Aiden:
Aiden stared around himself as he stood beside Will in a black void.
"Why exactly are you here?" Aiden asked, turning to him.
"Well, I assume we're dreaming," Will said. "So I guess I just show up for those."
They both looked around in silence for a moment.
"Don't dreams normally have content?" Will asked, gesturing around himself. "What the hell even is this?"
They stood there for another minute before the sound of flapping wings echoed through the darkness.
Aiden turned.
A massive Oxwing flew toward them from the void.
Both he and Will stared as it descended and landed. Around the creature, the darkness shifted, forming the familiar woods of the mountain near Hopestone.
Aiden and Will turned to look around as the Oxwing spoke.
"Aiden Hallowcreek, I should warn you that you seem to have an invader in your mind."
Aiden looked at the Oxwing for a moment.
Then he gestured to Will.
"You mean him? He's actually helpful, so not much of an invader."
"Aw," Will said in a mocking tone. "So you do care."
"I changed my mind," Aiden said. "He's hostile and needs to be destroyed."
The Oxwing stared at them for a moment before nodding and fluttering its wings.
Around them, three doors appeared.
The Oxwing began to fade as it spoke again.
"You, who left my herd in peace, shall be allowed one insight into your mind. Please choose your insight."
Aiden looked around at the doors.
Each had a label.
The first read:
Self-Doubt
The second read:
Abandonment Issues
The third had something stranger written on it.
What if I only matter when I'm useful?
Aiden turned to Will, unsure what to pick.
Will looked back at him and shrugged unhelpfully.
Between the doors, the one with more words seemed the most worrisome. Aiden turned away from it and faced the other two.
Self-Doubt.
Abandonment Issues.
After a moment of thought, he stepped toward the door marked Self-Doubt and opened it.
The black world vanished.
Aiden stood in a dark room made of ancient brick.
A familiar scene spread out around him.
Liora and Kaelen lay on the floor, fading from poison as Aiden desperately tried to treat them.
But something was different.
He kept trying to make the antidotes, following every step he knew, but they refused to work. The ingredients separated. The liquid soured. The mixture broke apart in his hands.
When he poured healing potions onto their wounds, the potions fell apart into their base ingredients.
Panic rose in Aiden's chest until he could barely breathe.
The others were screaming at him to save them.
Everything he had practiced for years kept failing.
He tried again.
Failed.
Tried again.
Failed.
Tried again.
Failed.
Until the world went dark.
Then a massive System announcement appeared.
Party member Kaelen has died.
Party member Liora has died.
You failed to save them.
Aiden jolted awake.
The sun was cresting the horizon.
Jax:
Jax liked to say he was well-traveled.
In the realm of good drinks, good food, and card games of all kinds, he had seen plenty.
He had never, however, seen a massive moth vanish into three doors.
Jax spun on his paws and looked at them.
The first door was labeled:
Fear of Failure
The second read:
Gambler's Fallacy
The last one caught his eye and raised his hackles.
Your brother is waiting.
A simple sentence.
But for Jax, it was everything.
He turned silently toward the door labeled Gambler's Fallacy.
He expected the knob to resist.
It did not.
The door swung inward as he approached.
Color leaked out from the opening and bled into the dark room around him.
Then he was back in a familiar dungeon.
The smell of bone and rot filled the halls. Behind him, the others stood.
Then came the sound of dice shaking in a cup.
They bounced.
The scene flashed.
Aiden was desperately trying to stabilize Liora and Kaelen.
The dice rattled again.
This time, Kaelen and Liora stepped forward, but they did not even survive the first arrow. Both fell dead as the System coldly announced their deaths.
Jax's breath quickened.
The dice began to shake again.
"Stop it," he said quietly.
The dice bounced.
This time, Aiden and Selene stepped forward.
The scene shifted.
Selene carried three bodies out of the dungeon as everyone walked away from each other in different directions.
"Stop it," Jax said louder.
His fur rose in panic.
The dice rattled again.
Aiden stood over Liora and Kaelen, searching his pack wildly. He screamed that he was missing the right herbs.
The scene changed.
Aiden hung from a rope in his room.
A note lay below him.
I'm sorry I couldn't save them.
"STOP IT!"
Jax roared at the top of his lungs.
He channeled his Ki.
He punched.
Bit.
Kicked.
Lunged.
But the nightmare would not end.
Then the scene shifted again.
Jax sat at a table.
A cup with dice inside sat in front of him.
Across from him, his father stared back with an evil grin on his scarred face as lightning crackled around him.
"What's the most you have ever lost on a dice roll?" his father asked.
The cup in Jax's paw felt heavy.
He looked down.
Where the cup had been, his brother's head now rested under his paw.
The memory of his father beheading him flashed through Jax's mind.
Jax jolted awake.
The sun was cresting the horizon.
Kaelen:
There were three doors around Kaelen.
One was labeled:
Behind the Mask
The second read:
What Is Love?
The last drew his eye.
What do you have to complain about?
It was a simple question.
But even looking at it felt like twenty pounds had been added to his shoulders.
Kaelen turned toward the door labeled What Is Love? and stepped through.
He appeared in a familiar garden.
Around him stood a host of servants.
Across from him sat a figure with a face obscured by shadow. Depending on how Kaelen looked at them, everything changed. Clothes. Build. Gender. All of it shifted as he viewed them from different angles.
At the table below him sat a younger version of himself.
Only thirty at the time.
Young Kaelen quietly ate the snacks and drank the tea set before him with practiced politeness.
"I am truly thankful you were willing to come out and see me," the shadowed figure said.
