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The Tactician told him this test was going to be easy. It was his last to take in the traditional somnihost education system where they learned to harvest their needed emotions from the dreams of humans instead of the citizens of the Dream World. His friends, who had passed their class a month ago, informed him the final exam was extremely easy to pass. That was all reassuring, until the test began.
The Marquis was dropped into a space he didn’t recognize, but it brought him feelings of familiarity for reasons unknown. He stood in the atrium of an empty mall. The fluorescent ceiling lights were on. They hummed quietly.
Unease spread through his veins the more he stood around and looked at his surroundings. He shouldn’t be here, instinct told him.
Right, what was his goal again? The Tactician’s words entered his mind once more. Find the dreamer, and eat your emotion off of them. Remembering that now, it seemed deceptively easy. Too easy.
After this test, he’d have to go through the Nightmare Stress Test. It would check his tolerance for consuming fear and how it affected him. If his body rejected eating fear, then he’d pass. If it didn’t, he’d be subject to remodification. No information on how the test was done was public.
He walked down a lit pathway, passing by shops with metal shutters over their doors. Turning down another one, it was the same thing. Another one, and another, all the same exact copy paste way.
How was he supposed to find the dreamer in this labyrinthine mall, especially when he didn’t know what they looked like?!
“Hello?” He called, his voice echoing down the hall. No response. “Is anyone there?” He called out again. Again, no response.
…why would someone call back to him in a place like this? There could be monsters–he hadn’t felt the presence of Nightmares in this dream yet, which relieved him. He wouldn’t respond to someone doing that. He concluded that just yelling out was a stupid idea.
…why not check the food court? The dreamer could be there. Per the laws of dream reality, a somnihost was a reasonable distance near the dreamer. Trekking through darkened hallways spooked him a bit, but he kept his brave face on.
As expected, the food court was as empty as the hallways. Though, a few chairs appeared to be moved from their original position. The dreamer was here recently, where could they have gone-
Someone bumped into him, and fell on the floor with a quiet oopmf. He looked down to see a young girl no older than 10 wearing flower patterned pajamas stare up at him. Her eyes widened. Gods, he hoped he didn’t look too scary-
“Are you my fairy godmother?” The girl asked innocently.
Ah, he forgot he kept his maroon hair long. He smiled. “I am not your fairy godmother, but I am your fairy godfather.”
“Why is your hair so long?”
“I wanted it to be long.” He kept his tone calm, noticing the girl’s unease. This place was likely scaring her. Poor thing.
“Your clothes are pretty. Are you a prince?”
He looked down, and the clothing he chose to wear looked out of a fairy tale. Good. He thought he had worn something different. “I am.” He chose to play along.
Her eyes sparkled. “What’s your name?”
“My name is the Marquis. What’s yours, little one?”
“Sarah…” She looked away shyly.
“Sarah, what a pretty name. I know this place here is scary, why not we go outside?”
“Okay!”
He blinked. That was easy to convince the dreamer. He held out his hand to her, and she took it. There was an exit directly from the food court to the outside. The coldness of her hand did make him internally raise nonexistent eyebrows. He didn’t question it. Dream logic could be weird. Plus asking dreamers the wrong questions led to disastrous outcomes.
Pushing open the door, he was met with a cloudless sky, and an infinite grassfield. That was..manageable. Far better than the quiet mall. Sarah let go of his hand, and sat down.
“Much better!”
The Marquis sat down next to her. “Good! Are you feeling calmer now?”
“Yes. Inside the place it was so dark and scary, but I heard you and then I got more scared because it was so dark in the place and I couldn’t see you. Then I see you in the food court and then I got no longer scared in the dark place!”
…huh?? He heard more coherent sentences in dreams he shadowed with kids younger than Sarah. Of course that wasn’t always the case. Not wanting his judgement to be seen, he cleared his throat to speak
“Well I’m glad we’re out of the…dark scary place. What do you want to do now?”
Sarah paused to think, theatrically so. “A tech bro!”
What?? No child would say that logically. Either this girl was doing an excellent job messing with him, or…
Oh.
Oh gods.
The final test also was the Nightmare Stress Test. He looked around, noticing the sky growing darker. Behind him, pitch black clouds were rapidly rolling in at a pace that wasn’t normal for a dream.
He looked at Sarah. “Kid, run. Get away from here.”
Sarah…complied. She began to run.
