When Koda entered the house, his vision became clear and the biting cold retreated from his body.
He looked at the other boy in the room, who seemed to be atleast a year older than him.
They were the same height, similar builds too, both extremely skinny.
Though Koda was tanned, had bright hair and bright eyes.
The other boy was Pale, had dark hair and dark eyes.
Now that Koda could see him clearly, he noticed that the boy’s hair was a mixture of a metallic grey and a dark brown, quite unique.
The boy looked at him questioningly.
“What’s with you?
You seem off… Don’t tell me you forgot your best friend?
Your very kind best friend who has let you live with him for the past ten years!
The amazing, compassionate, wonderful Riley!” He said, a bright grin on his thin face.
Koda was a little startled, he hadn’t seen a singular person smile this whole time and his self proclaimed best friend had the brightest smile he had seen in both worlds.
Finally allowing a small smile to play at his face, Koda shook his head.
“No, I remember you.
Don’t worry.” “Phew!” Riley sighed, a relieved laugh following.
“Still though, why were you out wandering at night…?
You know about the disappearances, dummy.” He asked with concern.
Koda raised an eyebrow.
“The disappearances?” “You forgot?
You’re acting really strange today, Koda.” Riley said, but explained nonetheless.
“Someone new disappears every night, very creepy.” Koda shivered.
Maybe that was what he had to uncover…?
The truth behind the disappearances?
But how exactly would he go about that?
“Right… I don’t know what’s up with me today, I must be tired.” Koda replied, rubbing the back of his head.
Riley raised an eyebrow but brushed it off.
“It’s alright, just get some sleep.” Koda didn’t argue, he continued into the house, into his room and finally, into his bed.
He didn’t know how he’d be able to sleep inside of a nightmare, but he did it anyway.
… … The next day, Koda felt oddly refreshed.
It did indeed feel weird to sleep inside of a dream, it felt very real.
Riley wasn’t in the house, he must’ve also left to go work.
Koda yawned and looked at the dining table, where a singular plate of roasted meat was left.
He got closer and inspected the meat, realising it was the exact same type of meat that he had been butchering from yesterday.
Grimacing, he took a step back and shivered.
“Nope, not eating that.
I don’t care if I’m going to starve to death, I am not going to lower myself to eat that.” He shook his head and ignored his growling stomach, walking outside of the house.
When he got outside, the cold returned.
It wasn’t as bad, the sun was shining down on him after all.
If the village wasn’t littered with malnourished people dragging their feet, the scene would’ve actually been quite pretty.
But as he looked around, something caught his attention.
There didn’t seem to be any animals, or anything other than humans really.
Koda’s eyes widened slightly in realization.
‘Yuck!
That meat I was butchering must’ve been from a nightmare creature or something… no wonder it looked so disgusting.’ He thought to himself as he slowly approached the butchery.
He didn’t know what time he needed to be there, but he figured being early was always better than being late.
Pushing the heavy wooden door open, he quickly noticed that there was no one inside.
Maybe he was too early.
Either way, he put on his apron and looked around.
There wasn’t any prepared meat, no unprepared meat either.
They must’ve used all of the nightmare creature meat yesterday… but surely that wasn’t enough for everyone?
Then, a loud thud came from below him.
Koda stepped back, looking down at the floorboards, wondering where the noise came from.
He looked around, eyes landing on the door that led to the cellar.
‘That must be where Old Bram sleeps?
Strange… it’s probably also where the meat is kept.’ He thought to himself, slowly getting more and more uneasy.
He knew the first nightmare trial wasn’t supposed to be easy, so he had been on edge ever since Riley had mentioned the disappearances.
He walked towards the cellar door, planning to go and look for any unprepared meat for him to start butchering.
But at that moment, the door swung open and Koda stumbled backwards.
He looked up in horror, but slowly calmed down after seeing that it was just Old Bram.
Though, he was holding multiple bags of bloody meat.
“Oi… brat.
What are you doing creeping around here so early?” Old Bram asked, slamming the cellar door behind him before Koda could even get a glance.
Koda struggled to find an excuse, but he eventually landed on it.
