Chapter 2: Descent

The transition from waking consciousness to the Collective always felt like diving into warm water. Alex's awareness expanded as they entered the shared dream space, their trained mind automatically constructing their preferred avatar—a figure in a long coat that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.

The usual serene landscape of the Collective's public spaces had been transformed into something from a fever dream. The sky raged with unnatural colors, and the ground beneath their feet shifted between familiar textures and impossible geometries. In the distance, they could see the nightmare webs spreading like digital cancer.

"Beginning trace to source," Alex spoke into the void, knowing Maya would hear them through the neural link.

They began walking toward the epicenter of the disturbance, each step taking them deeper into the collective unconscious. As they moved, fragments of other people's fears began to manifest around them: a child's monster under the bed with too many teeth, an adult's anxiety about failing at work manifested as an infinite staircase leading nowhere, the primal terror of being chased by something unseen.

Alex had learned to treat nightmares like equations—every fear had a source, every terror had a logic. But this was different. The fears were combining, mutating, becoming something greater than the sum of their parts.

They paused as a massive shadow fell across the dreamscape. Looking up, they saw a creature that shouldn't exist—part spider, part drowning sensation, part the feeling of falling in an endless void. It was three different nightmares merged into one impossible entity.

"This is getting worse," Alex murmured, skillfully reconstructing the dreamscape around them to create a barrier between themselves and the nightmare amalgamation.