The world was not broken all at once.
It was divided slowly, piece by painful piece, until the gulf between those who had everything and those who had nothing became wide enough to swallow continents whole.
On planet Earth, only a single unified landmass remained—a sprawling, scarred expanse of hyper-urbanized spires and forgotten concrete wastes.
In the pristine heart of the metropolis, the wealthy and the privileged lived in sterile, climate-controlled paradise, insulated from the rot outside.
Meanwhile, in the suffocating shadows of the outskirts, the impoverished, the unsmart, and the brutally Fated survived in ugly, sunless slums.
In Sector 25, the air tasted of sulfur and burning ozone.
Sitting on a weathered wooden bench near the edge of a barren park, a boy named Sunny watched the world go by.
He looked far too small for his age, premature in stature with skin as pale and translucent as a ghost’s—a strange, sickly mix of peach and faded silver.
Deep, dark bruises of exhaustion hollowed out the space beneath his eyes, proving he hadn’t slept a full night in longer than he cared to remember.
His eyes themselves were a dull, faded dark blue, like the ocean at midnight, reflecting a cold, guarded detachment from reality.
His dark hair was messy and unwashed, falling haphazardly over a stained, oversized hoodie—the universal uniform of a kid who belonged nowhere and owned even less.
In his frail, trembling hands, Sunny clutched a cheap plastic cup.
His hands rested on his knees, clad in worn black trousers that had seen better decades.
Around him, towering glass spires pierced the heavy grey sky.
Well-dressed citizens in sleek, tailored clothing marched past, their polished boots clicking rhythmically against the pristine pavement.
Every so often, a passerby would throw a glance toward Sunny—a look drenched in suspicion, disgust, and quiet disdain.
Sunny ignored every single one of them.
He had long since learned that eye contact with the comfortable class only brought trouble.
Instead, he lifted the plastic cup and took a cautious sip of the thick, pitch-black liquid inside.
The moment the drink touched his tongue, his face contorted in absolute revulsion.
He jolted backward, letting out a low, bitter groan that scraped against his throat.
“What a complete waste of money!” Sunny muttered, staring into the dark vortex of the cup with pure hatred.
“How do those rich bastards drink this sewage water?”
The coffee was boiling hot, and its rich, bitter aroma was admittedly fresh.
But coffee was a drink meant for the elite—for wealthy citizens who sipped it to maintain their social standing or stay awake during lucrative late-night trades.
For a street cockroach like Sunny, earning enough credits for a single cup meant selling salvaged scrap wood for three straight days until his fingers bled.
He hadn’t bought it to pretend he was rich.
He had bought it because someone in the alleyways had told him that coffee was a miraculous cure for sleepiness.
And sleepiness, right now, was a death sentence.
Yet, to Sunny’s unrefined taste buds, the expensive brew tasted like warm, muddy drain water filtered through a boot.
Driven by stubborn spite, he downed the rest of the bitter brew in one agonizing gulp, swallowing the heat down into his empty stomach.
Almost immediately, a heavy, suffocating wave of fatigue washed over his brain.
His eyelids grew impossibly heavy.
His hands went limply numb, and the empty plastic cup slipped from his fingers, clattering uselessly against the ground.
No… no, no, no!
“Ugh!” Sunny gasped, jolting forward.
His heart hammered against his ribs in sheer panic.
He snapped his head down, snatched the plastic cup off the ground, and tossed it into a nearby unbiodegradable waste bin.
Desperate to fight off the creeping shadow in his mind, Sunny headed toward the local precinct—the Sector 25 Police Station.
As he walked down the sidewalk, people drew away from him in synchronized aversion.
Passersby cast fearful glances at his gloomy, poverty-stricken appearance, instinctively reaching to check their wallets or stepping aside to avoid brushing against his soiled hoodie.
Sunny paid them no mind.
His entire focus was set on staying conscious.
“Focus, you idiot,” he growled under his breath.
