Snowball's hooves drum a lazy rhythm on the packed dirt. Trees lean in on both sides, green and quiet, only birds and the creak of leather filling the air. Sun warms my shoulders. My grip on the reins loosens bit by bit.
My eyes slip once.
Twice.
The world blurs into the sway of the saddle.
I blink—
---
—I wake on damp leaf‑litter, staring up at two moons through glassy branches.
Cold presses through my shirt. Dew soaks my palms. The chrome‑barked trees shimmer like the first time.
My first time.
I push up on my elbows. "What the hell…?"
No dragon roar. No smoke column. Only birds arguing in the canopy and a faraway murmur of water. The air feels fresh and clean, like a forest brochure.
I know this place.
And I know it shouldn't be this calm.
I grab for my backpack. It lies by my hip, exactly where it had been that first morning in this world. I unzip, fingers faster now that I know what should be inside.
Laptop.
Notebook.
Burger.
Etc...
I pat every pocket Hunting for clink. For the familiar weight of silver.
Nothing.
"Right. Of course." I huff at the trees. "Welcome to the dream where I'm broke again."
I stand and follow the same faint trail as before. Glowing mushrooms blink on under my steps. Ferns part like they recognise me. The twin moons hang in the same positions, as if the sky reloaded from a save file.
My head knows this is wrong. My chest… not so sure.
The forest thins. Light warms. The dirt path appears under my shoes, rutted by carts. When I push through the last line of trees, the village waits below.
Eryndral. Whole.
No scorch marks. No broken roofs. No charred beams.
Smoke rises lazy from chimneys, not from ruin. Chickens sprint in chaos across yards. Kids scream at each other over a ball of rags. A woman laughs, the sound bright, not cracked by grief.
My skin crawls.
"This wasn't here," I whisper to myself. "Not like this."
No dragon in the sky. No storm front. No panic.
Just… life.
A man with a bundle of firewood nods as I pass. "Good day, traveller."
"Yeah. Good day."
My voice sounds like it comes from someone else.
I walk the main lane. Hammer on anvil rings from a smithy where there definitely wasn't a smithy before. A baker slides loaves from an oven, steam curling into the air—my brain tells me it smells like heaven, but my nose gives nothing. A girl strings flowers over a doorway, humming.
Every sense yells "peaceful medieval sim village."
My memory screams "wrong, wrong, wrong."
I reach for my coin pouch again out of habit. My fingers close on empty cloth.
"Shit."
"Problem with the road, friend?"
The voice hits like a slap of déjà vu. Warm. Tired. Steady.
I turn.
Jonas stands there. Whole. No blood, no torn shirt. Leather herb satchel at his hip. Eyes creased in that gentle way that, in my world, belongs to people who don't live long.
He studies my face. "You look lost."
"I…" My throat closes for a second. "You're—"
Alive.
"—busy," I finish, the word clumsy on my tongue.
He follows my hand as it drops from my empty belt. "Short on coin."
"Yeah. Seems my wallet didn't make the trip."
"Coin is not always the answer," his mouth quirks. "And guests should not pay for bread in a village that still remembers what hospitality is."
He steps closer, lowers his voice like we're in on some harmless conspiracy. "Come to our home for dinner tonight. Eat with us."
My brain yells that Jonas died in front of the wall, blood hot on my chest.
My heart grabs the offer with both hands.
"I… sure. If you're… sure."
"My wife will scold me if I let you wander hungry." He claps my shoulder once. "Ask for the Dawnstar house near the herb garden when shadows grow long. You'll find us."
He turns and melts back into the flow of people like he was always meant to be there.
I stand alone again in the clean, impossible village.
"Lucid dream," I mutter. "Cool. Great. Terrifying."
Time turns slippery after that.
I walk the square three times. Same old man sweeping the steps, same stray dog asleep under the same cart. A bell tolls the hour; I never see anyone ring it. Kids race past me in a loop—laughing, arguing, shaking the same wooden sword over and over.
I drift past stalls that sell nothing I need and everything my brain insists I missed the first time I was here: woven ropes, clay mugs, tiny carved antlersteeds. Each time I check my pockets. Each time I invent ways to pay. Each time I remember I'm broke and a stranger.
And every time, the village resets to perfect.
Shops. Food. Laughter. The smell of stew that my broken nose still can't catch.
It all feels too normal, like someone coded "ideal rustic life" and forgot to add bugs.
Sun sinks, slow, syrupy. Sky turns to orange and purple. My feet carry me down a narrow lane before I tell them to.
