I want to be me

He was standing still.

Chaos everywhere.

It was as if the nightmare had collapsed in on itself.

Iwao couldn’t take his eyes off the chimera. It was crying and screaming as if its whole life had been ripped out of its body. It looked at Iwao’s terrifying appearance and tried to run away from him. It couldn’t make a single move. The sand sucked it into its depths.

Iwao couldn’t do anything. His eyes were unfazed. He stared into nothing. No thoughts traveled through his mind, except one.

“So, it’s who you really are…” Do it! “I’m not the only one you did this to…” Don’t show any pity! Make it suffer! “You’re not a product of my mind… You just wanted me to be you... to suffer even more…” What are you waiting for? Scare it to the point of a heart attack. Amplify its nightmare.

He looked up. His gaze still blank. His face revealed a half-smile, a strange one. His mouth was slightly open, sharp teeth showing. Only the right half of his mouth smiled. It gave off a creepy atmosphere, and the chimera experienced the fear of its life. It was as if it decomposed on the spot while begging for forgiveness in its own language.

As the chimera sank deeper and deeper into the sand, blood started falling from the sky. Iwao was covered in it. He was still lost in his thoughts and mumbled strange words.

He suddenly raised his hand in front of him and started walking toward the thing that was sinking. Slowly, he approached, no longer controlling his actions. He crouched and closed his eyes. His evil smile resurfaced. His hand moved toward the chimera’s face with unsettling leisure, as if he had done it countless times before.

The chimera gave up. It could do nothing. The creature was too terrifying, its nightmare too strong.

“No… No… Wake up! Now! I’m not this creature! I can’t do to others what he did to me! Wake up! AHHHHHHH!!!”

A sudden pain spread through his entire body. He woke up, but his hand was still not under his control. In the heat of the moment, he decided to cut it off with his teeth. In one sharp bite, without hesitation, he tore into his arm and ripped it off. Blood gushed. He screamed in pain.

“YOU ARE DEAD! YOU ARE NOT HERE ANYMORE! I DON’T WANT TO BE YOU!”

He was panting, taking a deep breath.

“I WANT TO BE ME!”

As he shouted, he opened his mouth wide and plunged it into the sand. The pain awakened many things within his body – memories, sensations he didn’t yet understand. They spread all over him. The world suddenly stopped shaking. The rain froze midair. Explosions of energy burst out of his body. The first sent sand flying everywhere. The second threw the chimera several meters away.

Then, silence.

The chimera didn’t dare make a single noise.

Nothing moved.

Gulp

Gulp

The sound of someone swallowing echoed in the heavy silence. The nightmare began to transform into a strange fluorescent energy. It was sucked into Iwao’s mouth. He was devouring the nightmare.

Once nothing was left, he ate the rope that had brought him there. Then he fainted. He woke up in the forest with difficulty and gathered his thoughts. The chimera was near him, seemingly in a peaceful sleep. His arm was there too – he had only lost it in the nightmare. Relief washed over him.

“You saw that, creature! I didn’t amplify its nightmare! I made it disappear! I ate it! You hear me! I’m not you, I will choose my own path!” Iwao yelled, his voice full of happiness.

Then he became aware of something else. His hunger had lessened. He wasn’t full, but he was not as hungry as before.

“So I don’t have to kill to eat! If I eat nightmares, I can be satiated. But… animals’ nightmares aren’t very nutritious. I guess they’re not that sophisticated. When I ate it, I realized that at first, it was just having a nightmare about being in a place with no food, where it would starve to death. I need more. Animals are not enough. Maybe… I can do it with humans… It can’t hurt them, right...?”

Iwao was both excited and terrified by this discovery about the “nutritional value” of nightmares. His tone was calm and joyful, but doubt lingered beneath his words

“It’s strange too. Since I ate it, it seems like I’ve gained access to a big part of the chimera’s memories… Every feeling, every piece of information... it’s like they’re mine now. But from an animal, it’s not very useful… If I do that to a human, maybe I can learn more about this world. I need to learn how to use the power of this body… learn what I’m capable of.”

As he took off his eyes from his hands, he noticed a herd of lightning wolves sleeping not far away. Some of them had the rope. He dodged the lightning that burst from their bodies even in their sleep and grabbed one of the ropes.

“As for now, I’m hungry? So let’s eat. I’ll think about all of this afterward.”

With this new discovery, his daily life was going to change drastically.