His eyes felt heavy, his vision blurring around the edges.
In a moment of pure desperation, Sunny lifted his right hand and violently slapped himself across the face.
CRACK!
The sharp sting echoed down the street.
Nearby pedestrians stopped dead in their tracks, staring at the scruffy teenager in horror.
“Is he insane?” a woman whispered, pulling her child away.
“Look at him… he’s out of his mind.”
Sunny didn’t care what they thought.
He slapped himself again, harder this time, feeling the hot swell of blood rushing to his cheek.
It’s complete nonsense! he screamed in his mind, his inner voice dripping with venom.
That damn coffee was a scam!
A complete waste of hard-earned credits!
Why am I still so sleepy?!
Stumbling into the precinct, he slapped himself one last time, forcing his mind through the dense fog until he was standing in front of a heavy desk.
Inside the quiet office of Sector 25’s police station, an old police officer with thinning grey hair looked up from a glowing terminal.
The officer raised an eyebrow, taking in the bruised, trembling boy before him.
“So… what happened?” the grey-haired officer asked, his voice gravelly and unimpressed.
Sunny leaned heavily against the desk, his hands clutching the edge so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“Actually…” Sunny rasped, his throat dry.
“What?”
Sunny swallowed hard, forcing the words past his chattering teeth.
“I’m… I’m targeted by the Nightmare Spell.”
The officer froze.
The mundane atmosphere of the precinct evaporated instantly.
The old man jolted back in his chair, his eyes widening in genuine shock.
“What?! The Nightmare Spell, you say?!” The officer’s jaw tightened as he leaned forward, scanning Sunny’s face for any sign of a cruel joke.
Seeing only absolute terror, the old man pressed his palms together.
“Kid… tell me honestly. What do you think will happen if you fall asleep?”
“Yes…” Sunny whispered, his knees buckling slightly under his own weight.
“Tell me… what will happen?”
The police officer went deathly quiet.
He let out a long, heavy sigh, his expression darkening with grim pity.
“You’ll lose your connection with this reality,” the officer murmured softly.
“Your mind will be dragged straight into the Nightmare Realm. Inside that terrible place, ancient monsters wander the ruins looking for prey. You will be surrounded by endless mysteries, and most likely… you’ll lose yourself.”
The officer rubbed his tired temples, looking down at the desk.
“Though… to be frank, humanity barely knows anything about that realm. We only have snippets of information from the last known survivor—a man who managed to come back after twenty years. But he died within two days of returning, his body rotting away from the inside out for no reason at all. Tell me, kid… how are you so sure you’re Fated?”
“I guess…” Sunny muttered softly.
His eyelids fluttered shut.
The sheer gravity of the Spell was pulling him down into an abyss deeper than ordinary exhaustion.
His strength was completely gone.
Realizing what was happening, the officer panicked.
He slammed his hands onto the desk and shouted, “Don’t you dare close your eyes! Don’t you touch those god-forsaken mysteries! Stay aware, kid! There are a thousand kinds of lies waiting in the dark to kill you! Be careful, stay awake, and sorry i thought that you were lying so I lied , there’s many survivors are alive—!”
The officer’s voice began to warp, stretching into an echoing, distorted hum.
Sunny’s vision blurred into absolute darkness.
His legs gave out completely.
Finally… he fell asleep.
In the next instant, Sunny was no longer in the cold concrete police station.
He was floating.
There was no ground beneath him, no sky above him.
He was suspended in a vast, glowing void—a endless, starry universe where colors that didn’t exist in the real world swirled like liquid light.
Mysterious, ancient words written in golden runes began to float gently through the endless darkness around him.
Suddenly, a brilliant, cold text illuminated the darkness right before his eyes:
[Welcome to the Nightmare Realm.]
And then, as if written in the blood of a thousand fallen warriors, a second message materialized:
[Your Nightmare Begins Now.]
“YOUR NEW NIGHTMARE BEGINS NOW”