A dream within a dream. Such a concept is already mind boggling.

  Yet, it gets even worse. Because there’s a big difference between how Thrae explored my mind and how her mother does. Thraevirula gave me my memories back in chunks. Bits and pieces. She set the stage, directed the actors, drew the curtains and closed them. With Hypna, there is no stage. There is no need to set the scene. Rather, all scenes occur at once.

  To put it more simply, Thraevirula probed my mind.

  Hypna savages it.

  A canvas of memories comes, then they turn into a spiral, then a square. Some play at a sped up pace, the voices within them sounding high pitched and unnatural. Those are the early memories—the times when my mother and I lived in peace. When she baked mooncakes and we play-fought over the last one—the one with the red paste in it. She always let me win that.

  Other memories are slowed and replayed over and over. I spot Hui in the corners of the square of memories, which now shifts into a circle. Two circles. The first being before my mother died. The second showing the memories of the Tower.

  Three circles. One for after the Tower.

  Four. Five. Six.

  She’s categorizing my life. Organizing it for her viewing.

  I am not human in this state. I am a disembodied spectator to her form, which hovers around the circles and spins them about, eyes thoughtful and processing.

  Hypna lingers on the last of the circles. In this one, she has placed my memories of Thrae. I see Hypna stiffen at certain moments. She swipes her finger, replaying the scene of Thrae trying to seduce me. Of Thrae kissing me.

  Then, Hypna flits around, observing the worst of my memories. Afrasiyab. Baroth. Other monsters, other men. The Elders. Kai and his children. Hui. My argument with Sorina.

  My mother’s execution.

  Too many circles. Too many images, all overlapping, all voices coalescing and heightening. Screaming, shouting, reeling.

  And I hear my name in all of them.

  Raiten. Raiten. Raiten.

  RAITEN. RAITEN. RAITEN.

  Some call it. Others say it lovingly. One in lust. Many in pure rage.

  “Stop it,” I whisper, but my voice is not heard. “Stop it please.”

  But what is there to stop? I am in a memory of a memory, a dream of a dream. There is nothing that happens here that matters. And yet all of it matters. Because all of it happens here, all of my life, all of my sins, my mistakes—all are brought to perfection and clarity, and chaos and hell and and and…

  When will it end?

  Please.

  The circles coalesce now, stacking, building, climbing into the endless voidless sky of black. The colorful images that play within all begin to overlap. I see my life towered before me. And Hypna climbs it, encircles it, flies around it, pokes it, shifts the pieces, moves memories hither and thither like they are mere bricks.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  And what did you do?

  I see the boy. The one who nips Hui’s heels. The one who Masaru beats. Who Tumun and the others bully. Who can’t fight. Who can’t stand up for himself. Who needs to follow someone else to give his life some semblance of purpose.

  He looks at me with teary eyes.

  I approach. Raise a fist.

  Beat him bloody.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  “It's your fault!” I yell.

  He doesn’t answer. Just takes it. Makes me more mad. So I keep beating him.

  It is his fault. The Elders may have been the executioners, but who got them there in the first place? Whose actions led to that?

  I put my hands around his throat. Feel my own body begin to choke as well.

  He smiles up at me.

  “Feel any better?” he asks.

  I squeeze.

  …

  No. I don’t feel any better.

  …

  My eyes flutter open. I am staring up at the same moonlit night. Our crater bites into the hill. Flowers stand sentinel at its edges, swaying in the wind. My head lies on something soft—supple, even. I try sitting up, but a hand gently pushes me back down. It's a lap that I’m resting on.

  “I put a soothe on your mind,” Hypna says. I see her now, her strands of black, white, and golden hair tickling my nose. The witch’s purple eyes are withdrawn in deep thought.

  There is a gentle calmness to my mind now. It still reckons with the aftereffects of… of whatever that was. Yet, I can at least handle it now.

  “I’m sorry for probing with such brutish methods. I didn’t realize you’d spiral so much. But once I saw one memory, I couldn’t stop myself.”

  Her daughter. That must’ve been what caused her to wreak havoc.

  I should be angry at her for wrecking my mind like that. Yet the soothe calms it.

  “Find what you were looking for?” I ask dryly.

  She chuckles. “A little too much.”

  “You know, you laugh a lot for a witch.”

  “It helps me keep myself happy. Sane, more like. Speaking of which, how are you still… you?”

  I blow out my lips. “Elaborate?”

  “After all that you’ve been through, more than most people go through in any single lifetime—the isolation, the fighting, the grief—how are you still sane?”

  I feel like we’re avoiding the main question here. I know she’s trying to delay talking about her daughter.

  But I indulge her.

  “You’ve probably already seen it, but there are a few things my mother told me that have always stuck with me. One was right before she died. But I don’t think it’s that alone. It's mostly the other thing—the saying she repeated to me, every day.”

  I sit up now, despite Hypna’s protests, and hug my knees, staring at the kind eyes of the witch.

  “‘Just put one foot in front of the other,’” I quote.

  Hypna starts giggling. Then laughing all over again. I stay quiet.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, recovering now. “It's just… I suppose we have to hold on to simple things like that, right?”

  “Right.”

  Her laughing sighs to a stop. Her expression falters. “I’m dead aren’t I?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “And you must be wondering, ‘how is she able to do this?’ Right?”

  “Aren’t you wondering the same?” When she doesn’t answer, I narrow my eyes. “You already know why, don’t you?”

  “I have a vague idea. To teach Tia—or as you know her, Thraevirula—how to perform dream magicks, I often delved into her mind. But because my affinity and control for dream magicks is so unnaturally vast, there’s a chance I left pieces of myself within her mind. So while I may be dead in the real world, I exist as a form here. A concept. A person who repeats the same memories, over and over again. To no end.”

  “Until me.”

  She nods. “Until you appeared. Perhaps that awakened me. I mean, that’s the only explanation that I think is plausible. I must be some special case. Otherwise, the others—Saegor and Tia in the house—would’ve also been awakened by now.”

  “I see,” I lie, because I don’t understand this shit at all. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter. The real question is…

  “So what now?”

  “So what now indeed?” She scoffs. The poor woman looks so scared for once. I see the confusion in her eyes, the way her stomach must twist at what she's seen become of her daughter. For some reason, despite what she just did to me, I want to comfort Hypna. Tell her it will be fine.

  She turns to me. “You are searching for answers here. So am I. My memories don’t go beyond this point. I need to find out what happened to my daughter.”

  I hesitate. “And, what then?” What will she do once she does have the truth? That’s the issue.

  “And then Raiten, Child of Lightning, I’m going to help you stop her.”