I hid underneath the large form of Professor Rider, his body cold and stiff in death. The only sound was the cawing of crows and my heavy, ragged breathing.

  Until the sound of steam and clanking metal closed in on me.

  Don’t notice, don’t notice, don’t notice, don’t notice.

  The spear passed easily through Professor Rider’s body and into my gut. It felt like boiling water was being poured into my abdomen, causing my intestines to blister and pop like over inflated balloons.

  My scream blew away the professor’s body, it crumbled to fleshy bits to reveal Quint standing above me, his gauntleted hands around the spears haft.

  “I got another freak!” Quint yelled with glee.

  It sounded odd, he was normally so stoic- but him hunting Dreamers gave him a lot of satisfaction. It was his job after all.

  “Great! We’ve got the last of them over here!” Yun’s voice called. “Go ahead and bring him over!”

  “Yes sir!” Quint said.

  He lifted me up with his spear, and held me above his head like a prize being paraded on the streets.

  Every inch of land was covered by corpses. Daybreak Dreamer Academy students I didn’t know the names of. Twisted horrors whose forms were incomprehensibly terrible even in death.

  The other Forged Order were sitting around a campfire.

  Their seats- their- their seats were made of Dreamers I knew.

  No.

  No.

  Nonononono.

  Elina’s body was shattered and stretched to create a comfortable chair for Icey, her face twisted into an expression of ecstatic agony. Professor Pure, Professor Alyci, Heidi, Cystella and Ravik Reverest were in similar forms for the others.

  Quint sat down on the Ravik chair, resting his back onto the splayed open rib cage and groaning in satisfaction. He tossed me and the spear attached to me over to Icey.

  “Oh he looks good! A bit thin, but I’m sure we can make do,” Icey said, examining me.

  Why was I not talking? Why was I not begging?

  Because I was already dead.

  My body went boneless, arms and legs flopping uselessly down.

  “Come on guys, help me strip him,” Icey said, scolding his teammates with a teasing tone.

  They pulled on my clothes, ripping them apart without care, and the chilly wind was not at all offset by the nearby fire.

  Icey then removed the spear from my stomach, and I could feel the cold wind blow into the hole, a hollow groan echoing out as though it were a cave crying out in sorrow.

  He set me down onto the ground and took out a large knife dipping it into the hole in my stomach and sliding it up my torso and down my groin. The pain was burning, like a harsh sunburn.

  Icey then put his armored fingers on the flaps of my skin, the cold metal making me want to hiss. But, of course, I was dead.

  Icey opened my abdomen, pushing through my muscles to get to my guts. He began to pull them out, carefully slicing away the mesentery. I felt it all.

  I felt the cold wind on them, the pinch of their flesh between Icey’s metallic joints, the smacking pain when he threw them to the ground, and the way the corpse of a nameless Dreamer felt beneath them.

  Then out came my bladder and liver. When he took out my kidneys he squeezed and rolled them between his fingers giving me a sharp cramping pain along with an unpleasant tingle.

  Once Icey finished with my abdomen he peeled away the muscles of my chest and cracked open my ribs.

  First he took out my lungs, throwing them to Yun and Terkville who giggled and blew into them, inflating them and tying off the bronchi, bringing a tearing ache to them and the need to release a large breath.

  Icey held my heart in his hands, giving it a crushing grip that made blood rip through my body violently and made me light headed. An odd feeling for a dead person.

  “It's a hunters tradition to eat the prey’s heart,” Gelf said.

  Icey removed his helmet and I found that human teeth could be surprisingly sharp when enough pressure was put down. They tore through my heart in a scrapy, ripping way. His tongue felt slimy and rough at the same time. If my lungs were not currently lying on the ground blown up like balloons I would have gasped as his teeth crushed the tough muscle of my heart.

  When he swallowed I could feel the stretchy mucus lined esophagus guiding me down into his stomach where a slow tingling burn attacked the flesh of my chewed heart muscle.

