Shadow Slave

Sunny was expecting to first look at the place where his arrival to the Dream Realm was going to take place from above, just like it had happened at the beginning of the First Nightmare. Back then, time had magically moved in reverse, giving him an opportunity to see hints of what he was going to face.

Instead, immediately after hearing the greetings of the Spell, Sunny found himself blind and drowning. As he instinctively tried to open his mouth to scream, salty water rushed inside, making him choke and twitch.

More than that, he couldn’t see anything. No, it’s not that he couldn’t see — it’s just there was no source of light around. Usually, darkness wasn’t a problem for Sunny, but, for some reason, his sight wasn’t working anymore. Maybe the seawater he was submerged in was blocking it.

If it wasn’t for the special space perception that the affinity to shadows gave him, he would have been completely disoriented. With its help, though, he barely managed to understand which side was down, and which side was up.

Luckily, Teacher Julius’s lessons had included swimming. Swearing to thank both the old man and Master Jet once he came back, Sunny forced himself to stay calm and began to swim upward.

In a few long and tense seconds, his head broke through the surface of the water. Sunny was finally able to draw in a deep, hoarse breath.

‘Breathe, breathe. You’re still alive!’

After sucking in enough air to soothe his burning lungs and compose himself to a certain degree, Sunny carefully spun in the water, trying to take in his surroundings.

What met him was an endless, jet-black expanse of undulating waves. Above them was an empty black sky. There was no moon, no stars, just a dark vastness of repressive nothingness. Sunny blinked a few times, cold dread taking hold of his heart.

‘This is… a sea? An ocean? Was I dropped in the middle of an ocean?’

No, it couldn’t be. There had to be solid ground somewhere nearby!

As he was gripped by a momentary panic, a remote sound suddenly drew his attention. Sunny turned around and saw a triangular dorsal fin moving in his direction. Luckily, it was still hundreds and hundreds of meters away.

‘Wait… if it’s so far away… then how come I can see it so clearly?’

still felt like there was suddenly cold sweat all other his body. By his estimation, that dorsal fin was at least five

‘Damn you, Spell!’

eyes full of horror, Sunny spun again, desperately trying to find something — anything! — to save him. And there, a short distance away, he finally noticed a black

mass with a considerable speed. However, no matter how fast he swam, the giant shadow of the

part of Sunny’s mind managed to preserve its rationality even when faced with this boundless, primal fear. Not allowing himself to slip entirely into panic, Sunny tried

got to him, Sunny reached the black mass, stretched out his hands, and pulled himself out of the water. He rolled away from the edge, scratching his skin on the uneven rocks, and jumped in fright when the whole surface underneath him shuddered, as though

water, with rows and rows of giant teeth, each one as long as he was tall. He opened his eyes wide, understanding that the rock he had climbed

small

water and rose into the air like some strange, black tower. Before too long, it fell down, entangling

and plopped on the ground, his mouth opened. His whole

few seconds later, the dark sea was calm again, as though nothing has

it wasn’t trying to eat me,’

trying

***

him, at least not immediately. With that certainty, he was finally in a state of mind to stop trembling

be a single stone platform of around twelve meters in diameter. Its surface was mostly flat, covered with grooves, and somewhat dry. Due to the regular shape of its edges, it seemed more like something man-made than a natural formation. But

to

darkness. There wasn’t anything else above

was that he was wet, cold,

‘Huh.’

save themselves from abyssal monsters. Also, it’s

was sort of

covered his body. It even came with a pair of high,