******************************

Two years later

“Since I’ve been in this body, I feel different. It’s like everything I am now, and everything I can do, has given me a new perspective. I’m not the same Iwao Aoki as before. Deep inside me, there seems to be a vast source of Firia, the same I feel all around me... The more I use my power to devour nightmares, the more I unlock strange spells and abilities, able to wield them as if I had always known how. They're useful, but... it feels strange.”

He paused his reflection, admiring the moons in the sky, feeling their light on his body.

“Since I came to this world, I can make my own decisions and do what I want. Nobody can stop me like before. If everyone sees my good actions, maybe they’ll accept me, and I could have a happy ending – the one I always wanted. I really need something to make me happy, something to make me myself, something to prove I’m not anyone’s tool. I’m a new person now. I’m Iwao Aoki, the Nightmare Eater... Well, it sounded better in my head…”

He looked toward the road in front of the tree he was perched on, as he heard noises coming from it.

“Oh, here they come!” He exclaimed.

He climbed down as he saw a group of people passing by in a cart, heading toward the city of Taranios.

Iwao used his invisibility spell and sprinted with all his strength to reach the cart in the dark night. Nobody noticed as he leapt onto it. It was as if he wasn’t even there. The cart continued its journey, and Iwao let himself be carried toward Taranios. Three days from now, it would be Halloween. Something important would happen – it would be his first time entering a city in this world.

During the last two years, Iwao had trained his powers and abilities. He had eaten the nightmares of many animals and learned more on what they really were. He had also uncovered some secrets of nature. It seemed to him that all animals had something in common, though he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

One year after his arrival, he mastered an invisibility spell that appeared seemingly out of nowhere after he devoued the nightmare of a strange cat, allowing him to finally leave the forest he had lived in until then.

He then began sneaking into camps he found here and there, feeding on their nightmares. It was useful. He could finally learn more about this world – the magic system, the wars, where he was, and countless other things. He gained much knowledge, but his powers still felt incomplete, as if something was restraining them.

By making the memories of those whose nightmares he devoured his own, he learned to use certain spells and abilities, yet he knew he was far from reaching his full potential. He learned magic from human memories and became both stronger and smarter.

He discovered that the world was called Aruniol. Since his arrival, he had been in the Polmo Kingdom, in the south of the Deflo continent. This vast kingdom was at war with the Stuts Kingdom to the north and the Murn Kingdom to the east. Iwao decided to avoid these frontiers to escape the conflicts.

The second major thing he had learned from nightmares concerned the magic system. Firia was the name given to the invisible energy flowing everywhere in the world. By absorbing it, one could shape spells of the type most attuned to them. However, anyone could theoretically use every type of spell, though not with equal intensity.

It also seemed that only a limited quantity of Firia could be used each day, though the amount differed for each individual. Even Iwao had a limit for spells fueled by Firia. However, some spells tied to his monster form were strangely unaffected by the amount of energy he had within him.

But the most important piece of information was unexpected – though he knew it would be useful. Apparently, in this world – and especially in the city of Taranios – Halloween was celebrated, or at least something very similar. If that was a day of terror and fear, it meant the nightmares of children would be both delicious and powerful.

Iwao saw the opportunity. He took this information at face value, convinced it might help him unlock more of his powers and bring him closer to his true goal.

******************************

On another road, in another cart, Saya was also heading toward Taranios – though not to celebrate Halloween.

It had been two years since she had accepted her father’s mission. She had isolated herself far from the castle to focus on her research and, eventually, she found where the creature was hiding. She had explained all she had discovered about it – as well as her preparations before the mission – in a letter she had sent to her father three days earlier.

“Dear father,

I know what you’ll say, but I didn’t confront it immediately because I wanted more information first, since you wouldn’t give me any. It’s been now five months now since I found it. It didn’t see me, but it was there, in the forest. It was horrifying. I couldn’t move. A strange aura emanated from it, pushing me away. I couldn’t stay more than a few minutes, so I decided to cast Tracker to keep an eye on him. I followed it through the spell. But it seemed like it avoided entering Taranios, which I found strange. As I write this letter, it’s been two hours since he took the road toward the city. He will be there for the Fear Feast. There must be a reason. I will meet it during this event to prevent him from committing a crime.

Everything will be fine, father. I will bring it back as our ally for the war – it seems powerful. I will fight my fears to convince him. Give me strength.

Love you, your dear daughter,

Saya Benegram.”

She arrived in Taranios late at night. Her spell rang in her head, signaling that the creature wasn’t far.

She walked slowly through the labyrinthine streets of Taranios. The signal grew stronger and stronger.

She turned right at the end of a narrow street and then... she saw it.