The Dreamer: Chapter 1

Golden curtains trailed down over a purple velvet blanket, a vast surface of exquisitely sewn and knitted embroidery pleased his eyes. The lights from the glass mosaics softly brushed his face as the morning sun graced his palace and bedmates with warmth.

"Oh Jonathan, you are the best in bed." The soft silky voice of a princess rumbled in his ears, her hands brushed his chest hairs and her teeth nibbled on his ears. "No man compares."

"...My name is not Jonathan." He said, his eyes clear of the lust that had once clouded it. He touched his chest, and found no hairs, only the gentle slope of a belly. His manhood was average at best. "My name is-"

"I will call in the servants my king." The beautiful princess got out of the blankets, exposing a most beautiful body, young and fertile. "Duty awaits us, my husband."

"And I don't have a wife." He sighed, propping himself against the mahogany wood of the bed frame. He turned his head to the outside and marvelled at the countless marble spires of the greatest city that ever was.

Or will ever be, considering it was now destroyed.

"Why does this dream last so long?" He growled, brushing his dark curls from his eyes. "Fucking cheap dreamer shit, this is what I get for trusting Uncle Ronald to buy, that asshole."

Something in the distance caught his eyes, a dark speck amid the jungle of white. It gradually grew to eclipse the whole horizon.

He got up from his bed bum naked and punched the glass mosaic. It exploded into glass shards that dissolved into a rainbow fog.

"That's unusual." The forms of an insectoid race crawled across the city, defiling its beauty. An ever growing cloud of fliers and crawlers turned it from paradise to hell, well, there was no one to experience it at least, the Essence of the Dreamer he drank was too low quality to encode nothing more than one character.

"It is also not supposed to even be capable of simulating The Swarm." He scratched his head and gave the thought a bit more consideration. "Even so, the swarm isn't supposed to appear for at least five years. Ugh, I really need to stop sourcing my shit from someone who barely knows how to read."

The Swarm was going ever larger and closer, he could hear the fast cascade of their legs and the unstopping clicking of their mandibles began to make something uncomfortable grow inside his gut.

A feeling he didn't recognise, dread, horror.

Fear.

"Exit." He spoke to the sky, and the fear amplified itself, spreading through his body like a wave of liquid poison. "Gods damn you, EXIT!"

"You can't run my king." The voice of the princess made him jump and flush himself against the wall.

At the door to the chambers was the princess, her once beautiful enticing body now ravaged by festering wounds and maggots.

"You are not supposed to talk." He whispered to himself, sliding along the wall until he reached the corner and hunkering there. The whisper of The Swarm devolved to a roar of claws, spikes, and the unmentionables. "What the fuck is happening! You are not supposed to talk after the sex, fuck!"

"Come my king, join me!" A hollow cackle escaped the dead eyed stare of the princess.

"Please let me go, please!" He curled into himself, closing his eyes as the demoness loomed over him. He would have emptied his bladder if he had one in this Dream.

Then…

It stopped.

He opened his eyes to see the whole world frozen. The princess' hand locked in space reaching out to touch him, the first few of The Swarm crawling through every conceivable opening, their beady eyes unintelligent but filled with an unending hunger.

He stood on his shaky legs, fearfully avoiding the grasp of the dead princess.

There was…silence.

Nothing, his only companions being the sound of his breathing and the beat of his heart.

"Peaceful?" The heavy terror flooded out from him, making his arms and legs steady once again.

Then, the whole world started to dissolve into the rainbow fog. The walls and floor were first, then the decadent bed worth more than he could ever earn in a hundred lives.

The Swarm were not made of rainbow, but a muddy black oily fog that almost seemed to scream as it was expelled. The princess was neither, she was a bright white.

He could swear that just before her defiled face completely disintegrated, her dead blue lips smiled.

All that was left of the landscape was a white infinity. There were no walls, no roofs, and the floor made him feel like he was walking on air.

"Where am I?" He asked. He turned around and saw a blue crystal floating in the white void, thrumming with enough power to shake the air in his chest.

He walked towards it, cautiously at first but with more bravery as the fear gradually got replaced with curiosity.

Standing in front of the crystal, he got a deep appreciation for its size, it was…monumental. Ten times the size of anything he had ever seen before in reality and in the Dreams.

And the complexity of its structure, the myriad crystalline pathways visible to the eye were too numerous to comprehend.

It was divine.

"Who are you?"

A million billion voices spoke to his mind. Children, elders, men, women, beggars and emperors. They spoke to him gently, like a little child.

"I am Alexios."

"Curious." The crystal hummed. "Alexios, we welcome you to the Essence of Humanity."

"Thank you." He bowed to the crystal. "Is this a dream?"

"Perhaps." The voices tittered, seeming to discuss amongst themselves. "We are in need of help, might you be interested."

"I am not sure I can help." He chuckled, embarrassed. "I am just a lazy poor…useless…son."

"Worry not, you will become great. We will grant you a gift, a helpful boost to your life." It/They hummed. "The Swarm, it needs a challenge. Imprison it, delay it, destroy it, it does not matter. We only need the humanity of this reality to struggle against it."

