For seven nights straight, Devra's dreams never changed.
Every time his head touched the pillow, the same world swallowed him whole—the mine, the damp air, the glistening stone walls. And always, him.
The other half.
It didn't matter if Devra was ready or not. It didn't matter if he turned to run or stood to fight. The outcome was always the same: the blue light flared, the monsters fell, and then the blade cut him down.
Once.
Twice.
Sometimes three times before he woke up.
By the fourth night, the fear had been unbearable. He'd wake up shaking, chest tight, eyes darting to the shadows in his room. But by the seventh night, something had shifted. The pain of that blade—sharp and merciless—had dulled. Not because it had grown weaker, but because he had grown used to it.
The first time he died in the dream, it felt like a catastrophe. By the twentieth time, it was just… routine.
---
Oddly enough, his days began to change too.
Physical education class was no longer a death sentence for his legs. The weights at the gym no longer felt as heavy. His grip had strengthened. His breathing steadied faster after sprints.
Brok noticed. "You've been eating something special?" he asked one afternoon, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Devra only shrugged. He wasn't about to say, No, but I've been killed in my sleep about forty times by a half-blurred version of myself and now I can squat twice what I used to.
---
The strangest part? He had stopped waking up in the middle of the night.
No matter how many times the sword cut through him, he didn't jolt awake anymore. He stayed in the dream until the very end—until the light faded, the cavern went dark—and then he opened his eyes in the morning as if nothing had happened.
Well… almost nothing.
One morning, his mother walked into his room with a scowl. "Devra, what's this?" She tugged at the bedsheet, damp and clinging to her hand.
He sat up, groggy. "Sweat."
"The air conditioner's been on all night," she said. "You trying to boil yourself alive?"
"It's just… I had a bad dream."
She studied him for a moment longer than he liked. The next day, she took him to the hospital.
The doctors ran their tests. Heart rate, reflexes, muscle tension. Blood work. The works.
In the end, the verdict was clear: "He's perfectly fine," the physician said with a practiced smile. "In fact, he's in excellent shape for his age."
That was the end of it.
---
His parents were another oddity altogether.
They were here—he had a mother, a father—but they weren't exactly present. Sometimes they didn't come home at night. No calls, no messages. Just an empty apartment and a note the next morning: Work kept us late.
Work doing what, exactly? They never said.
At first, Devra had wanted to press them for answers, but something about their tone told him not to. And in truth, his mind was too consumed by the dream to chase another mystery.
---
The ninth night came without ceremony.
Devra lay down, the room cool and still, and felt the weightless pull into the mine once again.
Same walls. Same air. Same faint glimmer of crystals in the distance.
The monsters emerged from the shadows on cue, their claws clicking against the stone. But tonight, something was different.
They were slower.
He could see every twitch of their limbs, the ripple of muscle beneath their slick, wet skin. His mind didn't freeze. His legs didn't lock.
He moved.
He darted between them, slipping past swipes that would have taken his head off a week ago. His feet found steady purchase on the gravel, his breaths even, his arms loose at his sides.
For the first time, Devra didn't feel like prey.
And then he appeared.
The other half.
One step forward and the air itself seemed to hum. The blue light flared, bright enough to paint the stone walls in cold fire.
Normally, this was where the nightmare reached its inevitable end. Normally, the blade would sweep, the pain would bloom, and darkness would follow.
But not tonight.
The blade came down—faster than anything else in the dream—and Devra's body moved.
Not because he thought, but because it was instinct. His feet shifted. His torso twisted. The sword missed.
The sound it made as it cut through the air was sharp enough to slice through the silence.
Devra's eyes widened. His heart should have been thundering, but it wasn't. It beat slow, steady.
He had evaded it.
For the first time in nine nights, the outcome had changed.
---
Everything stopped.
The monsters froze in place, mid-snarl, their bodies locked in a grotesque stillness. The faint dripping of water from the mine's ceiling halted mid-fall. Even the crystals dimmed.
The figure's blurred half flickered wildly, like a glitch in reality. And then, without warning, the entire scene… bent.
The mine, the monsters, the crystals—all of it stretched and warped, folding inward until there was nothing left but white blur.
When Devra's vision cleared, he was no longer standing in a mine.
He was in front of a wall.
Not the Wall of the Federation, but something far stranger. It was smooth and impossibly tall, stretching beyond his sight in either direction. The surface was pale gray, with faint geometric patterns that pulsed like the heartbeat of some buried giant.
He didn't know why, but he felt it—this wall wasn't meant to keep anything out. It was meant to keep something in.
A faint hum vibrated through his bones as he stepped closer. His reflection in the surface was faint, hazy, as though he wasn't entirely solid here.
Something in him whispered: Break it.
The thought made no sense. But before he could question it, his right hand clenched into a fist. He pulled back and drove it into the wall with everything he had.
The impact sounded dull, almost like punching sand. Nothing happened. No crack, no dent.
Then the pain came.
It rushed up his arm like lightning, sharp and hot, as if his bones had splintered in a dozen places at once. He staggered back, gasping. His fingers refused to move, his wrist already swelling.
The wall didn't even seem to notice. The patterns kept pulsing, indifferent.
He looked down at his hand—skin already bruising, knuckles raw. The pain was real.
Which meant… so was the wall.
---
The hum grew louder, pressing against his skull. The edges of his vision blurred, and for a heartbeat, he thought he saw shapes moving within the wall—shadows pacing like caged animals.
Then the light swallowed him whole.
---
Devra woke in his bed, the morning sun cutting through the blinds.
For a moment, he thought it had been just another dream. Then the ache in his hand made him hiss through his teeth.
He pushed back the blanket and stared. His right hand was swollen, faintly purple around the knuckles.
His heart sank.
The line between dream and reality had been crossed. And there was no going back.