Shadow Slave

The hospital complex and the administration of the Academy were in complete chaos today. Weeks following the winter solstice were always a busy time for all the people working on the periphery of the Awakened society, since most of the Sleepers who had ventured into the Dream Realm that year usually returned in a span of one to two weeks, very rarely a month.

…Those who had survived, of course.

The sudden Awakening of so many Sleepers who had been gone for years, counted as irrevocably lost, created a shockwave that spread through entire humanity. And people at the Academy were at the epicenter of that storm.

It was a joyous chaos, nevertheless.

In a small office at the surface level of the hospital, a young woman dressed in black slacks and a white blouse was sitting behind a desk, hastily compiling a short report. She had dark-brown hair, neatly tied into a high ponytail, and thick glasses that were constantly sliding down her nose, forcing her to push them back up.

The young woman was one of the administrative workers tasked with the initial debriefing of returning Sleepers. As such, she had seen a lot of incredible things, and heard a lot of incredible stories.

And, sadly, even more heartbreaking ones.

But today was like no other day in her career.

The Sleepers that she was debriefing today were all anomalous, each and every one of them. The things they told her made her blood run cold, and her imagination fail. She even had an urge to dismiss their reports as false, but knew that it was nearly impossible — the lie detection technology built into the walls of the office would make lying very hard to pull off.

'Incredible… they are incredible, every single one of them…'

To survive for that long in a region of the Dream Realm completely cut off from the rest of the human territory, one populated by Nightmare Creatures much more powerful than any Dreamer could ever become… the achievement of these brave young men and women was truly remarkable.

It filled her with a sense of compassion, pride, and hope.

Humanity received an unexpected, but wonderful gift today.

Finishing the report and sending it to her superior, the young woman pressed a button to let the next Sleeper know that it was their turn to come in.

The door of her office opened, and a pale young man with dark hair entered the office.

Because of the nature of her job, she was accustomed to interacting with incredibly attractive people — almost every Awakened was pleasant to look at, after all. The young man in front of her was far from being the most outstanding in terms of appearance among them, and yet, for some reason, she was unable to look away for a couple of moments, a natural smile somehow finding its way onto her face.

There was something elusive about the young man that attracted attention, almost demanded it.

slightly mischievous spark in them. The young man wasn't exactly handsome, but due to his small stature, pale complexion, and dark hair, he looked like

strangeness about him. The young woman couldn't quite put it into words, but it seemed as though his every move, every word was ever so slightly not exactly how they should have

was the reason why she couldn't stop paying him a bit more attention than to all the other

and sat down opposite her. In response, her own smile

and I will be your interviewer today, Awakened…

information the Academy had on the pleasant young man.

in the ranking… poor kid, I can't even imagine what horrors he had

answered

Sunny. So, uh… Awakened Sunny,

a few words

enrich our base of knowledge about it, as well as let us know how to better assist you in the future. Any little bit of information you can provide might help future Dreamers in their own trials, but you don't have to answer if you

Sunless… Sunny… nodded

understand. I promise to be honest and tell you only

asked the

you spent

Sunny sighed.

a few weeks. Although, uh...

matched the information in

so terrible. A whole

She smiled with encouragement.

see. You did very well, Sunny. Very few Dreamers had managed to survive for that long, especially in a region such as the... the Forgotten

shivered slightly

what

a few

confirmed that the region of the Dream Realm you were sent to is populated with Nightmare Creatures of the Awakened Rank and above. Can

man grew a little

Fallen… Corrupted, too, although those

a couple of lines to her report and

such Nightmare Creatures?

hand and began

"Uh, three or four…"

began to