Looking back at the clouds now having covered the sky, an usual sight chilled his blood. The cloud snaked down a distance away towards the ground. Twisting, churning, and racing right towards him. He tried to run, but barely got enough distance before the winds dragged him into the monster.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Inside the belly of the beast, he was surrounded by impenetrable darkness. He didn’t know what way was up or down from how fast he was spinning. But it all came to a halt.
Something forced his mouth open, and a liquid was poured down his throat. Rancid, rotten, and slimy like meat left out on the counter for days. He immediately gagged, and tried to force his mouth shut, but he couldn’t move. Or scream.
He had to endure the viscous slime sliding down his throat and into his physical stomach. Take it like he was supposed to. All around him, fear scented in a scent so offensive that he would’ve retched if he wasn’t paralyzed. It forcibly went under his skin, curdling the emotions he ate earlier.
The liquid finally ceased, though the damage was done. He was rotting internally, the violation of his body stained his soul.
And then the darkness was gone.
A bright light was shone in his eyes. He felt his back on a medical examination table. One at a time, the familiar face of the Tactician stared at him through his foggy vision.
“Both eyes are at -.8.” Whatever that meant. His voice was clinical, ignoring how Marquis shook like a leaf. Cold, gloved hands pressed on his neck and collarbone where somnihosts absorbed the non-physical emotion. “Emotion absorbers appear to be partially swollen.” It hurt so bad. He wanted those hands off.
Then the hands moved to his stomach. “The subject is showing signs of distress, likely from excessive feeding of fear.” The Tactician looked at a nearby nurse. “Mark him as a zero.”
What did that mean? Did he pass? Did he fail?
…he likely failed. He failed an easy test.
The Tactician looked at him once more. “My apologies for this next part.” What did he mean-
Something disgusting slid into his mouth, and the Tactician hit his stomach. Hard.
Marquis let out a cry, and curled into a ball, until sickness hit him like a train. He dry heaved several times, before rolling his head over the edge of the table, and vomited out a black liquid onto the floor. He groaned when nausea hit him full force, and he retched the fluid again.
“That’s it bud, let it all out…” Tactician spoke in a soft tone, rubbing his back.
Rejecting the liquid did nothing to rid his body of the violation done to him. Once the liquid fire emptied from his stomach, he stared up at the ceiling, tuning out the world. His emotions from the act done to his body seemed to finally register. Tears filled his eyes, and he curled up into himself. He bit his sleeve to muffle the sobs escaping his mouth. The shaking started again. He felt pathetic breaking down in front of his instructor.
Because he was pathetic.
“Woah there bud-” Tactician’s voice held a note of surprise. “Didn’t think you’d react so strongly.” Silence for a moment. “Let’s remove the memory.” He gave some orders to the nurses that Marquis didn’t understand/
Gods why was he looking at him…
A mask slid over his nose and mouth. Instinctively, Marquis kicked and tried to scream. He didn’t want this, or any of this pain. A mildly sweet scent hit his nose, and his head immediately fogged up.
“That’s it…just breathe. You’re going to be okay…” Tactician soothed, one hand running a hand through Marquis’ hair and the other holding the mask on his face.
His eyes felt heavy, and a soft blanket was wrapped around him. The disgusting fear once hanging around him like a specter was quashed by warm comfort. It did not force itself in, but waited patiently to be allowed in. He let it enter when his eyes slid closed.
“Good…you did great, bud.” Was the last thing he heard before he drifted into a calming slumber.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
His eyes peeled open, and the first thing he saw was the colorful ceiling. It made his head hurt more than it already did. A blanket he didn’t remember being on him settled on him like a warm hug and a soft mattress. Why was he here? His memory wasn’t working correctly
…did he pass the test?
“You’re awake.” A voice spoke from beside him.
He craned his neck, and saw his instructor the Tactician sitting on a nearby chair. The Tactician had tanned skin, close shaven brown hair, and the signature somnihost shadow over his white eyes.
“Did I pass?” Marquis asked groggily.
The instructor nodded. “Yes. You did.” He looked at his watch and stood up. “Sorry bud, have other test takers to attend to.”
He wasn’t that warm of a man, Marquis thought to himself. But he did care. Or at least seemed to. The Tactician used to be in the Dream World’s army against Nightmares before he retired. Now he held instructional classes on how to be a proper somnihost.
But at least he graduated this forsaken class.