Even though Kaelen could not see their eyes, he knew they were staring at his face.
Not him.
His face.
That tar-like, sickly feeling of being looked at but not seen crawled over him.
Kaelen clutched his chest as his younger self nodded along, wearing a practiced smile that made several servants blush.
"No, thank you for inviting me," younger Kaelen said. "I am having a wonderful time."
"No, you're not," Kaelen hissed through his teeth. "Be honest."
The scene shifted.
Younger Kaelen walked down a hallway while his father's voice echoed around him.
"I found a wonderful prospective bride. The princess of Misagen has an interest in him. She even said she would make us dukes."
A familiar anger surged through Kaelen.
He heard his father eating.
The wet, sloppy sound of meat being torn and chewed as the man grew fatter and fatter, speaking of Kaelen like a perfect golden goose.
The scene shifted again.
A birdcage.
Kaelen remembered it well.
He had been locked inside after telling his father he did not want the marriage. His father had locked him away so he could not run.
The younger version of himself sat inside the cage, knees pulled to his chest.
A small pink flame burned within him.
Then it dimmed.
And went out.
Kaelen did not need to look down.
His own chest gave off no light.
The flame had been gone for a long time.
A sound like ominous chuckling echoed from the darkness
"How easily he lies to himself."
Kaelen woke.
The sun was cresting the horizon.
Liora:
Liora stood before three doors.
Doubt.
What Is My Function?
If You're My Blood, Prove It.
Some would say she should pick Doubt.
Maybe What Is My Function?
Instead, she turned toward the familiar door.
The words were carved into her memory from that day.
The scene shifted.
She stood before the familiar doorway of a large tower. The winds billowed as they always did in Cliefop.
Liora was on her hands and knees, desperately searching through the runes, trying to find a way to escape.
Her father had given her a simple mission.
"This sphere will teleport you to the bottom of the ocean. If you're my blood, prove it. Change the location so you survive."
Liora remembered cutting her finger so she could draw new runes in blood.
The magic hummed faster and faster around her.
It was terrifying.
All she could think was,
Breathe, girl.
You survive this.
Just make sure you hold your breath.
Moments later, just like always when she had this nightmare, she was underwater.
Then she was caught in a fishing net and dragged aboard.
Usually, that was where she woke up.
This time, her body spoke even though she did not choose the words.
"I wonder if I passed my dad's test?"
The words were so full of hope that a shiver ran up her spine.
"Yikes," Liora muttered. "No wonder people use this Oxwing stuff. Rather potent."
She woke.
The sun was cresting the horizon.
Thalia:
When Thalia appeared before the three doors, she already had a guess as to what they would show.
The first read:
Stoicism
The second read:
The Right Time
The last read:
The tunnel collapsed. Please believe me.
Thalia analyzed the doors and nodded.
"Stoicism must refer to my lack of outward emotion in most situations, most likely to the point of driving others away. The Right Time likely relates to my role as someone who must get timings right in a fight, or else someone may be injured or killed."
She looked at the third door.
"But I am not going through that one."
As she said this aloud, the first two doors dissolved into smoke, leaving her alone with the third.
Thalia stared at it.
Then she looked upward.
"Oxwing, I choose to forgo this aid. Please return me to the waking world."
There was a sound of surprise.
Then came the flutter of wings.
The Oxwing landed before her again.
"Are you sure?" it asked. "For most, our dust is considered an expensive commodity."
"Yes," Thalia said. "Please allow me to wake. I do not require your assistance with my mental faculties."
She turned to walk away.
Thalia woke.
The sun was cresting the horizon.
Selene:
When Selene woke in the black space, worry immediately twisted in her stomach.
The Oxwing's presence was somewhat reassuring. At least this meant she was not trapped in a dream hunt by one of those monstrous horse creatures, a Nightmare, or a memory eater.
However, what startled her was the Oxwing's hesitation.
"Normally, you would be given a choice," it said. "However, your psyche shows me that you have one issue that overshadows the others."
Selene paled.
She knew where this was going.
The worry in her stomach sharpened as she tried to say, "Hold on a moment."
Before she could, the world changed.
She was in a familiar place.
The smell hit her first.
Then the cobblestones.
Her breathing quickened.
Behind her, she heard a familiar old voice.
One she had not heard in years.
She turned and saw the banner.
Happy 10th Birthday, Selene.
Her heart raced as she tried to slow her breathing.
She could not.
She saw her younger self.
A girl only nine years old, wearing a fancy pink dress and a tiara, giggling as her thirteen-year-old brother carried her on his shoulders and ran around the yard.
Their oldest sibling, seventeen at the time, watched with a happy smile as he leaned against a nearby wall.
As Selene looked at her oldest brother, her heart raced so fast it hurt.
Then came the deafening crack.
The cry of pain.
The sound of him dropping his sword.
It echoed.
Echoed.
Echoed.
Echoed.
Selene let out a guttural scream and held her head.
The scene shifted.
She stood on a small seat as noblemen, guards, and family members gathered around her. She was about to blow out the candles on her cake.
"No," Selene whispered. "No, no, no."
She tried to dive forward.
To stop herself.
To keep the candle lit.
But she could not do anything.
The flame went out.
Younger Selene screamed.
A ripping sound tore through the party as her left arm mutated, twisting into its new form.
Suddenly, Selene was seeing through the eyes of her younger self.
She looked around and saw the word she hated.
That guttural word that tore at her mind and spirit and made her want to scream.
Monster.
Monster.
Monster.
MONSTER.
Selene awoke screaming.
The sun was cresting the horizon.