  Icey then tossed the heart to Quint who followed suit and passed it to the next member of Team- Team- Team Dreamkiller.

  “Is the spit ready?” Icey asked.

  “Yes,” Quint replied, gesturing to a rotisserie made of false human arms. Some had scales, others ridged joints like an insect, at the top was a spear made of a petrified ghost snake held up by the inhuman hands like they were supplicating to some dark god.

  Icey took the snake spear and pried open my mouth with his bloodstained metal fingers. As it passed through my throat and out the other side of my body I was reminded of when I swallowed hard burned bread, this felt oddly similar. After tying my legs to the pole he began to lather my body with sauces and oils before seasoning me. I wanted to squirm, the feeling of his gauntleted hands massaging salt pepper and who knew what else into my skin overwhelming every aspect of personal space in existence.

  But I couldn’t squirm.

  Because I was dead.

  Then he tied herbs across my body before hauling me over the fire and placing me down.

  I was slowly spun over and over and over and over. The fire tickled my skin and I could see my lungs spasming, but I was unable to laugh.

  Because I was dead.

  Eventually my skin began to harden to a crispy shell and the warmth of the fire suffused my entire body in a comfortable, sizzling warmth. But all I could do was stare off into the distance as my entire world spun over and over and over and over.

  I could see the shadows of armored warriors stabbing their swords down into struggling twisted incomprehensible creatures. The only defining feature of the figures were the two circular white zeros on their chest and helmets.

  “Hmm that should be good,” Icey said, and I finally stopped spinning. “Come on and take a bite.”

  Even though I knew they were about to eat me, I had to admit that I smelled good. Icey was a good cook.

  Someone immediately took a bite from my shoulder, the crispy crinkle of my burned flesh loud. I could feel the cold wind where my chunk of flesh vacated and I could feel the wet mouth smacking on the muscle and skin. Little muscle fibers felt pinched as they slid in between the person's teeth and the rest felt as though they’d been tenderized by a mallet a dozen times before sliding down the person's gullet. What was oddest was my skin, I could feel it get softer and softer before melting like sugar in water.

  “Mhmmm! Magnificent Icey. To think these freaks would taste so good,” Downs said, smacking her lips.

  “Thank you!” Icey replied, his voice filled with pride.

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  “Let me try,” Gelf said, and I felt something stab into my thigh.

  Just like I had done to Brax.

  He sliced several long lines in my skin before peeling it away.

  The pain was a needle like tingle where skin left flesh, and exposed even more of my cooked meat to the cold air.

  “Really? You’re only eating the skin?” Yun scoffed.

  “Its the best part, have you ever had chicken wings?” Gelf replied, and I felt my flap of skin dance in the wind as Gelf lifted it up and lowered it into his mouth like a sword swallower in a circus.

  A sharp snap followed by a pull and Gelf bit off a chunk of skin chewing it with a delighted moan.

  Yun grabbed one of my ribs and yanked it off my body, beginning to chew on it. Quin’t lifted my forearm and began to take bites out quickly like he was eating corn on the cob. Terkville cut out chunks of the flayed thigh meat left by Gelf and popped them into his mouth like candies.

  I lost myself in the sensations. Crushing pain from chewing, like a too enthusiastic massage. The slices of knives as they took pieces off of me. Cold wind blew into the cavities of my body, and a burning sensation began to grow like an infection as more and more of my body sat in their gastric acid.

  Downs moved to my head and lifted my chin gently with a finger so I looked her in the eyes. She smiled ruefully.

  “It's okay. Everything is over now. The monsters under the bed are dead. We are safe,” she whispered kindly.

  Her other hand rose- when had her armor come off? It- so- Of course, it was dreadfully rude to eat with armor on, they’d been in their normal clothes all night.

  Even while hunting?

  Of course not.

  They-

  Downs’s fingers wiped my hard, crispy, cheek, but I was dead and had no tears to shed. The digits trailed up my face until they rested around my eye socket.

  “Go to sleep,” she sang soothingly.

