[Wake up, Heir of Emotions!]
Marcus’s eyes snapped open.
His vision was blurry at first, reduced to indistinct smudges of grey and white.
But within seconds, his enhanced vision adjusted, bringing the stark reality above him into sharp focus.
There was no sky, no violet sun, and no crumbling temple masonry.
Instead, he was staring directly at a reinforced steel ceiling, lined with industrial rivets, electric conduits, and heavy armored plating.
‘A bunker?
A transport vehicle?’ His commander instincts flared instantly.
He attempted to bolt upright and assess his surroundings, but his body refused to budge.
Heavy restraint straps were bolted securely across his chest, thighs, and wrists, pinning him flat against a cold, sterile medical slab.
Marcus clicked his tongue in deep irritation.
“Where the hell do I go without ending up tied to something?”
“What…
He’s actually alive?”
The sudden, sharp voice of a woman echoed from his right side.
Marcus turned toward the sound, his expression hardening at her words.
“What do you mean ‘he’s alive’, woman?” he demanded, his voice raspy but carrying the unmistakable weight of a man accustomed to giving orders.
Sitting on a metal stool beside his bed was a striking woman who appeared to be in her late twenties.
Her skin was unnaturally pale, almost translucent under the fluorescent lights, contrasting sharply with her raven-black hair.
Her icy blue eyes bore into him with razor-sharp intensity, seeming strangely out of place against her tired expression.
She wore a dark blue military-style uniform tailored for mobility, decorated with a few subtle stars embroidered onto her left sleeve.
What annoyed him most wasn’t her demeanor, but the look of absolute disappointment written across her face.
She let out a long, dramatic sigh, rising from the stool and stretching her arms above her head until her joints popped softly.
“Those morons.
They swore up and down that you were brain-dead.
They just wasted my time.”
Marcus blinked, staring at her in cold disbelief before barking out a simple command.
“Lady, as you can clearly see, I’m breathing.
The least you could do is unbuckle these straps.”
The woman smirked, leaning forward with her hands resting on her hips, inspecting him like a strange specimen under a microscope.
“Well, well.
Look who’s got an attitude,” she chuckled, her voice carrying a dry, raspy charm.
“First of all, kid, the name’s Jet.
Master Jet works too.
I was informed about your condition recently, so I took charge of your case.
And second…
congratulations on surviving your First Nightmare.”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed.
‘First Nightmare?’
“Jet,” Marcus said, keeping his voice level and devoid of panic.
“Where am I?
What is this facility, and why am I being held in here?”
Jet raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Well, considering you didn’t walk in here voluntarily and were brought in, you’re currently in a police station precinct.
They brought you here after you displayed symptoms of being infected by the Nightmare Spell.
But your case is bizarre.
They said you were dead, or rather, your body died, but at the exact same time your soul entered the First Nightmare.
So you could say the Nightmare Spell actually saved your life.”
Marcus remained unmoving for a few moments, organizing the data in his mind.
Wherever he was right now, he was vastly distant from his original world.
Most of the terminology they were throwing around was completely alien to his ears, meaning he had to avoid raising further suspicion.
The terminology was vastly different from his old world, but the underlying structure seemed familiar: a centralized authority managing a supernatural crisis.
He took a quiet breath, assessing the condition of his body.
The agonizing pain from the collapsed ceiling was gone.
The internal bleeding, the crushed ankle, the feverish poison from the black draught, every single injury had vanished without a trace.
His muscles felt compact and dense, as though every fiber were humming with newfound vitality.
‘The physical reconstruction wasn’t a hallucination,’ he realized.
‘My frame has been completely restored.
Enhanced, even.’
“I need answers.
There are texts floating in my mind.
Voices recording kills, talking about ‘Aspects’, ‘Flaws’, and ‘Memories’.
What exactly are these projections?”
Jet froze in place, turning back to stare at him as if he had grown a second head.
She let out a loud, mocking laugh that echoed off the steel walls.
“Are you serious right now?” she asked, walking closer to the side of his bed.
“Did the Nightmare Spell scramble your brain on the way back, or did you drop on your head when you returned?”
She leaned in closer, her icy blue eyes searching his face with genuine curiosity.
“What’s your name, kid?”
Without hesitation, he answered with the identity he had carried through forty years of his previous life.
“Marcus.”
Jet stared at him in dead silence for three long seconds, then rubbed the bridge of her nose in sheer annoyance.
“Marcus?” she repeated, sighing heavily.
“Kid, your identification states that your name is Aiden.
It also says your parents abandoned you when you were ten.
So don’t try lying to me.”
Marcus’s eyes flickered slightly.
‘Aiden…
right.
That name was written in that interface.’
Marcus didn’t fully comprehend his current situation, but if he wanted to keep a low profile while securing answers, he had to play along.
“I don’t remember being Aiden.
But if I am Aiden, then I still remember being Marcus…
though I don’t remember everything about Aiden.”
“Oh, perfect.
Just brilliant,” Jet groaned, throwing her hands up in the air.
“What a day I’m having!
First a perverted kid wakes up and the very first thing he says is that he likes my breast, and now another kid is suffering from amnesia.
