“A potion? Like a witch’s potion? I don’t know M. What If I’m allergic to one of the ingredients? It could kill me!”

  I watched Elina pace in a circle around the principal's office, her grinding steps wearing the fine carpet down to its nubs.

  “Are you allergic to anything?”

  “Not that I know of, but I’ve never drank the juice of the Lower Layers!”

  “Don’t say it like that,” I said with a grimace.

  “Well its true, they take the Nightmare beetle blood, the Nightmare corn husk and they grind it down with some Nightmare grey stone and there you go, an anaphylactic potion,” Elina said waving her hands around.

  “You can’t just add Nightmare in front of everything.”

  “The Nightmare Anaphylactic Potion. The NAP.”

  Her wild gesticulating made her hair fall over her face and she blew it away with an indignant huff before tying it back properly.

  Once she was done she gave me an expectant look, but I just made a pen spin lazily in the air with my Intent. My mind drifted back to the barn, the dismembered corpse surrounded by cut out organs, muscles and skin. Veins and arteries snaking throughout the body next to nerves with lymph nodes concentrated in key locations-

  “Monty! I could grow a tail!”

  I sighed, refocusing on the petulant child in front of me.

  “Some children actually are born with tails, they can get removed easily enough.”

  “No there are not.”

  “Yes. There are,” I stated.

  She stared me down, trying to figure out if I was lying, but in the end she waved it away.

  “Either way I wouldn’t let anyone remove it either, it's mine.”

  “Elina, what is the point of you complaining about getting a tail if you would keep it?”

  “Its the principle of the matter.”

  “What matter?”

  “That I’m stressed, and as my friend you need to accept my needless ramblings rather than complain about them.”

  I let my Intent Fashioning lapse, catching the pen and giving Elina a look filled with empathy and compassion.

  “Of course my good friend Elina, you will grow a hairy monkey tail then die of anaphylactic shock due to the Nightmare beetle blood in the NAP.”

  “... well at least you were listening, but my tail would not be hairy. I am a lady after all.”

  “Oh my bad, a perfectly hairless monkey tail will be displayed at your funeral.”

  “Only the best for me.”

  “Only the best,” I agreed blandly.

  A brief knock came at the door before Headmistress Elfer strolled in. She was still the same sever, decaffeinated woman that I briefly saw at orientation. Her black dress with yellow trim was rumpled and stained and in her gloved hands she carried a large complex metal box.

  “Good, you are here Miss Moda, and good morning to you as well Mister Gao,” she said, placing the box onto her desk before turning to Elina.

  “Normally this is a private affair, but I understand the need for emotional support.”

  That soothed some of the annoyance at having to deal with Elina’s nonsensical ramblings. It felt… good to be relied on.

  “Let me first congratulate you, it takes a lot of courage to face a Nightmare, and it takes something more to kill one with nothing but the strength of your human body. However that alone is not enough to be awarded this potion, and it is only because you are a student of this school that you are getting this opportunity. To help pay for this school's expenses I sell the power to make people’s Dream a reality. Each potion needs to be custom made for each individual. The ingredients alone for your potion could buy me an airship, and my ability to make it into a Dreamer Awakening Potion cannot be bought with gold and jewels.”

  Headmistress Elfer fell silent, her hand on the shuttered metal box and eyes leveled cooly upon Elina.

  “Do you know why I am telling you this?”

  Elina locked her joints and squared her jaw.

  “To put me in debt to you.”

  “Yes, you are in debt to me.”

  I did not like the sound of that, and from the look on Elina’s face she did not either. Headmistress Elfer smirked.

  “You will pay me back by being a good Dreamer. I have read the other professors' reports on you. Headstrong with a rather brutal view of justice. In a country where everyone hides behind false smiles and feigned reactions, someone with a more simplistic view is needed. Kill Nightmare’s, protect humanity, and enjoy life.”

  Elina took a few moments to respond, obviously thrown off by the seemingly free pass she was being given.

  “I will do so Headmistress.”

