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.

was always the same. Everywhere he went, everywhere he fled, no matter who he was,

as though everyone he met was infected by a terrible, unexplainable

world

slowly

harder. Sometimes, he failed to differentiate which of his lives was real, and which ones he had just dreamt of. Even though the horrors he had experienced seemed like a nightmare, their weight accumulated, slowly breaking his spirit apart. His

The terror.

terror of waking up from a nightmare

in his chest, and the spheres

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

iron giant took another

expanse of polished metal. The colossus brought his foot down, crushing Sunny,

Sunny died…

woke up

was time to face a

was too

terrifying sight of the steel giant advancing toward the trembling

of them. Some said that they had been different and called by another name once, that they had been valiant and brave. Champions who protected the Kingdom of

he didn't really believe

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

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

had

massaged his aching chest and rose. Today, his lady was going to meet with the emissaries of the Night Temple. It was a high honor, but also not without risk. As a

my

he reached for

***

"No!"

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

to the very edge of the island. Now, there was nothing

behind them, steel hooves were already ringing on the stones,

stared into the bottomless abyss, then turned to

what… what should

touched by the sharpness of maturity. Her eyes, usually so gentle and bright, were

hesitated, then drew his sword and turned his back

be afraid, my

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