Has the First Nightmare really gotten this severe?”
Jet stepped toward the metal slab where Marcus was bound and slowly unlocked the restraints, setting him free.
Marcus immediately sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.
He massaged his wrists, feeling the incredible density of his new musculature.
Despite looking like a frail, malnourished teenager, he felt stronger than he had ever been in his previous body.
“So, aren’t you going to answer at least one of my questions?” Marcus asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
“You have plenty of questions, and I get why.
But I’m not the right person for that,” Jet said, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.
“However, I’ll follow protocol and tell you what I’m required to say.
Especially regarding your Nightmare: You are entitled to free psychological treatment, no matter what tragedy occurred inside your Nightmare.
Which I strongly suggest you take.
In fact, I’ll call a psychologist for you directly.
Your mental health is far more important than your physical health, which is clearly what you’re struggling with right now.”
She added as she glanced toward the hallway:
“When the doctor arrives, you’re free to talk about whatever you want, and you can ask her your questions.
I have someone else to take care of.
Also, I’ll tell the doctor a few other things to relay to you, because the Winter Solstice is coming up.”
With that, Jet walked toward the steel door on the side of the room and slowly exited, leaving him alone in the armored chamber.
‘Why does it feel like she was trying to evade me?’
Marcus stood up, testing his balance.
His center of gravity felt natural, precise, and lethal.
***
Some time passed before a woman in her twenties entered the armored room.
She sat down on the same stool Jet had used, wearing a lab coat and jotting down notes in a clipboard folder.
‘What the hell…?
We haven’t even spoken yet, so why is she taking notes?’
The woman kept watching him out of the corner of her eye while writing in her notes.
Marcus stared at her for a few moments before speaking flatly.
“If you don’t want to be here, doctor, you are free to leave.”
The doctor looked up at him for a moment, rested the file on her lap, and finally spoke.
Sorry, little guy.
Usually, those who become Sleepers spend these moments checking their runes or delving into their soul sea, so I wanted to give you space.”
“Runes?”
“Right, you’re suffering from amnesia,” she nodded.
“Don’t worry, even though there’s no recorded case of someone completing a Nightmare and returning with memory loss, it might just be temporary.
So, what exactly do you remember, Sleeper Aiden?”
“Um…
I remember what happened inside what you people call the Nightmare.
Then after that, I woke up here.”
The doctor picked up her folder again, reviewing it before speaking once more.
“Alright…
so, Aiden.
Before I ask about your Nightmare, I want to understand the cause of your amnesia.
Can you check your runes and see if you have any Memory with an ability related to memory loss?”
Marcus forced himself to stay composed.
“I’m telling you, I don’t even know what these runes are!
And you’re telling me to look at them?”
“Goodness, so it’s total amnesia then,” the doctor muttered, grabbing her pen and scribbling on the paper again.
‘Good greif, can’t they bring an experienced doctor?
But what are these runes…
are they mine?’
The instant the thought crossed his mind, several lines of text materialized before him in a strange language, yet remarkably, he understood every word effortlessly.
Name: Aiden
True Name: Heir of Emotions
Rank: Dreamer
Emotion Core: Dormant
Emotion Fragment: [106/1000]
Flaw: [Life Stone]
Marcus skimmed past most of the secondary text, focusing on the main information first.
‘Ah…
so this is how they appear.’
Marcus studied his runes for several moments.
Then, suddenly, he felt his heart leap into his throat.
He turned toward the doctor standing in front of him and asked tightly,
“Doctor…
do these words floating here completely describe me?
And is the Flaw written here an absolute fact?”
The doctor looked at him for a few seconds before answering gently.
“Judging by your reaction, it seems you have a particularly harsh Flaw.
But don’t worry, in time you’ll adapt to it and get used to living with it.
And yes, everything your runes display represents you and what you can do.
Now, would you mind telling me…”
Marcus slowly sank to his knees, his mind struggling to process what he had just learned.
“Aiden!
What’s wrong?
Are you in pain anywhere?”
Marcus completely ignored the doctor rushing toward him.
His situation was dire.
Far worse than he could have ever anticipated.
Whatever world he had landed in, whatever second chance he thought he had been given to rectify his past mistakes and redeem himself it had all been shattered by this revelation.
Everything the interface had declared earlier wasn’t a mere game; it was an absolute sentence.
His Flaw wasn’t just a minor weakness…
his very life and agency depended entirely on a stone.
If that stone were ever destroyed, he would lose control of his own body and become a trapped spectator within his own mind.
A bitter, mocking smile crossed Marcus’s face.
‘And here I thought I was given a second chance to live a peaceful life…
Looks like my journey in this world won’t be long at all.’
You might have noticed that the Memories and Attributes sections were omitted from Marcus’s status runes in this chapter.
I’m currently finalizing the exact descriptions, lore, and mechanics for his specific Attributes and starting Memories to make sure they are well-balanced and hit just right.
I’ll be updating his status screen with the full list of Attributes and Memories in an upcoming chapter once their definitions are fully flushed out!
Thanks for reading, and let me know your thoughts on Marcus’s brutal Flaw in the comments!