Dark soil beds line the fence there, herbs in neat rows. Sage. Sootheleaf. I know them now. Light spills from a low wooden house.
Dawnstar.
I stop on the threshold. For a moment I consider walking away, but the door swings open before my hand lifts.
Aelric peeks out, eyes wide. "You came!"
He looks eight again. No grief shadowing his face. Only mischief and pride.
"Wouldn't miss it."
He grabs my sleeve and drags. "Mum! The traveller's here!"
The main room feels like every fantasy painting of "humble hearth" rolled together. Big rough table. Smoke‑stained beams. A pot hissing over the fire. Shelves lined with jars of dried leaves.
Selene turns from the hearth. Dark hair bound back. Hands dusted with flour. No tear‑tracks. No red eyes.
"Welcome." Warmth in her voice, not that brittle edge I saw after the battle. "Jonas brings home the strangest folk."
"Occupational hazard." I shrug. "Herbs and weirdos travel the same roads."
Jonas chuckles from the corner where he sets his satchel. "Sit, Ryan. You look like you've walked all day."
"Feels like I've walked… longer than that."
We settle around the table. All four of us. Jonas across, Selene to my left, Aelric bouncing on a stool to my right, feet not touching the floor. Bowls appear. Bread. Meat stew. Roasted roots. More food than I've seen in one place since San Francisco.
Jonas pushes a plate closer. "Eat. The road north isn't kind. You'll need strength."
I hesitate. Part of me whispers this is bait. The rest smells imaginary spice and gives in.
I eat.
First bite. Second. Third. The taste is muted, but better than the corn soup at the inn—maybe my brain finally patched the flavour bug. Warmth spreads from my stomach outward, heavy and thick.
Selene smiles at my emptying plate. "You were hungry."
"Yeah. Guess so."
"Have more." Jonas slides another piece of meat onto my plate. "You give what you can to a village on fire, the least a village can do is fill your bowl."
Fire.
The word sticks.
I look up. The ceiling beams are whole. No scorch. No blackened scar where smoke once clawed its way out.
"This isn't… how it happened," I murmur.
"What was that?" Jonas tilts his head.
"Nothing. Just… thinking of work."
Aelric waves a fork in a grand gesture. "Father says travellers always think of work. Even when they eat."
"Smart father," I mumble.
I keep chewing. The warmth gets stronger, curls behind my eyes. My limbs sink into the chair, wood turning to wet clay under me.
"Hey," I grunt. "Anyone else feel… weird?"
Jonas's voice comes from very far away. "You need rest. Long roads. Heavy burdens."
Selene's hand touches my forearm. "Close your eyes. Only for a moment."
My eyelids weigh a ton. Light blurs. The crackle of the fire slows, like someone drags a finger through the sound.
"This is a dream," I mumble, words slurring. "You're dead. I watched you die."
No one answers.
The table tilts.
I fall—
—and "wake up."
Same chair. Same table.
Different world.
The air turns cold and wet in a heartbeat. Each breath tastes like stone cellars and standing water. My skin pebbles. The fire? Gone. Only a dull blue smear in the hearth like embers under ice.
Three figures sit around the table.
Jonas. Selene. Aelric.
Except they don't.
Each wears a deer head. Huge, crooked things, fur ragged and patchy, eyes black pits. Antlers sprout and twist in directions bones shouldn't know, some tips splintered, some sharpened like blades. Bits of moss hang from them like old flesh.
My throat locks. I force sound through it.
"What… are you doing…?"
They turn toward me in unison. The movement is slow, deliberate, like it hurts them and they enjoy the hurt.
Jonas—whatever wears him—reaches up with long fingers. They close around the base of the deer skull and lift.
I expect leather. A mask.
The skin peels away instead.
Wet.
The "mask" comes off like a second face, strings of dark tissue stretching, snapping. Underneath, the real face waits.
If "real" still applies.
His skull looks too long. Cheekbones sharp enough to cut. Skin so tight over bone it might tear if he blinks. Eyes sunk deep in dark holes, pupils blown wide, ringed with sickly yellow. Lips have split and pulled back, frozen in a grin that shows teeth that don't belong in a human mouth—long, thin, needle sharp, like something that strips meat from bone in tidy lines.
He grins wider.
Selene pulls her deer head off. The same wrong skull underneath, only thinner, angles sharper, teeth even longer.
Aelric's small hands fumble, then tear his own deer face away. Underneath, his features stretch into something feral. Jaw too wide, eyes rimmed with cracked black veins, baby teeth turned to narrow spikes.