  “Good. Now as I said before the Dreamer Awakening Potion is uniquely crafted to the individual receiving it. Should someone else drink this potion they would likely die or turn into some abominable Nightmare.”

  Yeah, that was not going to make Elina any more reassured.

  “The base ingredient is the pulpated pituitary gland and pancreas of a Fireslick Traxo. They are known to live in the Third Layer north of the Metal Wastes beneath the Bronze Isles. To bring down the high temperature and bring an overall balance to the potion I added a Pink Reaver Lotus found in the Webbed Swamps on the Charred Continent. The seed and skin of a Wellspring Mango cultivated in Huruma Oasis to smooth out the integration process. A ground down Morning Jewel in the Third Layer beneath the northern regions of the Sun State to add rigidity and stabilization to your Dreamscape once it opens. The lightning of a Thunderbird Mating ritual to amplify the power of the potion and the ichor of a Water Slime to spread it out. Once all put together I got this.”

  Headmistress Elfer took out a key, inserting it into the lock. The rapid licks of moving machinery rang out and the shutters slid away to reveal a corked bottle. It was as large as my two hands put together and swirled with glowing red and pink lights. Every few seconds a crackling bolt reminiscent of a firework would fly through the translucent liquid before bursting in a shower of sparks.

  “Is it not dangerous to give out your secrets like that?” I asked, eyes drawn to the beautiful concoction. “Someone might not be able to make an exact copy, but they can use similar reasoning to make their own.”

  “If another Dreamer were able to copy my methods to open Dreamscapes then good for them and good for us. That means that there are more Dreamers in the world,” Headmistress Elfer replied, carefully pulling the potion bottle from the opened container.

  Movement from Elina caught my eye, she glided forward, her eyes solely focused on the Dreamer Awakening Potion.

  A beam of dark blue Intent flew out of the Headmistress and wrapped around Elina, holding her in place.

  “And that is how you know the potion was made properly. It resonates with her very being. Her recently closed Dreamscape is practically salivating at the idea of opening once more,” Headmistress Elfer said, her eyes alight with pride.

  She strode toward Elina who stared down the potion like it was her favorite meal. The Headmistress placed a finger on Elina’s forehead pushing her face up until the redhead met her eyes.

  “Now Miss Moda, you skipped breakfast as instructed correct?”

  Elina tried to look down at the Dreamer Awakening Potion, but the Headmistress kept it just out of sight.

  “Y-yes Headmistress,” Elina replied, finally coming back to herself. “I apologies for my behavior.”

  “Don’t. Now listen closely. Are you paying attention?”

  “Yes Headmistress.”

  “Good. Drink the entire potion at once and don’t eat anything for at least an hour. Because some of the ingredients are rather volatile there is a chance to affect your surroundings, which is why you will stay here for the next thirty minutes while the potion takes effect, and during that duration you will be indisposed, though myself and Mister Gao will be here with you. Lastly there will be an object that forms in your freshly opened Dreamscape. I recommend not doing anything with it until you understand more of its function and significance in your Dreamscape, however after about two months it will begin to deteriorate. Whether or not you keep it is up to you.”

  I raised my hand, but the Headmistress ignored me.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Uh, I- I believe so Ma’am.”

  Headmistress Elfer took her finger off of Elina’s forehead, the Intent bindings fading away and she lifted the Dreamer Awakening Potion to her.

  “Then drink and take a seat.”

  Elina’s eyes once again took the glassy, entranced quality of an alcoholic. Her fingers wrapped around the bottle, taking it from the Headmistress before uncorking it.

  “Here’s to not having to work at the restaurant,” she said quietly to herself before beginning to down the potion.

  The glassy quality to her eyes deepened, and the bottle slipped from her fingers, the Headmistress catching it deftly.

  “Mister Gao, grab that chair,” she said pointing to the one beside myself.

  I did so, pulling it up behind Elina before gently guiding her to sit down. She began to act oddly, running her hands down the armrest as though she’d never seen one before, smacking her lips and rubbing her eyebrows with the tips of her fingers.

  “She’s going to be like that for a while,” Headmistress Elfer said, sitting down in her chair behind the desk. “I believe you had a question earlier?”

