White light. Clicks and soft beeps filled the air. Tense voices I couldn’t discern echoed from unknown directions.  All at once, the serenity snapped to red-lit chaos. Machines wailed and screeched in agony. The voices rose to words I could barely understand.

“-has to be-” One sounded eerily familiar.

“There isn’t…” The other, I swore I recognized.

“THERE HAS…”

“You know…”

“I WON’T LE-”

“-no choice-”

“PLEASE!”

“-well, lo-”

Heart-wrenching screams seared through my mind.

I bolted upright, nearly slamming my head into the windshield of my truck. My hands clung to the steering wheel, sweet dripping from my brow. Taking deep, agonizing breaths, I raised the back of my chair to meet my rigid spine. A dream. A nightmare. It felt unnervingly real. But all dreams felt that way in the moment, didn’t they?

I turned to my passenger fast asleep in the seat beside me as I still struggled to catch my breath. Asleep, his nostrils flared as tiny snores pierced the silent night. I reached for his hands folded across his stomach as the echoes of the nightmare faded from memory.

Sighing, I returned my grip to the steering wheel. He was still there. That was all that mattered. Turning the key in the ignition, he snapped upright beside me, chairback and all.

“Morning already?” He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“N-no.” I breathed. “I just couldn’t sleep anymore.”

He turned to me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Just a bad dream.” I shifted the truck into drive.

“Can’t promise there won’t be more of those.” He looked out the window beside him.

To the west, just above the horizon, hung the tattered remains of Ancora’s moon, Onus. A net of tentacles spewed from its gaping, stony wound, floating through the sky like flotsam on a sea of perpetual night.

“It’s already out of my head.” I forced a laugh. “But it felt so… Real.”

He smiled. “A prophesy, perhaps.”

“Keeper help me, I hope not.” My grip tightened on the steering wheel again.

“Are you certain you’re well enough to drive, Love?”

“I-” I wasn’t. The details had fled my mind, but my nerves were still shaking.

“Why not lie back down? You don’t have to go back to sleep, but you need to give yourself some rest.”

“I just woke up.” I adjusted my eyepatch to hide the twinge of Voidsight that had started kicking in.

“You know what I mean, Love.” He smiled softly. “Here.” A tentacle reached over to the key and turned the engine off. “I know your instinct is to work away trauma and pain, but let’s try something a bit different, shall we?”

“Trauma?” I chuckled. “I don’t even remember what it was about.”

“Something that cut deep, I’d wager.”

I finally let my hands slip from the steering wheel.

“Y-yeah…”

“Just because you don’t remember it, doesn’t lessen the effect it had on you.”

I turned to him. “Thanks, Sy.” I choked out.

He turned as much as he could in his chair to face me. Reaching out, he put his arms around my shoulders and leaned me down over the space between us, resting my head on his belly. A net of tentacles wove themselves beneath me, sparing my side from the hard plastic console. I slid my arms around him.

“Rest.” He cooed.

I nodded against him as my eyes grew heavy. The hum of his core and the warmth of his skin was all I needed to whisk me back into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.