Page 8 of Snatched By the Sandman

Nyxion vanishes into a swirl of smoke and shadows.

Fear paralyzes me even more than the ropes. My soul itself seems to shiver. But my center awkwardly grows hotter.

What does he mean? How am I supposed to do anything like this? Oh, hang him!

Poor choice of words sinceI’mthe one hanging.

That fucking devil! How can he do this to me? Maybe he’s worse than the devil. I try to rationalize, remembering how he saved me from those…faceless things. How he saved me a second time from falling to my death on the Penrose steps. But even demons can be beautiful and wear disguises.

My mind reels with a host of questions. I’m not supposed to ask questions. So, I write over them instead. Like I write on my skin.

It feels like I’m suspended between worlds. For some reason, the wordpsychomachyechoes in my thoughts. A conflict between the mind and soul. One of many strange vocabulary words my father taught me.

He taught me much. Like my relationship with bones. And shovels. But I grew the flowers.

The rest, he’d said, was in my blood.

But right now, all my blood has frozen in my veins. If this is some nightmarish test, and I don’t pass, I don’t want to know the punishment!

Chapter 4

Somehow, I must get into Nyxion’s fortress and free this girl from my brother’s grip.

MORPHEUS

“Broken” by Seether ft Amy Lee

“Alkaline” by Sleep Token

Cold darkness envelops me as the first wraith breaches the border of my realm.

The shadows follow my command, glinting like black diamond dust as I prepare them for battle.

The boundary between my world and Nyxion’s nightmare realm shimmers with maleficent energy, an ever-shifting void threatening to spill its horrors into the dreams I swear to protect every night.

My strength has fractured. My power is broken. What was infinite is now finite.

The ground beneath my feet remains firm, the shadows under my control pulsating with a steady, protective rhythm.

Every step I take holds a purpose, my senses attuned to the slightest vibrations and shifts in the air. The wraiths are near.

A whisper like the rustling of dead leaves brushes past my ear.

A low growl rises in my chest. I turn sharply, my muscles rigid, ready to spring into action.

The first wraith lunges at me, a formless shadow with eyes that burn like cold fire. I sense the chill of its gaze, a numbness that crawls along my skin, burrowing through me, threatening to claw into my very soul.

Movements swift and fluid, my roar silent as a ghost, I draw a great broadsword of pure shadows. The shadows sing as the blade cuts through the air, high-pitched notes both ethereal and eerie that resonate in the oppressive silence.

My blade meets with its resistance, the shadow steel slicing through the nightmarish wraith’s substance, striking the killing blow. Its blood splatters me, blood that would eat through human skin like acid. But as a god, I grit my teeth and suffer through the sting.

The wraith shrieks, its shrill wail reverberating through the void before it dissolves into nothingness.

I stand still, my breath steady but my heart pounding with the knowledge of more battle. I will protect my realm from these abominations.

Ever since Purgatory cracked under the unfortunate plight Eros suffered before he restored his realm, horrors have invaded Demos Oneiroi, the World of Dreams. Most have come slithering into my realm, and Phobetor/Icelos/Epiales…Son of Nyx—whatever he calls himself these days—has taken advantage of my misfortunes.

My oldest brother has grown more powerful than ever.

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