Shadow Slave

Sunny opened his eyes in the cool cradle of the sleeping pod. The lid was already sliding away, and the lights in the room were gradually turning brighter. The panoramic wall in front of him opened to a view of one of the Academy parks.

The eastern horizon was already painted lilac by the rising sun, but the world was still shrouded in darkness.

'...Made it.'

With a sigh, he rose from the pod and lowered his feet to the cold floor.

These first moments after leaving the Dream Realm were still strange to him. It just… it just seemed weird to be able to escape it so easily, without having to fight through a sea of monsters and struggle against terror, desperation, and pain. How could something so meaningful be so simple?

And yet, it was. In the past two months, coming and going from the Dream Realm had almost become a routine for him. Not that he had done it as often as most Awakened did.

Standing up, Sunny grimaced, then massaged his shoulders and glanced at the sleeping pod darkly.

Now that he was an Awakened, the Academy had granted him a personal living space in one of the dormitories. These quarters were much the same as the room he had lived in during his preparations to enter the Dream Realm for the first time, but with one significant difference: there was a smaller room adjacent to the main one, housing a humble meditation space and an individual sleeping pod.

The problem was, that pod was not at all as advanced and state-of-the-art as the ones used for the Sleepers. It did its job fine as long as an Awakened remained in the Dream Realm for about eight to twelve hours, as most of them did. However, Sunny was in the habit of spending much, much more time there.

His recent adventure, for example, had lasted three whole days… he had to work hard to not fall behind, after all. As a result, his muscles felt sore and heavy.

Circulating essence through his body to chase away the remnants of sleep, Sunny walked to the bathroom and got into the shower. As streams of water caressed his skin and flowed down the scales of the black serpent coiling around his lithe body, he sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.

exactly equal to good sleep, but it was somewhat similar. Mental fatigue still accumulated little by little, but it was easy to remove

energy. He dressed himself, sat at the table, and quickly compiled a report about his recent exploration. Then, he picked up the communicator

from Effie with photos of all the delicious food she was eating and several memetic jokes of questionable nature,

bit, then sighed

"Time for breakfast."

around his body so that he appeared like a

paid him too much attention, though. In recent months, the images and True Names of Cassie, Kai, and especially Effie had been plastered all over the media, but luckily, he had avoided becoming a poster boy for the government's insatiable propaganda machine. As the result, random strangers had no idea

himself a full tray of food, sat at one

to

delicious breakfast in peace and quiet, glancing at the communicator from time to time.

content smile found its way to his

'Ah. Life is good…'

Finally, the communicator rang.

the call and listened to the respectful voice on the other side

Well… great! Then I will… be there at noon? Right. See

down and stared into the distance for a long time,

other Awakened on the Chained Isles, Sunny had done

had bought

of the city with

now, after several long weeks of waiting, everything

lingered for a few moments, and then