Scene: Lucen's Apartment – Midnight
Rain hissed against the windows.
Lucen lay still on the futon, wrapped in shadows. His breath came shallow. Bandages marked his side, fresh and clean. But his sleep was not.
Outside, the city exhaled silence.
Inside his mind—chaos moved.
Scene: The Dream Realm – Somewhere Between Flame and Fog
Lucen stood barefoot on black glass. The surface rippled with each breath, as if the world itself were alive beneath him. Above, stars drifted across a sky that moved like eyes—watching, judging, remembering.
Wind whispered. Not words. Something older. A language that felt like blood memory.
Then a figure appeared.
Not walking. Arriving.
Shadows cloaked him, folding like silk soaked in night. His voice carried no weight, yet it filled the world.
"You."
Lucen turned.
Eyes narrowing.
"You know my name?"
The figure tilted its head. Smoke curled from where its face should be.
"Lucen. The Eighth. The unwanted. The unplanned. Yet the one who burns brightest."
Lucen's fists curled.
"Who are you?"
"Some call me Morpheus. Others, Phobetor. Dream. Nightmare. Take your pick."
He stepped closer, his presence heavy and silent like falling snow.
"I come to those who tremble in silence. And you, dear boy… are a cathedral of trembling."
Lucen didn't flinch. But his voice dropped.
"I don't want anything from you."
Morpheus smiled without a mouth.
"And yet… I offer nothing. I only reveal."
He raised a hand.
The obsidian beneath Lucen cracked. Fractured. Fell away.
Below—memories flickered like broken film reels.
Tariq. The fire. The child screaming in the alley. The demon in the mirror with Lucen's eyes.
"You think you buried it?" Morpheus whispered. "No. You taught it to whisper."
Lucen's jaw clenched. He looked away. But the memories didn't stop.
They danced. They bled. They stared back.
Scene: Reality – Morning
Lucen snapped awake.
A sharp breath. Sweat soaked his shirt. His chest rose and fell fast, faster. His eyes glowed faint red—then dimmed.
He looked down at his hands. They trembled.
But only for a second.
Scene: Temple on the Hill – Later That Day
Lucen sat on the stone steps, rain drying on his cloak. Eshun placed a cup of tea beside him and sat.
The silence between them wasn't awkward.
It was old. Familiar.
"You've seen him, haven't you?" Eshun asked quietly. "The Dreaming God."
Lucen nodded.
"He knew things. Not just what I've done. What I am. My guilt. My lies. My…"
"Your rage," Eshun said.
Lucen's shoulders tensed.
"He said it's not gone. Just sleeping."
Eshun looked out at the hills, quiet for a moment.
"Dreams speak in symbols, Lucen. But they're made of truth. You cannot defeat him with fists."
Lucen stared ahead.
"Then how?"
"Survive him with identity."
Lucen blinked.
"And if I've lost it?"
Eshun smiled faintly.
"Then we find it. Stitch by stitch."
Scene: The Dream Realm – That Night
Lucen returned.
But this time, he wore orange robes—the old kāṣāya from the monastery. Threadbare. Too small for his grown frame.
But it fit his spirit.
He walked onto the obsidian again. Calm this time. Grounded.
Morpheus watched from a distance. Amused.
"Oh? The child returns… with memory stitched in fabric."
Lucen didn't respond. He kept walking.
"I'm not a child anymore," he said. "And I don't belong to you."
Morpheus's smoke curled tighter.
"You don't belong to anyone. That's what makes you dangerous."
He leaned forward.
"You belong to fire. But you carry water. And that—"
He smiled.
"—is what terrifies the ones watching."
Lucen's steps slowed.
"The flames you buried? They still live, Lucen. And I know what wakes them."
Lucen didn't answer.
He looked into the sky. The stars moved like veins across the night.
Then he walked away.
Scene: Elsewhere – Vice's Domain
Cracked mirrors lined the walls. Reflections shifted—none real. Relics of sin sat on velvet pedestals. Chains. Bottles. A burned mask.
Vice sat in a throne carved from bones of theater seats, sipping red wine from a glass shaped like a mouth.
He watched the screen.
Lucen helping fire victims. Holding a child. Disappearing into smoke.
Vice grinned.
"You dream now, little light…"
He placed a photo on the table.
Aria.
"…but nightmares always wake hungry."
He raised the glass.
"And I'm starving."
End of chapter 8...
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Next Chapter:- CHAPTER 9: HERETIC FLAME🔥