  Then her fingers dug into my charred face, cracking the shell of skin so she could get a grip on my eyeball. It felt like boiling hot worms were digging into my skull. Then she began to pull. A lance of pain shot from my eye to my melted brain and a moment later a slick pop announced my eye’s vacancy from its socket. My optic nerve burned as it was stretched and stretched until it finally snapped.

  “I wonder if they’re as crunchy as fish eyes,” Downs muttered to herself.

  I could barely comprehend her however. My vision was doubled, watching with one eye as Downs lifted the other, and seeing her maw open like a deep sea dwelling Nightmare to reveal bits of my cooked muscled stuck in between her teeth. Then half of me was shrouded in moist darkness. Her warm tongue lathered my eyeball, tracing the contours of my lens. My optic nerve was still held in her hand as though it was a limp lolly. She twisted the stretched nerve around a finger similar to playing with a lock of hair.

  Each time my eyeball brushed her teeth a sense of dread filled me. Letting the optic nerve go she bent her head back, slurping it up like spaghetti and swallowed the eye whole. Downs’s neck distended unnaturally and my eye fell down her slimy esophagus before being enveloped in acid.

  “Ah, crunchy,” she breathed, rubbing her belly, then she looked into my other eye.

  Her hand dominated my vision as she reached out. The boiling worms were back and this time it was easier to follow what happened when she lifted me to her lips and put the entire eyeball in her mouth. Like a closing portcullis, her jaw cut off sight to the outside world, and I was buried in darkness.

  —

  “You look tired,” Cystella said over the rhythmic thumping of the train, a book in her lap.

  “I am tired.”

  Of all the dreams I’ve had since joining Daybreak Dreamer Academy, the one of getting killed and eaten was the most vivid. I could still feel team Thunderbird’s tongues and teeth as they chewed on my flesh.

  “Sleep then, I will not judge.”

  “My apologies but I do not wish to sleep,” I replied.

  Cystella sighed, placing a bookmark in her book and closing it with a thump. Her face was still bruised from Ravik’s beating, but she was healing quickly.

  “I know, you wish to talk about my fight with Ravik. That and you wish to avoid the stares you have accumulated amongst the students and Forged Order.”

  She was right, whatever thoughts I had of only team Thunderbird judging me because of The Forest of Living Dreams shattered the morning after the incident with Ravik Reverest. The moment I left my tent it felt as though every single person had been staring at me with the interest one showed at a tragedy in the newspaper.

  Since then I had done everything I could do to be out of sight from the other students and soldiers, especially team Thunderbird.

  “Yes, I am not accustomed to being the center of attention,” I replied diplomatically.

  “How unfortunate for you,” Cystella snarked.

  Right, Cystella drew far more attention just existing than I ever could. Not truly a Skulker, not truly a Child of the Sun, and decidedly not human.

  Cystella sighed again.

  “Well, you wanted to ask about the fight with Ravik. Go ahead.”

  “How are Wits created? At first I assumed they were very detailed items created in ones Dreamscape, but Ravik’s Wit seemed more complex than just what a piece of parchment could accomplish.”

  “Room, cut off from the rest of your Dreamscape with walls. Each with their own unifying concept. Like how a kitchen is for cooking and a bathroom for bathing.”

  That was… rather simple, and obvious in hindsight. I had already noticed that focusing on my river stone was more difficult the more objects were around it, but if the entire room was dedicated to a single idea…

  “How important is the design of the Room in the creation of a Wit?”

  “Stop, I’m not Professor Pure. If you have more questions about Rooms you can ask him or if you are incapable of waiting that long you can ask Professor Alyci, or Brightstrike and Ventlos. Now if you have questions about the fight with Ravik I can answer them.”

  She didn’t sound like she wanted me to ask anymore questions, but she did offer.

  “What do you think the contract Ravik wanted me to sign would have done to me?”

  “I can not know for sure, however I can make assumptions. Experienced Dreamers do not often create Wits that do not contribute to their Dream, and they especially avoid creating ones that go against the core idea of their Dream.”