  “Yes ma’am,” I replied, taking a moment to remember. “You said that an object would appear in her Dreamscape. Is that normally possible? Or is it something unique to your potions.”

  “It is very normal. Wits, Nightmares or Natural Desires each of them- Yes?” she cut herself off as I raised my hand once more.

  “What are Natural Desires?”

  “Items that are not living but still have special properties. Sun Stones are the easiest example, some plants are also considered Natural Desires such as the Wellspring Mango I mentioned earlier despite being living due to them having no other Nightmarish traits. As I was saying each of those can cause items to form in your own or someone else's Dreamscape without the typical Crafting that we do daily. You do Craft daily, Mister Gao?”

  “Yes Headmistress, every day.”

  “Good. To give you an example of creating items in another Dreamscape I will point you to the Coal Empire’s royal family. What made them so powerful was their Dreamer Family’s ability to produce a special fire. This fire could burn anything. Wood, flesh, metal, water, and of course Intent. Many of them created Wits that directly burned through another Dreamer’s Dreamscape. Another is the Purple Drop Sect on the Charred Continent that cultivate various Nightmare insects that they call Gu to empower themselves. These insects feed on a Dreamer's power and can even live and breed inside their Dreamscapes.”

  “That does not sound safe.”

  Or hygienic.

  “It's not, there is a reason they are the only one of the major Sects not yet affiliated with the Brew Union.”

  A flash of pink light drew our attention. Elina, who was chewing on the collar of her shirt had a small spark of pink light pop out of the top of her head and fall to the ground fading into nothingness.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Ah, its begun. I doubt there will be any major issues with her Dreamscape opening, if you wish you can leave.”

  “No thank you Headmistress.”

  “Very well then. I will at least ask that you stay silent.”

  Headmistress Elfer then began to take notes while observing Elina, ignoring me completely. I did something similar, but quickly grew bored with it. The pink flares became monotonous and I drew no profound breakthroughs from her sticking a finger in her belly button and swirling it.

  Instead I turned to my journal. I was on the final page, one I had been saving for some time. Every inch of every page was now filled with notes, drawings and smudges.

  This final page would be for what would come in the next journal. Dreaming, or more specifically. Rooms.

  Despite Professor Pure telling me not to begin experimentation with Rooms yet, I couldn’t help myself.

  I wanted a Wit, to have my own ability. To bend reality to my needs.

  But the process was going to take longer than I thought. Even if I made the walls and floor of the room as simply as possible to separate the Room from the rest of my Dreamscape I would still need to fill it with items potent enough to have a usable Wit. But then rushing to finish the Wit would force me to abandon actually experimenting with the Dreamscape. I wanted to know how the shape, makeup and design of the Room changed a Wits function.

  At the top of the page I wrote the word Breakdown. I may be ignoring Professor Pure’s orders for making a Wit, but I was not going to jump right into manipulating living tissue. Instead I would substitute it for something else I was very familiar with, machinery.

  I drew a box on the page next, sketching in a clock in the center and labeling it Grandfather Clock. In one of the corners I drew a piston and wheel, its label being Steam Engine. Then came Bicycle, Rifle and lastly the Six Simple Machines.

  Beneath the box I began to note down how the items would be configured and the idea behind the Crafting that would give purpose to Breakdown.

  Then I erased Grandfather Clock and Six Simple Machines, switching their locations on my drawing.

  The idea was that the four items in the corners would be in a constant state of coming apart, and once they completed their breakdown they would revert back to their original state to complete the cycle again.

  This would fuel the concept of separating machinery to its working parts.

  As for how it would work in the real world, I assumed I would either touch a piece of machinery or that I would have to envelop it using Intent Fashioning.

  I tapped my pencil against my lips, once again looking at Elina who now had a steady stream of Pink Intent rising off of her. Regular sparks of the same pink fireworks flew off of her as well. Perhaps it would stay with her even once her Dreamscape was fully opened.

  Looking back down I continued to write.

  Next I would alter the Room’s color, texture and walls to give me some idea how different designs affected the Wit.

