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Summers were the best time of the year, honestly. Getting away from your busy life, responsibilities and duties you had when you were born into a respectable family.
But during summers, your grandparents took you to stay with them at their manor, away from the city’s grime and everything you loathed. At certain things, city life could be fun, convenient and vivid, but you had always preferred the countryside, and the big manor your grandfathers owned was a perfect place for that.
The manor had its mysteries, like every old building had. The cellar in particular had been off limits for you since you were a child, your grandfather Alex had explained that his father had been a cruel man, backed up with your granddad Paul. And that the cellar had old relics, demonic artefacts, you’d better not see. And for years, you accepted that — you had read about your great-grandfather Roderick Burgess and the horrors he was rumoured on doing. You had tried to be curious about it when you were younger and asked your grandfather how was his father in real life, but he always avoided the topic and refused from telling more than what you could read from old articles.
It had been a long time since those times now, and you were already a young woman who was kind of expected to find a husband and establish a family soon, but your grandparents never poked you with questions like that, thankfully. You sometimes wondered how you were living in 21st century while constantly being asked about whether you’ve already found a man, but you always managed to brush it off.
This summer was a little different from past ones. Grandfather Alex had been irritated somehow, and constantly visited the cellar when he and Paul thought you weren’t watching them. If it was truly full of “demonic artefacts” your great-grandfather left behind, why was he so eager to look through them, constantly? And why he was snappy every time he came back up?
And one day, you heard him mutter to granddad Paul, “He’s never giving up. He’d be there for an eternity rather than just promise he won’t hurt us.”
Paul sighed. “Maybe we should let him out, Alex and just… trust him. It’s just not worth it to fear for our own safety, you have seen what keeping him prisoner has–”
“And risk our lives? Risk our daughter’s life? Her family’s life? What if he wants revenge and wants to wipe all of us Burgesses off the face of the Earth? How could I let him out, when I know we may wake up the next morning to find our own granddaughter–”
Creak.
They stopped talking and you cursed at stepping on that one plank you always knew to avoid when you were a child and tried to sneak to the snack jar. But you sighed and stepped forward, trying to pretend you hadn’t heard anything, plastering a smile on your face.
Both of them looked at you with wide eyes, and you frowned, trying your hardest to look puzzled. “What?”
Your grandfather pursed his lips together and waved at your granddad, who started pushing him forward and they both smiled at you. “Nothing. Good night, sweetie.”
You watched at them go towards the elevator, and glanced back to the cellar door. Well, now it intrigued you more than ever, and you also happened to know the passcode… so maybe you should just take a small peek.
You shouldn’t, you knew that. But maybe… just a peek.
At night, you waited until you were sure your grandparents had fallen asleep, before you quietly exited the guest bedroom and tiptoed downstairs. You barely even breathed as you typed in the passcode, slightly flinching at every beep it made. But you somehow got it right on first try, and slipped in, before you were stopped on your tracks again once you heard two voices chatting to each other.
“He’s been here for decades and has never even tried to escape, why the fuss?” a man asked and the woman smacked her lips.
“Have you even seen the news articles about the time boss’s father was still alive?”
The man sighed. “Stories often bend around enough to be something completely different from what they started from. If I started out a rumour about you that you like to keep a garden, in a few decades it would have turned into your daughter being a serial killer who buries her victims into your garden.”
You took two careful steps forward, and finally saw… a man. Sitting naked in a large glass ball.
What the hell?
You stared at him, not even blinking.
Why did your grandparents have a naked man as a prisoner in their cellar?
It was just absurd. If someone had told you this was the reason why you weren’t allowed to go to the cellar, you would have laughed for an hour about that thought, mocked the person for being delusional. Your grandparents were the last people to keep a human being a prisoner and have guards to watch over him.
But here you were, looking at the very proof they had done that exact thing.
You started visiting the cellar every night after that. Something in him just drew you there every single night, and it wasn’t long before you started learning the patterns of the guards, when one of them fetched something to eat for both of them, the bathroom breaks, the moment the male guard felt like he can slack for a few minutes when the female one didn’t see…
You had found a place for yourself in the corner, there was a space, a dent in the shadows you could squeeze yourself into when guards passed you, and they never noticed.
You didn’t know if that man inside the glass ball noticed you either, as he always just sat there looking at his feet, never looking around, seeming like he never even slept. He just sat there in that same position, night after night.
You weren’t sure when you started feeling like it actually wasn’t a human. You remembered reading news articles about your great-grandfather having a demon trapped in his cellar, was this the demon?
But he didn’t feel like a demon.
But… on the other hand, isn’t that what demons are supposed to be? Trick people into thinking they aren’t demons so they’d open the gates to be possessed?