My ribs clamp down. I try to stand.
Nothing moves.
My shoulders strain; metal bites into my arms. I look down.
Thick iron bands clamp my wrists, ankles, chest. They hook into the chair, bolted straight into the wood. Every breath scrapes against cold iron. When I twist, rust grinds against rust with a scream that crawls up my teeth.
"Fuck—"
My voice breaks.
Something wet thuds onto a plate in front of me.
I don't remember looking away from their faces, but suddenly I'm staring at the food.
Meat.
Not the stew. Not anything that belongs on a family table.
It quivers faintly, slick and grey‑pink, full of complex folds and tiny ridges. Chunks of it lie in a dark puddle that might be sauce, might be blood. The texture is so wrong my stomach lurches just from looking.
A smell clamps my lungs—a cold, rotten, freezer‑burn stink with a sweet undertone like fruit left in a closed room for a month. It snakes into my nose, into my throat, chokes.
I gag. Nothing comes up.
Across the table, the thing in Jonas's shape leans forward. It holds a knife in one bony hand. On a plate beside the meat, something else lies glistening.
My brain.
I know it before conscious thought catches up. The wet convoluted folds, the faint twitch like they're still trying to fire. Pale cords trail from one side, ending in ragged ends.
My skull feels intact. My head aches, but closed.
"IMPOSSIBLE," I whisper.
To my right, an upright mirror stands almost touching the chair.
I turn my head.
In the glass, I sit bound to the same chair. Only here, the top of my skull is gone. Bone peeled back like the shell of a boiled egg, jagged edges slick with red. The hollow gapes, empty, steaming.
I stare at my own hollowed head.
The thing wearing Jonas's face digs into the brain on the plate with the knife, rooting through the folds as if searching for a prize. It slides the blade under a trembling lump, lifts, lets it drip once, then pushes it between his long teeth.
He chews.
Slow.
My gorge rises. Nothing in my body listens to me.
"Stop," I croak. "Stop! Please. That's—"
He looks up. Gold flecks burn in the black of his eyes.
"You taste… strange," he rasps, voice like winter wind scraping bone.
My bladder goes hot. Shame mixes with terror.
Something rustles under the table.
Between my legs, in the shadow where my feet should hang free, something small crouches.
A child. Maybe.
It has Aelric's size, but not his shape. The face stretches out, half animal, half nightmare. Jaw long. Nose gone, just two flaring holes. Eyes huge and glassy, reflecting me and the room and nothing human. Skin clings tight over the bones of the skull, cracked in places like old bark.
It stares up at me without blinking.
My throat tightens. "Aelric…?"
It crawls closer on all fours, joints bending too far. Fingers end in hooked, dirty nails. When it reaches my knees it rises, slow, until its face is a hand's breadth from mine.
The breath that leaks from its open mouth is freezing. It smells like something dead left in snow too long.
One thin hand lifts. Knuckles scrape my cheek, soft at first, almost gentle. Nails trace under my eye socket.
"Don't," I whisper.
The fingers hook around my eyeball.
It pulls.
Pain like white fire explodes through my head as my eye tears free in one wet, awful pop. Nerve and jelly rip together. The world splits; half of it swings on a red string in front of my nose.
I scream.
The sound doesn't leave my throat.
---
I jolt so hard I almost tumble off the saddle.
Something warm and slimy drags across my face.
"NGHH—!"
I claw at my head with both hands, fingers slamming into intact bone, two eyes, no metal, no straps. My vision doubles, then snaps back. Trees. Sun. Road.
Snowball's huge muzzle fills my vision. The Antlersteed licks a long stripe from my chin to my ear, then snorts, ears flicking back as if offended by my scream.
My heart hammers so loud it drowns the forest.
I grab his bridle, forehead pressed to the rough leather. "Okay. Okay. I'm awake. I'm awake."
My hands shake. I touch my temples again. No crack. No missing lid. I force myself to check—skull solid, hair damp with sweat, not blood.
My right eye throbs. I blink.
Still here.
Snowball nudges my shoulder, breath hot and grassy. Another wet swipe across my cheek.
"Yeah, yeah. I get it," I mutter. "Don't sleep in the saddle. Message received."
The forest hums around us, normal again. Just wind in leaves, a bird calling, the creak of branches. No demon. No chains. No brain on a plate.
I swallow. My throat feels raw.
For a sliver of a second, I honestly don't know which side is the dream.
I wipe Antlersteed drool from my face with my sleeve, fist the reins tighter, and force Snowball back into a slow walk along the road.