Chapter 1737: Story 1737: The Fractured Dreamlands
The bridge of shifting light carried Erian, Marra, and Tovin across the endless tapestry.
Below them, the strands flowed like rivers—so glowing with warmth, others flickering faintly as if shivering against unseen cold.
As they walked, Marra leaned over the edge. Beneath the shimring threads, she saw fragnts of scenes reflected like shattered mirrors: a child crying beside a collapsed ho, a wandering traveler searching for soone long gone, lovers reaching for each other across an impossible distance.
“Are these the broken dreams?” she asked.
Tovin nodded. “Pieces scattered when the Hollow tore through the world.”
Before Erian could answer, the bridge trembled.
A ripple tore through the Weave—violent, discordant.
Threads snapped like overstretched sinew.
The light dimd.
A storm was forming.
The trio barely regained balance when the Weave’s distant voice echoed across the vast expanse:
“Hold fast. A fracture approaches.”
The storm took shape—whorls of shadow and mory twisting into a spinning vortex. From its core erupted creatures tangled from dream remnants: winged silhouettes, faceless giants, crawling shadows stitched from forgotten thoughts. They surged toward the bridge like a tide of nightmares given flesh.
Marra drew her dagger—the blade flickered with a soft, dreamlike glow. “They weren’t here before.”
“They’re the fragnts trying to reform,” Tovin said grimly. “Without the Hollow to anchor them, they’re lost.”
Lost—and hungry.
Erian raised the Dreamfire’s mory. The woven blade pulsed, threads of light threading outward like radiant veins.
“Stay behind .”
But the creatures struck before he finished.
A serpent of smoke wrapped around his arm, burning cold. A humanoid figure lunged for Marra, its body stitched from the cries of a thousand drears. Tovin ducked beneath a tangle of clawed limbs and struck back, sending a shockwave of shimring force through the creature.
“Erian!” Marra cried.
The serpent tightened, draining warmth from his bones.
The Dreamfire’s mory dimd, flickering like a failing lantern.
“Bind, not burn.”
The Weave’s voice whispered inside his mind.
“Dreams cannot be slain—they must be rembered.”
Erian froze.
Then he understood.
He lowered the blade and instead placed his free hand onto the serpent’s shadowy head.
In that instant, the creature shuddered—and unraveled into a swirl of blue light, revealing the dream it had once been: a woman singing to her newborn child, a lullaby echoing with hope.
It drifted upward, returning to the Weave.
“Marra! Tovin! Don’t kill them—rember them!”
Marra slashed away from a shadow giant, then shut her eyes and reached out with her thoughts. The monstrous form trembled—and faded, revealing a dream of a boy building a tower of stones with his father.
Tovin touched the crawling nightmare gripping his leg. It dissolved into fireworks exploding across a night sky—joy, celebration, community.
One by one, the creatures crumbled back into their truest forms: forgotten hopes, lost ambitions, abandoned joys.
And the storm around them eased, the threads stabilizing.
The bridge brightened.
Erian exhaled shakily. “If this is just the beginning…”
Marra sheathed her dagger. “Then the world must be in worse shape than we thought.”
Tovin stared at the horizon where the bridge continued.
The Weave spoke again, softer now:
“Ahead lies the first great fracture—where a dream broke so deeply it began the Hollow’s birth.”
Erian tightened his grip on the glowing blade.
“Then that’s where we go.”
And together, the siblings stepped forward—toward the wound that started it all.
User Comments
0 comments from readers