“I wanted to get here early and surprise you by working my best!
Because… I didn’t do great yesterday.” He said, pretty obviously bullshitting.
Old Bram didn’t seem to buy it, but he shook his head and brushed it off.
Ignoring Koda, he took the fresh meat out of the bags and placed them evenly on two separate tables, one for Koda to butcher and the other for him.
Getting back to his feet, the tanned boy glanced at the man before studying the meat.
He quickly noticed that there wasn’t much, this nightmare creature must have been very skinny.
He knew it was a nightmare creature because those purple veins were still there and it stunk really bad.
Ignoring the smell, he followed Old Bram’s lead and started chopping the disgusting, discoloured flesh.
He didn’t even know what part of the creature this was, or what type of creature this even was.
Nor did he have the courage to ask, Old Bram seemed like a very untrusting person, Koda didn’t even know how he managed to become the man’s apprentice since he didn’t seem very fond of Koda.
And why was the original Koda even working with him?
Did Old Bram hand pick him or was Koda desperate for the very small amount of money he received from this job?
And why was Koda placed into this body?
He doubted it was a mere coincidence considering they shared a name and had very similar appearances.
What was the significance of Old Bram and his butchery… … Another day passed in the nightmare, nothing much had changed.
It was nearing the end of Koda’s shift working with Old Bram and the night sky was visible from the butchery’s windows.
Ignoring his festering hunger, Koda spent all day butchering the meat, attending to customers, distributing rations, cleaning the meat and studying Old Bram.
The Old Man was indeed very paranoid, very angry and strangely protective of the cellar beneath the shop.
And after doing all of this work, Koda started to wonder where Old Bram got the meat from.
It didn’t seem like anyone in the village was an awakened or even capable of killing a mere Dormant Beast.
Well, maybe Old Bram had a chance, but not enough of a chance to procure all of this meat.
Either way, Koda knew now that there was absolutely no meat left in the Cellar, otherwise Old Bram would’ve brought it out for them to butcher.
Shaking his head, Koda bid farewell to the old man and left the shop.
Nothing happened that night, he just went home and slept.
Yawning again, Koda left his room and saw Riley sitting at the dining table, placing down some of that disgusting meat.
Koda’s nose scrunched up and Riley looked at him with curiosity.
“I wouldn’t eat that if I was you… I work at the Butchery y’know, that meat is rotten.
You’d probably die quicker by eating it than by starvation.” He said, shaking his head.
Riley raised an eyebrow.
“Rotten?
No it’s not, that’s just the Nightmare Creature inside of the meat.
Don’t worry, I’ve got pretty good resistance to these things.” He said, tapping the meat with one of his fingers, causing a faint orange light to spread across the vulgar flesh.
Koda’s eyes widened.
‘A-An awakened?
What was that?!’ He thought, not sure if the original Koda knew about this or not.
Riley looked at him in confusion.
“There.
It’s dead.
It’s just a parasite that infects the livestock, nothing to worry about.
I can kill it, yours is safe too.” “Y-You… an awakened?
How?
And what do you mean Nightmare Creature?” Koda asked, stunned.
Riley tilted his head.
“Awakened?
Oh, right.
Sure…?
Thanks to my Aspect, I can do things others can’t, I’m pretty awesome right?
I did say so.
As for the Nightmare Creature?
No idea, not a clue how it got in there but it’s the only meat we can get.” Koda’s eyes widened, staring at the boy’s palms.
‘How… if he’s an awakened, is everyone in this village?
No.
There’s no way, there would be tons of food and we wouldn’t be forced to stay in the village out of fear of the Nightmare Creatures.’ He thought to himself.
Still, Koda turned his head away in disgust.
“No thank you.
I can’t eat that, my dignity wouldn’t allow it.” He said, ignoring the gut wrenching hunger in his stomach.
Riley raised an eyebrow and got back to eating.
“Suit yourself… do make sure to eat though, don’t go starving yourself for no reason.” He said.
Koda nodded slowly as he left the house.
“I’m going to work now, see you.” He said with a slight smile, not asking more about the Nightmare Creatures within the meat.