  “Why?”

  “Things created in one's Dreamscape disappear at different rates depending on some factors. But one of the most important is if the item contributes to the Dreamer’s Dream. Things that do not align with a person’s Dream disappear quicker than things that do. And things that go against the values of the Dream not only disappear much quicker, but they also make the things closest to them disappear quicker.”

  I would need to test that for myself.

  “What assumptions can you make then?”

  “I assume that the contract would do exactly what it said, but the punishment for breaking it I have no idea. Perhaps it would Detain you like his other Wit, perhaps you would be knocked out, or perhaps you would owe him money.”

  “His Wit could make me pay him?”

  “Maybe, it would not be the first time a Dreamer's abilities had a monetary aspect.”

  Would it make me forcibly write him a check? Or give him any money on my person? Perhaps it would make money I did have disappear on its own.

  “What about his other Wit, the one that created the chains?”

  “What about it?”

  “It didn’t discriminate against ally or foe. How?”

  Cystella replied with a question of her own.

  “What do you think Ravik’s Dream is?”

  “A lawmaker of some sort, like a judge,” I said instantly, I had given it some thought.

  Cystella nodded.

  “My idea was something similar. There is following the letter of the law, and following the spirit of the law. His Wit no doubt has a blend of both, you were Detained for your watch-”

  “How did you know?”

  “My Wit has to do with Stygoscript, I can feel the patterns pulling energy from your body. So while you broke Ravik’s law with your watch I did not as none of the Stygoscript on my body works. Meanwhile, for no females can move I was only Detained when I moved my foot's placement without being forcefully shoved. What determines if a law is broken I do not know, but it cannot be Ravik’s opinion alone as he had no way of knowing that you wore a Stygoscript watch.”

  Our train began to slow as we made our final approach toward Zuva. I could already feel the softness of my dorm bed.

  “Is his ability to create undodgeable chains not unfair?”

  “Dreaming is meant to be unfair. But I understand what you are alluding to. Rooms are only the most basic step in creating a Wit. Creating conditions for one’s Wit can vastly increase the power and capability of it. During our fight Ravik could have said, no one can move and every person would have been affected, but I assume one of the conditions for his Wit is that he has to follow his own laws, and breaking them has consequences.”

  “He was only able to write up to five laws at a time. They also didn’t go into effect until he spoke, and the laws need to have a certain radius or something similar to affect a person, as there is no way his law affected everyone in the forest, let alone the world,” I said, tapping my finger against the face of my watch as I thought more about it.

  Cystella nodded.

  “The power of the Wit increases with the severity of the condition, as well as the connection to the Wit and Dream, but theoretically the condition can be anything; such as never eating peanuts again. However, the repercussions are not worth the minimal increase in power.”

  Buildings outside the window began to grow and cluster together as we entered the city, overhead the conductor announced our arrival as well as the next stop.

  “What kind of repercussions would there be?”

  “Depends on the restrictions you create and the Wit itself,” Cystella said with a careless shrug.

  “Good you two are awake, get your stuff ready and say farewell to the Forged Order. We’re splitting up as soon as we step out of the station,” the pink haired professor said before hurrying down to the next compartment.

  Neither Cystella nor myself jumped out of our seats to go say goodbye to the soldiers.

  A few moments later our train came to a halt inside the Zuva train station. The sweet scent of sugar and sunflowers made my nose tingle as I collected my belongings. I glanced at Cystella, but she was looking out the window with a frown.

  Professor Alyci and Sergeant Brightstrike had already disembarked and were talking to a one armed man with a hammer pin on the collar of his uniform and a mail bag slung over his shoulder.

  All three of them had disturbed looks on their faces and Professor Alyci began to harshly question the Forged Order courier. The man answered hastily before giving Sergeant Brightstrike a letter, saluting him, and fleeing as fast as he could.

  Before I could comment on it Cystella was already leaving the compartment, shutting the door on her way out.

  I missed Elina.

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