"Am I worthy? Like a hero?" A spark of hope got lit in his heart.

"No, you are not worthy, there are no heroes." The crystal almost seemed to scoff. "It does not matter to us who you are, you can complete your task in whatever manner you choose. Struggle my son, I/We will be watching."

"Hold on wait-" The crystal was there one moment, then he blinked and it was no longer. In its place was a blue glass screen atop a pedestal, floating.

He walked over to it and raised an eyebrow at the words written on it.

[Choose an Object or Aspect in your possession to Double.]

"What does that mean?" His hand went through the glass like it was an illusion. "I don't own anything, so Aspects? Like something like willpower?"

[Aspect Chosen: Willpower. Doubling Commencing...]

Alexios looked around, tapping his feet and scratching his head.

[Doubling Completed, Status Updated.]

[Aspects:

Willpower: 2^1 = 2

Cooldown Until Doubling: 29 Days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes, 14 Seconds.]

"I don't feel any different." He mumbled and shook his head at the long cooldown. "A month? That's like forever."

"Exit." The white void collapsed and it all went dark.

He gasped as he rocked up from his straw bed, clutching his thin blanket. Alexios eyes roamed around his dark dinky room, his Uncle blew his ear drums from his snoring, his hands still clutching a vial of The Essence of The Dreamer.

Alexios snorted in disgust at the man who had his hand under his trousers. He scrunched his nose at the smell of tobacco wading off the clothing of his uncle and also the very tantalising aroma of his body.

"Fucking hell." Alexios spoke. He didn't care to moderate his voice, his uncle wouldn't wake even if the sky fell down. "What a stupis dream, where is that vial that I drank?"

He leaned over his bed and grumbled at the lack of light that disallowed him from even seeing the floor. His hands wandered the floor until they bumped into a glass vial, bringing it up to his face, he saw the sticker with 'Essence of The Dreamer' laid over another sticker below it.

"Huh." The sticker underneath read. "Experiment #8356, what in the hells."

"I knew it. It was all faulty experimental hogwash." He chuckled to himself, putting down the vial on the bed and lounging back. "Really? Essence of Humanity? Very crazy, I have to give the alchemist who made this a pat on the back for creativity at least."

Alexios' ears perked up as the sound of a distant bell. Shortly after, he could hear the creak of a bed across the wooden wall and the opening of a door.

"Mom is awake, better get up before she shrieks at me, again." He stood up, easily shrugging off the enticing warmth of the bed. With a flourish, he pulled up his bands and tightened the rope. His shirt barely covered his stomach and stretched quite worryingly.

Fleeing from the constant deafening drum of his uncle's snoring, Alexios opened the door to see his mom hefting up wooden buckets onto the shoulder carrying stick. She was thin, her muscles were defined in ways that spoke of hard days and a withering life.

"Mama." He was about to head to the kitchen to steal away some bread. He hesitated, seeing his mother struggling with the buckets, a horrible twisting feeling wrangled his gut. "I will get the water today, just…stay at home."

"Really?" She almost seemed surprised? The wide eyes and gaped mouth was quickly replaced by a radiant wide smile. "Bless you, these old bones aren't as strong as they used to."

"No problem Mama, I need some fresh air anyways." He hefted up the shoulder carrying stick with four buckets loaded in. "I'll be back."

He opened the door to his ramshackles home, a very unstable stack of logs and planks held together by miracles and the hopes of its residence. All along the road there were similar constructions, tightly fitted together, every inch of space filled with the bare essentials.

In contrast, the roads were of marvellous construction. Despite the endless variations of liquids, objects and foot traffic on it, beneath the thick layer of stuff, there was an unmarred marble with lines and calligraphy on its surface.

The sky was still dark, the only thing that illuminated his path to the neighbourhood's well was the blue light of the protective shield over the city. A brilliant half sphere of overlapping polygons keeping the city safe and The Swarm outside.

"You ever wonder who made that?" A male voice broke Alexios from his inspection, turning his head he saw a red haired man the same age as him carrying the same burden. "Mighty impressive whoever thought about it, my grandda said that there was nothing like it in the old cities."

"Hi Steve." Alexios said, matching the pace of the broad shouldered man. "How you doing?"

"I am good, got a girl I've been chasing." He spoke with a mirthful smile, his eyes twinkling as they rove over his form. "You finally decided to be a filial son for once?"

"Ouch dude." Alexios shoved the chuckling red head with the stick. "My mother is getting old, she ain't as sturdy as she used to be."

"Very noble of you." Steve punctuated his statement with a poke to his belly. "Since you've got your fat ass out of the house for once, wanna work on something with me? A special little job with some cash at the end?"

"I've got the university to go to…" Alexios muttered, with shoulder slumped and head hung low.

"Hah! That's a good joke, you haven't gone there since the opening ceremony. My brother can attest to you not attending a single lecture." Steve chuckled.

"Look, I have the barest amount of magic talent, if I had even a little bit more I would have given it a try." He grumbled. The reply that he expected didn't come, and the reason why was clear.