His breath ca in short, ragged gasps.
—khu—khu—hhkk—
Jaune felt as if he was drowning on dry land.
Each inhale scraped through his throat like broken glass, his lungs spasming and collapsing in on themselves as if they'd forgotten how to hold air. His chest convulsed and his ribs shifted in ways they shouldn't, and still—still—he couldn't get enough.
Jaune's body was dying.
He knew it and felt it. It was a dull certainty in the pit of his stomach, sowhere beneath the shards of torn muscle and shattered will. The fight was over. The terror had passed. And all that was left was the quiet unraveling of flesh and bone.
And yet…
He wasn't afraid.
A strange, detached, and heavy calm settled in his mind.
Endorphins flooded his system—his body's final rcy of an opiate haze to ease him into whatever ca next. The sa biology that let him defy death now softened the pain, wrapped his nerves in cotton, made everything feel…
Distant.
Jaune lay still on the ground, eyes half-lidded, head tilted toward the starless sky above. The red broken moon seed to shine with an unnatural glint.
His limbs refused to move. He couldn't even twitch his fingers. And yet his mind seed to drift away on that warm, primal feeling that followed the kill.
A strange half-smile blood on his face, before being replaced a set of wet, ragged coughs.
Jaune almost couldn't believe what he had just done. He, a normal teenager, managed to choke— and snap—the neck of a werewolf-creature-thing with naught but his bare hands.
There was a primal sense of satisfaction that followed it.
Yet... what had it cost him?
Hi entire body apparently.
He breathed—just barely—and took stock of the wreckage that was his form.
Arms shredded, skin hanging in bloodied strips. Bone splintered in places it shouldn't be. Deep gashes carved across his back, muscles twitching under the strain. His chest ached with every heartbeat, ribs cracked and bruised and maybe even puncturing sothing important.
Still... he felt alright... all things considering.
Not good. Not alive.
Just… alright.
His vision was strange, warped at the edges, painted in a strange reddish tint.
It wasn't until he reflexively blinked, that he realized why.
'Blood,' he thought dimly. 'In my eyes.'
The vessels in his sclera had burst. Tiny capillaries, ruptured from the pressure and strain. Blood had seeped into his pupils, clouding his vision with a red haze that refused to fade.
He was lying in a puddle of his own blood, painted in red inside and out.
And sohow…
Sohow, that felt right.
Then—
Chi.
A soft sound.
Faint yet clear.
A bell ringing in the farthest part of his mind.
The System.
.
.
.
[Rank 0 beast, Beowolf, slain]
[Runes received: 10]
.
.
.
[Dream Authority exit granted]
[Cost: 1 Rune]
[Exit Nightmare?]
[Y/N]
.
.
.
His thoughts floated around, starting to shift into a hazy and sluggish feeling, sowhere between sleep and shock.
Although delirium wrapped around his mind like fog, he saw.
He stared.
.
.
.
[Rank 0 beast, Beowolf, slain]
[Runes received: 10]
.
.
.
'Beowolf…'
His lips twitched.
The na fit. A twisted amalgam of "beast" and "werewolf." That thing was a monster born from so ancient nightmare.
A creature.
'Dream creature,' his mind supplied. 'Or… more likely, sothing from this "System."'
His eyes, still veiled in that reddish haze, dragged back to the line again.
"Rank 0."
A classification.
A scale of power, really.
'Rank 0,' he thought.
Which ans there's a 1, possibly 2 and 3.
The number didn't comfort him.
If that thing—that Beowolf,—was the lowest rank the System had to offer…
A cold feeling crawled up his spine, numbed only slightly by his high. It was a mix of sothing between awe and dread.
What would Rank 1 look like and what ca after that?
He forced the thoughts aside.
Focus.
'Ten runes per kill?' His mind, surprisingly, still tried to work through it.
'Is it ten per creature? Or do higher ranks give more?'
He didn't know why he cared. Maybe it was the instinct to understand, even in the face of death.
Maybe it gave him sothing to hold onto.
But his ti was up.
He was fading...
The black haze crept inward.
His vision darkened further at the corners. Flecks of static shimred in his eyes, like falling ash. Sowhere far away, he registered that his heart was slowing.
'I'm going to pass out,' he realized numbly, staring at the second screen. He knew that if he did, he would surely die.
.
.
.
[Dream Authority exit granted]
[Cost: 1 Rune]
[Exit Nightmare?]
[Y / N]
.
.
.
Then, without thought, without using his hands, without any strength—he chose.
ntally, instinctively—
.
.
[Y]
.
.
And the world obeyed.
Suddenly, it began to lose color.
Not fading into black. Not even like a the ending of a dream.
It bled instead, bled like ink in water, until every line in his vision softened, until even the pain began to feel like part of so distant, crumbling thought. The glowing screens, the blood, the ground, his own body…
Everything blended.
Washed into a swirling haze of gray, white, red.
Then—
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
The shrill sound of an alarm tore through the air like a gunshot.
Jaune jolted upright with a violent gasp, eyes wide and his throat raw, choking on the sudden influx of air. His body moved before his mind could catch up, flailing sideways off the bed with a thud, instinctively, managing to hit the off button on his alarm. He hit the floor in a panic, tangled in his bedsheet, scrambling to breathe as his chest heaved.
His hands clawed at the unbroken wooden floor, sweat clinging to his skin.
He looked around.
And froze.
He was in his room.
Whole and untouched.
The walls were smooth, not cracked or stained. The ceiling fan spun lazily overhead. The floor was neither littered with debris nor were there claw marks.
No blood.
His breathing hitched as he turned toward the unbroken window. Scrambling, still half-drenched in sweat, Jaune pulled back the curtains with shaking fingers.
The sky was blue.
Clouds floated lazily across the horizon, bathed in warm morning light. The sun glead off the glass of nearby buildings. The street below was clean and calm, lined with parked cars. A few early commuters passed by and Jaune even spied one sipping coffee.
There were no monsters.
No death.
No apocalyptic ruined city.
Just…
Vale.
As it should have been.
He stared.
Unblinking.
"I…" His voice cracked.
"I was dreaming…"
His words felt like a lifeline, like he was trying to convince himself it was true.
"It… it was just a nightmare."
His hand dropped from the curtain as he staggered backward, still trembling.
He sat down on the edge of the bed.
Then fell backward, arms spread out, chest still heaving.
The room was quiet again, save for the low whirr of the fan and the occasional honk from outside.
He let it wash over him.
Let it be real.
"…just a bad dream," he whispered again, eyes staring up at the ceiling.
He frowned, rembering the, admittedly, scariest nightmare he had ever had.
It was an experience that he just couldn't forget. Every detail was... ingrained...within his heart and mind.
He let out a deep breath, calming down from his experience and simply stared at his ceiling, lazily watching the fan spin.
'Status.' Jaune intoned, attempting to summon that odd screen that ca from the Nightmare. In the dream, it felt like an instinctive switch within his mind.
Yet...
He felt nothing now.
"…a really, really bad dream," He smiled in relief.
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