Shadow Slave

Sunny woke up from a nightmare where he was a shadow that had lost the will to live, who woke up from a nightmare where he was a prince being drowned in a fiery tomb of molten steel, who woke up from a nightmare where he was an old man dying as he held the body of his murdered mother, who woke up from a nightmare where he was a mortal watching his world being destroyed by a god.

Soon enough, Sunny found himself tied to a stake, with fire spreading through the pile of tinder beneath his bare feet as a crowd of people whom he had considered friends and neighbors watched with demented glee. All he could do was struggle desperately against his bonds and pray that the smoke would smother him before the flames reached his flesh…

But his prayers were not answered.

Screaming from inside the fire, he died.

…It was time to face a new day.

Sunny fought desperately as sharp fangs tore his flesh apart, as he was being eaten alive. But no matter how much he struggled, it was of no use. The monster was just too strong, and mad, and cruel.

And then, he died.

It was time to face a new day again.

Sunny drowned, a heavy chain tied around his legs.

Sunny bled to death on a battlefield, suffering from terrible thirst and too weak to move, hungry crows tearing at his face with sharp beaks.

Sunny watched his entire family be executed before being hanged from the walls of a somber fortress.

Thrown into the boundless darkness of the Sky Below by his heartless mother, Sunny died of hunger, thirst, and fear, too tired to scream or cry.

Sunny was killed and turned into a wooden doll by a vengeful sorcerer, and then killed again after an eternity of silent servitude, the doll burning to ashes as it fell into an ocean of white flames.

His heart was pierced with an obsidian knife on an altar made of pure darkness.

His body was cleaved apart by the blade of a giant warrior in a red tattered robe while the jubilant crowd cheered from the stone seats of an ancient theater.

…It was time to face a new day again.

The nightmares never ended, bleeding into one another. Each time, Sunny woke up sure that the agony he had experienced was just a harrowing dream. But very soon, his waking life would turn into pure horror itself.

And then, he would die.

And then, it would be time to face a new day again.

old, men and women, humans and beasts. Their end was always the same. Everywhere he went, everywhere he fled, no matter who he was, there was only

madness. It was as though everyone he met was

world was

slowly

harder and harder. Sometimes, he failed to differentiate which of his lives was real, and which ones he had just dreamt of. Even though

The terror.

terror of waking up from a nightmare only to be thrust into a worse

and the spheres of

the Ivory City and the Red Colosseum. Consumed by terror, he watched as a brilliant colossus made of lustrous steel stepped forward, making the whole island shake. A giant metal

the iron giant

a vast expanse of polished metal. The colossus brought his foot down, crushing Sunny, and all

Sunny died…

woke up

time to face a

was too

of the steel giant advancing toward the trembling row of soldiers. Who would

that they had been different and called by another name once, that they had been valiant and brave. Champions who protected the

didn't really believe

as his father was alive, and his grandfather as well, the Warmongers had been the same. Bloodthirsty monsters

the war was raging far away from here. In the northern reaches of the Kingdom of Hope, people didn't have to worry about the madness of the followers of War, and the misguided righteousness of the followers

they had

and rose. Today, his lady was going to meet with the emissaries of the Night

my heart so

he reached for his

***

"No!"

dress that was passed down to her from her mother, and for that reason a little bit too long for the girl's awkward figure, had

the very edge of the island. Now, there was nothing but the darkness of the Sky Below in front of

behind them, steel hooves were already ringing on the stones, growing closer and

girl stared into the bottomless abyss,

what… what should we

and pale, not yet touched by the sharpness of maturity. Her

sword and turned his back

be afraid, my lady.

a lie. He was just one man… he was not even an Awakened. What could a mundane swordsman like him