  I was not completely happy with the idea, but consoled myself with the knowledge that at least this would aid me in altering items already Crafted in my Dreamscape, something I’d seldom done before.

  With my plan written out before me I was able to once again admire Elina’s awakening. Her hypnotized movements were smoother now, more methodical. She traced the recesses and protrusions of her face, running a nail through the groove of the eyelid, sliding up the bridge of her nose to then edge her hairline and follow the shell of her ear and down the curve of her jaw.

  When the finger reached the tip of her jaw Elina’s eyes opened.

  “He has my face…” she whispered before noticing the pink Intent around her. “Oh. Oh! I’m back.”

  “Indeed you are Miss Moda. May I ask who had your face,” Headmistress Elfer asked.

  “My son. He has, had, wait…” Elina looked down at her uniform with scrunched eyebrows. “My children, there were eight of them, but I don’t remember what my husband looked like. And now they’re all gone.”

  She did not seem particularly sad, just confused

  “Were all of your visions of family?” the Headmistress asked.

  “No, I also was a theater star. The Red Riot, but I don’t know how to act.”

  “What else?”

  “Monty and I also killed The Drowned King, who looked like a crab for some reason, then we cooked him and fed him to the Layer, ending everyone’s hunger. I found a hoard of treasure and used the money to create orphanages.”

  A dozen more absurd fantasies later and the Headmistress seemed satisfied with her results, shooing us out of the room while giving Elina a reminder not to eat or drink while the potion settled in her stomach.

  “So what was the item in your Dreamscape?” I asked as we headed out of the main building and toward the dorms.

  “Its some red jelly stone thing. Well it feels as solid as stone, but it moves and wiggles like jelly. There’s this bolt of lightning that circles it, kind of like a bird.”

  “So it feels nothing like stone.”

  “Its rough like stone, and, you know- stop ruining this for me.”

  “Fine. What about the lightning?”

  “Oh, I’m not going to touch that.”

  “Its not going to hurt you.”

  At least I thought it wouldn’t.

  “Its Thunderbird mating ritual lightning Monty. That's gross.”

  “You still drank the potion.”

  “So?”

  “So you drank Thunderbird mating ritual lightning Elina.”

  Elina made a rather undignified gagging face.

  “Please don’t say that, M.”

  “But its-”

  “I do not care. Anyways we should celebrate my Dreamscape opening. Lets go shopping!”

  “We didn’t celebrate mine.”

  And I didn’t particularly want to go shopping, I wanted to work on my Room idea some more.

  “Yes, let's celebrate the attempted murder of another student.”

  “I stabbed him in the thigh, I wasn’t trying to kill him.”

  “Everyone else thought you were.”

  “They’re imbeciles.”

  Elina chuckled, opening the door to the dorms.

  “I’ll come and grab you in a bit, wear, well, something else. Some other students have been getting attacked by the Cheshires.”

  “Was Brax one of them by chance?” I asked hopefully.

  “Unfortunately no he-”

  “No I was not,” Brax spoke up from where he sat in the corner of the lobby. “But good on you Gao for making light of your classmates getting attacked in the streets.”

  Russel, Chetti and Tasman sat around him and they seemed to be working on some project, though we didn’t have one assigned for classes at the moment.

  An overseer sat behind a desk, idly watching the show. I wondered if he was relaying everything that he saw. They were often so quiet it was easy to forget they were there watching us.

  “He wasn’t making light of classmates getting attacked, he was hoping you were.”

  “I don’t believe I was talking to you, Moda.”

  “I don’t believe I care, Brax. Now I’m sure opening your Dreamscape has given you all sorts of ideas on getting your lackluster dignity back from Monty, but I’d take a good long look at the scar he gave you before doing so.”

  “There is no scar Moda, and- you- he-”

  Brax stuttered to a stop and I turned around from walking down the hallway. Elina also looked at me confused.

  “M?”

  “Why are we wasting time talking to him? We have nothing to prove,” I said.

  Elina’s lips spread into a wicked grin.

