The Sleeper part of the compound was relatively small and situated in the southern part of the Academy, surrounded on all sides by training fields and parks.
Inside, the building was spacious and well-lit. Sunny and the silver-haired girl were taken to a large hall where a hundred or so of young men and women — Sleepers of the same unfortunate timing as the two of them — were already waiting for the beginning of the induction ceremony. Most of them were nervous, tense and excited.
Once inside the hall, he understood two things.
Firstly, everyone was well-dressed and in possession of a suitcase, a duffel bag, or at least a backpack carrying their personal belongings. They were obviously coming prepared, most likely from home, sent off by their families. So Sunny and the silver-haired girl, who came empty-handed and wearing simple police-issued clothes, were not a norm like he had assumed, but actually an eye-catching anomaly.
'Right. That makes sense.'
Secondly, Master Jet was not being overly humble when she called herself below average by Awakened standards. Even though these young people were just starting their paths as Awakened, their looks were dazzling. Everyone was handsome, beautiful and radiated health.
But he still doubted her.
'Master Jet looks way better than those fools.'
Sunny already knew that he was in for a wild ride.
Because he could not lie, and all of these excited youths, regardless of their clothes, gender and looks, wanted to do one thing.
Talk.
Every one of them wanted to talk with fellow Sleepers. They wanted to discuss their Nightmares, their future journey into the Dream Realm, and everything in between. They wanted to ask questions. They wanted to be asked questions. They wanted to discuss something important or just chit-chat about stupid things.
Everyone wanted to share.
He was not completely opposed to the idea of talking. Everyone needed someone to talk to if they did not want to accumulate pressure.
But it still did not sit right with him.
Changing his habbits from the outskirts, lying to keep peoples gazes away from him, was not something he wantes to do.
In half an hour, pretty much everyone thought of him as a wierdo.
After a short series of conversations, Sunny had acquired a reputation of amentally unstalbe kid with more then just one screw loose. This reputation was quickly solidified.Almost everyone he talked to left in uncomfortable silence. He also discovered a couple of new things about his true self — namely, that deep down inside he was apparently rude, arrogant, and straight up crazy.
The conversations went something like this:
"What happened with your eyes? Were you born with them?"
"I was not. I got them after bathing in some really dirty water. Something in it must have done that to me.
Or:
"Look at all these young people. How many do you think will return from the Dream Realm? How many will perish? What do you think our own chances of survival are?"
"I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that a pompous fool like you will die first!"
Or:
"My nightmare was terrible, I had to fight and kill a human. What happened in yours?"
"Yours sounds awful, I just met three birds and swam for a bit."
Or:
"Then those lowlifes began to kill the animals. It was disgusting! They were just babys, how could anyone ever hate animals.
"A fox once spiked me and took me to his bed without my consent. I would say hating them is understandable. if not smart."
"... What? A fox did what? Are you joking?"
"Of course not! There also was that one squirrel that tried to bury me alive."
Once again an outcast, Sunny was eventually left alone. People seemed to be avoiding him. But every few minutes a brave individual would dare to speak to him. He found a quiet corner and stood there, glad the amount of people approaching him decreased.
he was smiling. Every conversation helped him to get a hang on his flaw.
Once asked a question, he could not keep quiet. He also couldn't lie. However, after a lot of experimentation, Sunny had found out that with a bit of practice, he could influence the exact way the truth eventually came out.
It was like this: after receiving a question, his mind automatically produced a truthful answer. After that, the Flaw would force him to say that answer aloud. Refusal to speak would result in the buildup of pressure, then piercing pain. The longer he kept quiet, the worse the pain would become. Eventually, he would have to surrender and reveal the truth.
However, in these moments between receiving the question and surrendering to the pain, the actual wording of the answer could be changed. The more it strayed from the initial thought, the more resistance he would meet — once again in the form of pressure, then pain. It still had to be truthful, but it didn't have to be so stark.
Then he saw an empty corner just a few tables away from him.
For some reason, Sleepers were unwilling to approach it: currently, there was only one girl sitting quietly on the bench. Sunny gave her a look.
'Damnation. Why do I only notice this now?
The quiet girl was delicate, demure and very pretty. Her clothes were tidy and neat. They weren't very expensive, but still rather tasteful. With her pale blond hair, big blue eyes and exquisite face, she looked like a beautiful porcelain doll.
She was subtly breathtaking.
However, there was something wrong with her. Sunny frowned, trying to understand what exactly about the girl made him uncomfortable. After a while, he realized that her empty, expressionless stare was the cause.
It remindet him of the outskirts.
'She is blind.'
'What a shame.'
A bit disheartened, he carefully sat on the opposite end of the bench.
The girl wouldn't have survived the First Nightmare if she had been blind prior to entering the Spell. Which meant that she lost her sight as the result of the Appraisal.
It was her Flaw.
Suddenly, Sunny felt very apprehensive. A cold sensation spread through his chest.
'And I thought my Flaw was bad.'
No matter what Aspect Ability the blind girl had received in exchange for her sight, it was effectively a death sentence. A blind person had no chances of surviving in the Dream Realm, at least not with a dormant core. In some sense, the girl was already dead.
She was effectively a walking corpse.
Feeling extremely disturbed, Sunny turned away and studied the crowd of Sleepers. Now he understood why people were trying to avoid this corner: the girl was surrounded by an invisible, but almost palpable aura of death.
Activating his eye he looked at her.
'Is this even possible?'
'How could this girl have a mind bigger then that of a master.?'
The strings composing her image in the plane of soul were both brigfhter and more numerous then those of master jet.
'So her aspect has something to do with the mind.'
A thought snuck inside his head.
'Is she a prophet?'
It was just a guess, but an educated one. He still remembered the mind streghening abilities during his nightmare.
'I could never have endured the sight of those monster if not for my aspect.'
Her bright, vast mind just reminded him of his past aspect
'When will the damn induction ceremony start?' Sunny thought, irritated after a while.
As though answering his thoughts, a tall man in a dark blue uniform appeared on the stage. Not only was he tall, he was actually almost a giant. Sunny even wondered if the man's mother had sinned with a bear…
Of course, it was impossible — bears had gone extinct long before the Spell even appeared. But he once saw pictures in a book, and they looked sort of similar.
'A bear-like Nightmare Creature, then.'
"I am Awakened Rock. Sleepers, welcome to the Academy." The huge man spoke.
Everyone listened without making a sound.