building should've been off too. Yet it seemed bright in his room, as though it was illuminated by some other source. Turning to his window, Orion found the light to be coming from outside.
Orion pulled back the blinds that covered his window, and was forced to cover his eyes. His room was instantly basked in a bright purple radiance. Orion nearly fell off his bed while trying to escape the harsh light. It took nearly a full minute for his eyes to properly adjust to the sudden illumination.
Eventually, the harsh pain in his eyes died down. And he was able to lower his hands and look outside properly. It took him a moment to fully understand the what he was seeing.
The apartment complex he lived in, known as the Grand West Towers, or GWT, was comprised of four towers. One in the middle, with three shorter towers protruding from it at different corners. The shorter towers were all connected to the main tower via sky bridges at their top level. Orion lived in one of those three smaller towers, which gave him full view of the middle tower.
At the very top of the middle tower was the origin of the purple radiance. The top level of the tower seemed to be projecting the light somehow. The whole image reminded him of a lighthouse, albeit far brighter than any lighthouse should be. The details at the top of the tower were lost behind the ever blinding light, making the real source impossible to discern.
"What the hell?" Orion thought to himself as he gazed upon the tower. He had seen nothing like it before, never even heard of something like it. The experience was utterly confounding.
Orion spent a long time just staring at that light, but when his attention finally broke from it, he was met only with more horror.
"Where are the rest of the buildings?"
The GWT was in the middle of a dense downtown district. It was surrounded by several other towers. All equally gargantuan. And yet he could see none of them. Hell, he couldn't see anything.
Outside of the GWT, there was nothing. Only a lightless abyss that seemed to stretch forever. Orion stared into that abyss only long enough to realize the gravity of the situation. Afterwards, he immediately reached for his phone, desperate to contact someone. He yanked it from its charger and pressed the power button.
There was nothing.
The device refused to turn on. Orion tried desperately. It wasn't dead, he knew that for sure. But he didn't know what else could be happening. A deep panic began to take root in his stomach.
"Are we at war? Is this some new experimental weapon? Or am I still dreaming?"
Orions panic was cut through by a sudden splitting headache. He yelped, dropping his phone and falling out of bed. It felt as though a large nail were being driven between the sections of his brain. He tried to scream, but the function became alien to him. Suddenly, text appeared behind his eyes.
It was as though he was seeing the words in his mind, but he didn't conjure the images, they were there without his control or desire. They seemed fuzzy at first, but gradually he was able to make sense of their shape.
[Trial started. Current objective: defeat Moss shambler and recieve your Gift.]
"What?"
The confusion was never ending. The words disappeared after a moment, as did the headache, but that did nothing to remedy Orions lack of understanding. He began to question if he was simply going insane, if the constant work had finally caught up with him.
That's when he heard the first scream.
It came from the floor above him, it wasn't the sound of shock, but of pain. Pure agonizing pain. It was followed by another, this time from below him, and then again from the room directly to his right.
Orion jolted to his feet, adrenaline suddenly coursing through his every muscle. He didn't know what was happening, but he knew people were being hurt, that they needed help. And he needed to do something.
He charged at his door, swinging it open and stepping into the hallway. Coming out of his bedroom, he faced the kitchen some fifteen paces away from him. Thats where it stood.
It would've been nearly nine feet tall if not for its hunched back. It was hard to see all the details, given that the majority of the figure was covered by a moss cloak that piled up at the Beasts feet. But it did not make the creatures structure any less obvious.
It was a skeleton, with a missing lower jaw and razor sharp upper teeth. It had nothing resembling eyes, and it did not seem to notice Orions sudden appearance.
All around the floor about the Beast there was moss. It stretched across the ground, and Orion could see it actively growing like tendrils looking for prey. Orion only then noticed that where the final digit of the beasts fingers should've been, there were instead long claws, sharp enough to cleave right through flesh.
Orion couldn't breath, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. He tried to wake up, tried to force himself out of whatever hell he had been placed in. But he couldn't. He was in a cage with a lion, and there was no way out.
Moss and bone…
"What the hell is going on?!"