  “Right, go ahead and change so we can head out.”

  “I don’t want to go into the city.”

  “See you in a few!” Elina said, ignoring me and rushing up the stairs.

  I gave Brax a final glance before heading into my room.

  As was normal since the thievery I looked around but found nothing moved around or missing. From the drawer of my desk I took out a sealed envelope, my parents address written in the center. I’d written it more than a week ago, but had been unable to bring myself to send it out. Perhaps I could drop it off at a post office while in the city.

  I still needed my button back from my little brother, but there was more. Despite them shoving me away and replacing me with a more loveable version I still wanted to be a part of that family.

  It was pathetic, I was pathetic.

  At the edge of my vision, a few feet up from my desk, I was a slight shift in the shadows. A path of my wall was different. As though someone had broken into my room while I was gone to draw a lifelike closed eye on it, and for a moment I thought that was exactly what someone had done. But then I saw the slight shadow from the distended orb of the eye due to the light shining in from the window. There were even long tendrils of shadow for the lashes.

  I silently placed the letter back on the desk. What was I supposed to do? That was a Nightmare of some kind, or a well executed, if confusing prank. Was that truely and eye in the wall? What had been the movement that caught my attention. Were the hair of the lashes true hair or made of a similar material as the wall. Could it open? Could it see? Did it have a brain to process the information?

  I didn’t run away to grab a teacher, instead I moved closer, climbing atop my desk and raising my hand. It froze an inch from the protrusion. I should get a professor, Nightmares could have any power. What if its gaze killed me instantly, or made me go insane? What if it started to control my body causing me to go on a bloody rampage before one of the teachers put me down.

  Instead of those thoughts pushing me away from the closed eye, they instead pulled me closer. The pad of my forefinger brushed the top eyelashes, the thin hairs acting no different than my own would. As I did so I saw that the color of the wall was different in spots on the edge of the closed lid. Instead of the dark grey wall it was a light skin tone similar to my own. Almost exactly like my own.

  I then pressed down lightly on the eye itself, mimicking it on my own eye. The warmth of the flesh, the give of the skin and muscle and the less squishy but still moveable eyeball itself. It all felt the same.

  Then it squirmed beneath my fingers, the eyeball rolling around in its socket as if it were complaining about being woken from its sleep.

  I yanked my hand back and nearly fell off the desk. However the eye still did not open, and there were still things to explore. The eye moved, but did it move due to muscles or just magically- no not magically, did it move using Intent?

  Once again I placed my finger on the protrusion, this time tracing the ridge below the eyeball. It felt solid, but was it bone or was it just the wall? The wallpaper covering the layer beneath made it difficult to tell, and I was tempted to grab a knife to find out.

  But this was different then the dead homeless man or Burst. Though it may be a Nightmare, this was still a living creature, right? Could just an eye be considered a living being? Would I be justified by cutting into it?

  It was a rather silly thought, I ate some sort of meat every day, thousands of livestock were killed to feed the populace, some people hunted Nightmares to sell their parts or to just keep their family’s safe. I myself had killed an uncountable number of bugs just for being a nuisance and had no qualms in using excessive force in defending myself.

  But this would be killing to satiate my own personal perversion.

  With my thumb and pointer finger I pinched the eyeball. I felt it distend, the ball squirming around in protest. I pinched harder, and for a moment thought it would burst out of the closed lid like a ripe pimple. Instead a tear seeped out of the closed lid, catching on the lashes briefly before sliding down the hump of the eye and continuing down the wall, its wetness darkening the wallpaper.

  A tear! It has tear ducts! Eyelashes were expected, it is the most identifiable part that style the eye right along the shape of the lid. But tear ducts mean that it is more than a showy organ on the wall, and instead has function working with its form.

  I calmed myself down. Perhaps there were no tear ducts and the eyeball used some Intent based conjuration to Dream up some tears.

  I eyed the now stationary teardrop. Was it a true tear? With the salty taste and sour traces of mucus? Or was it just water? Or perhaps Intent pretending to be water and would soon fizzle away. What if it was both Intent and water, Dreamed by this Nightmare to be truly real while at the same time coming from nowhere? Could I collect it and satiate my thirst? Or would it instead pass through my digestive system and get rejected by my bodily functions?

