The dreamscape wasn't so different from the real world--mainly because it was influenced by dreamers, and most dreams, while often wild, were made up of elements that the dreamer had encountered in their life. That, and it was influenced by the dreamwalkers themselves; everyone perceived the dreamscape, and the dreams occupying it, differently. For Simonea, it was a dusky forest filled with many strands of silver threads like spidersilk, and each thread was a dream. It was beautiful to her, and yet it always had an eerie, ethereal quality to it.
That night felt especially unsettling to Simonea as she walked through a dream forest, following the silver threads of various dreams, plucking at them lightly to get a glimpse of them. Not all were peaceful; some were nightmares, taut and pulsing a sort of dark, restless energy, their silver tarnished, and she paused over those ones and gently stroked them, hoping to calm them and imbue peace. When the threads relaxed, no longer tight with tension and anxiety, she moved on.
She didn't have much time tonight to do more than that. Tonight was different. Tonight was a test, her first test, for tonight she was to cast away a demon.
It wasn't the first time she had battled a demon. She had dealt with her share of vampiric incubi. But this one was different. Stronger. It wasn't an incubus, but something else, something that lulled its victims to sleep before feeding on their blood--usually to the point of death. It didn't even bother to give its victim pleasant dreams, but instead riddled them with nightmares, relishing in the "flavor" the fear and adrenaline lent the blood. She could track it through the distinct "signature" its nightmares carried--a distinct sort of delight and perverse excitement--and attack it through those nightmares, once she found them. The demon was linked to the dreamscape by those nightmares, and thus vulnerable. If she played her cards right, she could seriously wound it, even kill it, as she had done with several incubi before it.
Of course, tonight might be a fluke. Maybe it wouldn't show up tonight. But there had been several unexplained deaths in the village she was staying in already, each victim drained of blood even though their bodies had no marks. She had to be close to solving this case!
And that was when she saw one nearby thread twitch and dull, and Simonea turned sharply and reached out to touch it--and let out a hissed gasp at the pain that seared through her fingers, burning her fae skin like iron. The thread writhed, and Simonea forced herself to grab it, gritting her teeth through the pain, and focused on the nightmare.
It was Annabel's nightmare, a young girl in a home right next to the inn Simonea was staying in. And as she delved deeper into the nightmare, one filled with more blood and gore than any child should know about, she knew the images didn't belong to the girl--especially as she felt the demonic delight radiating off them. The demon didn't discriminate when it came to its victims.
Fear clutched her heart, fear for the girl, and she knew she had to act fast; a child had far less blood than an adult. Reaching deep and ignoring the pain, she stepped into the nightmare even as every instinct screamed for her to flee. Instantly, she was surrounded by a horrorscape, some awful dream about rogues burning and slaughtering the entire village, and there were bodies and limbs everywhere, the smell of fire and offal so real Simonea gagged. And nearly vomited when she realized she was standing in a puddle of congealing blood.
It's not real, she reminded herself, not wanting to get swept up into the nightmare; it was too easy to lose oneself and fall asleep, whisked away by a dream, if one wasn't careful. And so she focused hard and looked around, searching for the cord that belonged to the demon--the one that linked its life to this world.
A dream-marauder with an axe swung it at her head, and with a thought, Simonea sent him sprawling across the ground. She imagined herself as being surrounded by a shield of light, and when another dream-bandit swung a cudgel at her, it bounced off the shield. Right then. That took care of those distractions.
Focus, Simonea.
Swallowing hard, she walked through the burning dreamscape with her head held high, keeping calm as she could. Her panic would only influence the dream, and influence it negatively. The cord could be anywhere. It could be disguised as an element of the dream itself. It could be--
And then she saw a red, shining cord on the ground, leading inside a dilapidated home. Picking up her pace, and dreaming a sword into her hands, she followed after it even as it slithered inside the home like a snake. Lunging for it as it tried to snake its way up the crumbling stairs within that dark home, she grabbed it in one hand to hold it steady even as she lifted the sword and prepared to strike--
Only for the rest of it to coil abruptly around her feet and yank, pulling her off balance. Before she could recover, another length of it shot around the hand that held the sword, and before she knew it, it had wrapped around her like a python even as she struggled.
She tried to scream, but it came out raspy from the pressure on her chest. And then, from the top of the stairs, a creature that may have once been a man emerged from the shadows and smiled a smile with far too many teeth. "Gotcha."
Simonea woke with a choked scream, eyes snapping open--and when they adjusted, she abruptly realized she was no longer in her room at the inn, but outside in the woods. Heart pounding, she jerked to sit up, but couldn't; her hands, she realized with a jolt of panic, were bound behind her back, and her legs were also bound.
Heart in her throat, hardly able to breathe, she turned her head--and found herself staring straight into the eyes of the demon where he sat not feet from her, grinning like a cat that got the canary. "Scream more," he purred. "They taste delicious."
It was a trap, Simonea realized as dread made her stomach churn like she'd eaten something rotten. The demon had felt her getting closer, had known she was onto it and tracking it.
And it had trapped her before she could trap it.