But the longer you thought of it, the longer you just couldn’t help the thought. You had to get that man out of there. Something wasn’t right, and he needed to get out.
So, you began planning how you’d get past the guards, break the sigils, break the glass. You knew any of that wouldn’t be easy, but you set your mind to it.
It took weeks. Maybe a month or two, you lost count. In any case, your summer vacation was almost over when you finally, finally managed to switch the pills they used to stay awake to strong sleeping pills, and soon both guards snored loudly on their desks, which encouraged you to finally move from the dent and sneak past them.
The man didn’t look at you, didn’t even acknowledge you. You didn’t even know if he saw you. Was the glass a two-way mirror? You frowned, before you knocked on the glass to get his attention.
Still no effect. He was ignoring you on purpose.
Well, that wasn’t a wonder honestly, he had been imprisoned for God knows how long, he had probably lost all hope at this point.
You glanced back at the guards. Still out cold, so you snuck back and started digging through their drawers for a key, a wrench, a crowbar… something you could use to open the glass ball as you recognised the glass type, it definitely wouldn’t shatter even if you slammed it with a sledgehammer. But there was nothing there, which made you groan out of frustration.
Then, you remembered the sigils. You looked down on them for a moment before you snatched the water bottle from the other guard and marched back to the glass ball, pouring water on the sigils and rubbed it around with your foot. The sigils smudged away, but there wasn’t any magical wave or a whiplash you expected, which made you drop the bottle in frustration.
At least the man now looked at your shoe, that had turned faint yellow from rubbing it against the paint. He was probably disappointed too.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to get you out,” you murmured against the glass. “I… I’ve been watching you for weeks now. I just… I just have this feeling you need to get out. I don’t know why, but I just can’t get it out of my head. I think you—”
You were interrupted as you heard your name being called from upstairs by your grandfather, which made you flinch and the man looked up. You sighed, closing your eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Then, you sprinted away, pretending you were merely getting a glass of water before your grandfather could make his way downstairs, smile at him and claim everything is fine and you definitely weren’t trying to get the naked man in his cellar out.
But you still knew that you didn’t know how to forget and give up, when there was clearly nothing you could do.
Next morning, you woke up to your grandfather shouting. “What do you mean he has disappeared?!”
“I don’t know, boss! We both fell asleep—”
“Fell asleep? You mean to say you forgot—”
“No, we took them, but somehow we still fell asleep! Maybe the sigils had weakened over the years and he managed to enchant us!”
You sat up slowly, listening to the ruckus. People pacing, running around.
He had escaped?
You let out a disbelieving breath, you had succeeded? Breaking the circle had worked?
Apparently that was exactly what happened.
A few weeks later, you dreamed. For the first time in your life, you had a dream. A beautiful, neverending field with golden straws of rye spread around you and in the middle of it all stood a tree. And under that tree, stood a man in a long black cape. You recognised him immediately.
“You’re… here,” you mumbled, and he smiled softly.
“Yes. You freed me.”
You blinked. “How? I mean, obviously the sigils… but how did you get away without anyone noticing?”
He turned his eyes away from you, looking around the field. “I created a portal here, to my realm.”
You flinched slightly. “So… do you mean to say you are a demon after all?”
He chuckled. “This is not Hell. I am Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams. Children know me as the Sandman.”
You frowned. “Sandman?”
He hummed. “I was planning on cursing Alexander Burgess with eternal nightmares, but you being his granddaughter changed my mind. I do not wish to bestow such grief over you after this gift you gave me.”
You blinked. “…Thank you.”
He turned his eyes on you again. “You came to see me every night. You plotted on my escape for weeks. And for that, I am eternally grateful. The world order is restored, much because of you.”
You felt yourself blush and turned your head away from him. “I just did what I knew was right.”
He hummed again. “I wish to show you my realm. I know you have never visited here, as you were born when I was already imprisoned.”
You looked around again, and the field had shifted, replaced by a small town and a castle. “What is this place?”
He started walking slowly, prompting you to follow. “It’s The Dreaming. You will visit here every night in your dreams. Your dreams will be affected by what you went through during daytime.”
You opened your mouth, then closed it again. You didn’t know what to say to that. You felt his eyes on you, and you glanced at him shyly. “Will I see you every night?”
His mouth parted slightly before he frowned. “I do not usually appear into mortal dreams unless there is something I need to see.”
Your shoulders sagged slightly. “Oh.”
He was quiet for a moment. “But I may make an exception with you. I may not be able to appear every night, but I would like to meet with you any time I am able to.”
You brightened up instantly. “Really?”
He smiled softly again and hummed. You smiled at him widely, feeling a flutter in your chest, unaware Morpheus felt a flutter in his own chest too when looking at you smiling.
This could become something beautiful.