  I let go of the eyeball and instead retraced the dark line left by the tear and eventually scooped up the remaining liquid with my finger.

  Room temperature, and felt no different than water. Did tears have a palpable viscosity different to normal water? I’d never tested it before, but I would next time.

  Holding the tear up to my nose I lightly sniffed, and of course found nothing. I then glanced at the closed eye on the wall, the closed door, and the closed curtains.

  Nobody was watching me, I was safe. I lowered my finger slightly and opened my mouth, lapping up the tear with my tongue.

  I let it sink into my taste buds, savoring the flavor. Yes, it very much was a tear. Salty and sour.

  I glanced back up at the closed eye. Only to see the watchful gaze of the now opened eye stare back. The veins of the white sclera were red with irritation, its black pupil dilated to an extreme and its dull grey iris a thin band surrounding it.

  I fell back, slipping off the desk and slamming my head against the ground. I was able to ignore the pain long enough to scramble into my closet, breaking line of sight with the now awakened Nightmare.

  My head throbbed in tandem with my heart, pain and panic in equal measure. How much danger was I in? Should I make a break for the door, scream? Did the Nightmare have any ability at all? What were Nightmare abilities called?

  An echoing rhythmic banging sounded out from the room and I clenched one of my coats, wrinkling the pressed fabric. Was it crawling out of the wall? The lonesome eye could have been a ruse, and in reality it had a whole body ready to devour me.

  The sound came again, could the people in the rooms next to me hear? Were they even in their rooms or would I disappear without a trace, becoming an urban legend that would eventually create Nightmares on its own.

  “Monty! Oi! Open up!” Elina called from outside the door, then the banging once more came and I realized she had been knocking the whole time.

  I peeked out from the closet toward the eye, only to see it closed once more, the dark streak from the tear trail constantly drawing my eye back up towards it.

  Elina knocked again, far too loudly.

  “Monty! Are you in there?!”

  I retreated back into the closet

  “Yes.”

  “What?!”

  “Yes!” I said more loudly.

  “Well open up! Someone stole my clubs!”

  “... What?”

  “Someone! Stole! My clubs!” she enunciated slowly.

  “Okay…”

  “Don’t okay me! It was the same as what has been happening to everyone else, my window- Can you open the door?”

  I once again glanced at the eye, but it was still closed, so I quickly rushed over to the door, about to step out, but Elina instead walked straight in. I of course grabbed her by the collar and yanked her back outside.

  “Oi! What is wrong with you?”

  “Girls are not allowed in the boys’ rooms,” I replied, pointing to the overseer by the lobby that watched with a raised eyebrow.

  And I didn’t want to have someone in my personal space, not even needing to bring up the Nightmare currently snoozing in the wall.

  “M you haven’t even changed yet,” Elina said, the anger in her voice more clear now.

  She wore a frilly loose pink blouse and a long flowy dark green skirt made of thin material to help her survive the scorching summer sun, finishing it off with a deep red handbag slung over her shoulder.

  “I- okay, we're having too many conversations right now. You said the thief stole your clubs? What clubs?”

  Elina eyed me, easily picking up that I was trying to ignore her latest complaint. Thankfully her anger at the theft was far more important to her.

  “The ones I beat the Nightmare to death with, they still had its blood stained on them,” she snapped, waving her arm and causing a shower of pink sparks to fly around.

  I decided not to condemn her for improper equipment maintenance.

  Elina’s lip trembled and a despondent look clouded her eyes.

  She was about to cry, and suddenly I was far more scared of that than I ever was of the Nightmare in my room. Do I hug her? No. Say sorry? I didn’t have anything to be sorry about, but that didn’t matter right? Change the subject? To what? Change my clothes so we can leave? Yes, that seemed best.

  “I’m going to go hug my clothes real quick,” I said, rushing back into my room.

  From behind the door I heard a muffled-

  “Huh?”