I came to with a start. Only to immediately regret everything in my life.

Fuck me...

My mouth was dry, my throat sore. My head was killing me. My own heartbeat assaulted my eardrums with the viciousness of thunder. My feet and hands were sticky with sweat, and my clothes were drenched, especially around my neck.

A groan escaped my lips as I slowly turned around, trying to curl into a ball of misery, but not quite willing to fully commit to so much movement.

I just laid there, for a moment, gasping for breath as I slowly cajoled my lungs and diaphragm into bringing an end to their strike. Hopefully, the little shits would soon agree to resume normal work, because the local economy was in shambles and I couldn’t really afford to pay them a raise. Or, at least, that’s what my pounding head seemed to be saying.

After the incident with the Necromancers, almost a year prior, the nightmares had become a recurring thing. Not daily, mind you, nor even weekly, but they’d come regularly enough that it had become quite the bother.

In the first place, I wasn’t supposed to suffer from nightmares, at all!

I don’t mean to brag, but after my first couple of particularly rough lifetimes, and the subsequent eternities of forced isolation in the Corridor, I had much become inured to anxiety, trauma, and pretty much everything the like. Objectively speaking, in the millennia that followed, even the prospect of getting tortured or burned alive hadn’t fazed me all that much anymore.

Of course, going through anything like that was still extremely unpleasant, to say the least. But I guess that, in a certain way, I was always bolstered by both the knowledge and the experience that, just like everything else, even the absolute worst of the worst, too, would pass. Eventually.

That didn’t seem to work with the fucking nightmares, though, and I couldn’t help suspecting that there was something foul at play.

The nightmares weren’t exactly the same all the time, but all of them were more than similar enough to let anyone see the pattern. To begin with, I was always in some battle or fight. The scenarios were as varied as my memories, but the common theme was that it was always one of the particularly nasty conflicts. Those where I, and maybe a handful of lads, stood surrounded by rival groups, enemy troops, sometimes traitors, or any combination of the three. Where the question wasn’t if we’d be dying, but rather how soon, and how many of the bastards we’d be able to drag along with us into the underworld as we did.

Instead of giving as good as I got, though, I’d find myself unable to do anything but spectate. I’d helplessly watch as my body, by its own initiative, laid down, in an obvious attempt to surrender, only for the fuckers to do us in. That, or the same crappy mortal vessel would just offer some token resistance, without even trying. Or even just simply freeze in place, leaving me unable to move while everyone else around us got killed.

Whatever the case, death would then come to claim me, always accompanied by the laughter of several women. It wasn’t something mirthful though, but rather a choir of infernal cackling, dripping with scorn. Mocking me with such disdain that the sound somehow became physically unbearable.

And then I’d wake up. Every time, feeling like complete and utter crap. But the worse wasn’t even that, nor the nightmares themselves. No. What really, really pissed me off was not knowing why the fuck my reaction to those nightmares was so strong! Why that laughter kept bothering me so much!

It was almost as if-

“Abry!”

Holy!

Needless to say, Lina’s shrill -as she suddenly barged into the room, in the middle of the night- scared the living shit out of me. There was a poorly disguised hint of hysteria in her voice. Doing my best to hide my own discomfort behind a yawn and a childish grin, my eyes immediately darted toward her.

“Mohlina?”

Even under the tenuous light of the oil lamp, she was holding onto, I could tell that her fair face was desperately holding back a worried frown. And still not doing a particularly good job at it.

Probably lack of training...

I could hardly blame the girl for not having led a life that demanded she come to master that particular skill, though. Thankfully, my own masks were much more polished, so I didn’t unwittingly add my burdens onto hers.

“Abry, come, you have to get dressed.” Even as the words left her lips, Lina left the lamp on a stand nearby and moved closer. Then, hurriedly, but with all the loving care of a mother, she helped me into clean clothes and a thick coat. Finally, she fastened a hefty cape around my neck.

Honestly, the getup kinda made me feel silly. Doubly so, because, after opening my node, though I could still feel things being cold, I seemed to no longer get cold myself.

Despite that, of course, I remained silent throughout the entire process. I knew from experience that there was no dissuading a mother from piling up on her kids as many insulating layers as she deemed necessary. What the world, or said kids, might have to say about it be damned!

My baby sister came closer too, holding onto my hand as Lina was busy. Firena, just as blonde as her, had toddled into the room after her mother. The way she always seemed to be following either of her parents often reminded me of a cute little duckling... It obviously was hardly the time to feel moved by my adorable sibling, though.

Both girls were dressed just as heavily as I now was, and I dared to assume that that wasn’t a wanton flight of fancy on Lina’s part. Indeed, a moment later, the woman knelt in front of me, holding my head with both her hands while staring deeply into my eyes.

“Abry, I was talking with your uncles just now, and everyone agreed to go play hide and seek!” She added fake cheer to her voice. “So, you’re going to come with mommy and Rena hide in that big stone house that grandma Grisella’s been working on, okay?”

As she spoke, she booped my nose, giving me a blatantly forced smile that looked more like the bastard child of a grimace. “It’s so big that no one will find us! But only if you stay really, really quiet until we get there, alright? Can you do that?”

For a moment, I just silently stared into her familiar viridian eyes.

Well... fuck.

In the dead of night, from afar, the building we currently stood in looked more like an ominous shadow, rather than the imposing shelter it had become. While its details could hardly be distinguished at the moment, I knew its general appearance well enough. Its walls were made of huge, heterogeneous stone blocks that had somehow been coaxed into fitting perfectly with each other, like the pieces of a megalithic jigsaw puzzle. In a strange way, it reminded me of the inexplicable constructions we had found in Sacsayhuamán...

Whatever the case, the building was meant to have become a safe haven of sorts. Doubly so, after considering all the defenses that had laboriously been added by the villagers -only partially extorted by a heinous witch- to and around it, for the better part of the last year.

Unfortunately, it seemed like that thesis wouldn’t be holding against the test of reality.

It wasn’t really negligence, just... Well, the village had been preparing to potentially get swarmed by the undead. Or maybe even the mages standing behind those creatures. More so, after the occasional patrol or group of Landknights brought about the news of a few small communities not too different from ours having suddenly vanished, pretty much all over the empire... Not like Zabala had remained inert, of course. Hence, the increased patrols and surveillance. Sadly, it seemed like it wasn’t enough.

But I digress.

What none in Jurt had been preparing for, as the -uncomfortably close to Lina, my sister and I- corpse of a woman that had just been stabbed through the head seemed to suggest, was plain old betrayal.

For a moment, the world itself seemed to hold its breath. Pretty much everyone present stared at the perpetrator, an older lady still casually holding onto a now blood-soaked knife, in shocked fascination.

The spell didn’t last, though, easily broken by the first horrified scream. Chaos erupted immediately after.