Layers Of Nightmare

William took one step after another stiffly on the way back home. Every corner of his body felt heavy from exhaustion, he was sure that muscle pains will struck him the next day. Who would have thought that they will give him a rigorous training course right after their discussions!

'Really though, that Felicia is one hell of a girl!' William thought to himself.

When they ended their meeting, Alex directly asked if anyone could prepare him for the next Nightmare instance. As fate would have it, Felicia was the only one in the room who was able to teach him. After all, both Thomas and Anastasia were handicapped, while Alex needed to wait for Lee to end his ability i.e. whatever he was writing.

After that, he was dragged onto the track field and forced to run four l.a.p.s. One must know that this was a standard olympic-sized track field, in other words, he had ran 2 kilometers in one go. Although the number was not high for many, William rarely did any exercise in the past two years.

"Any Dream Treader should at least have the capacity to escape in the face of danger!" was what Felicia said.

Either it was due to guilt or a chance to show-off, Felicia began to run with him after the first l.a.p and overlapped him by a l.a.p to catch up with him.

By the time they finished the fourth l.a.p, William had collapsed on the spot, while Felicia barely even sweated. On top of that, he was on the verge of vomiting, but his pride as a man and someone older forced him to hold it in.

That was not the end. After a 15 minutes break, Felicia dragged him again, then to the gym.

She seemed to transform into his former coach back in the days when she said, "100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats and 50 pull-ups."

He swore that he ever heard this training regime somewhere, maybe on TV?

Nonetheless, William managed to complete them in four sets. Compared to running, he still preferred muscle-building exercises. After all, during highschool, he was nicknamed 'glass cannon small forward' in his basketball team. The meaning was pretty obvious: incredible strength and burst speed, but zero endurance.

William let out a sigh. By the time they finished, he was drenched in sweat. Before he left, Felicia gave him a scroll parchment and a sling bag; both were products from the other realm.

Written on the parchment was a list of rights and facts that Dream Treaders needed to know. The text was hand-written with a magical silver ink, which only Dream Treaders were able to see. Technically, this was the only way to keep any crucial records about the other realm, though a normal person will not be able to see it anyway.

As for the sling bag, it was similar to those spatial bags in the fictions he read. There were some differences though; the things that could get in needed to fit into the bag opening first and only the items originated from the other realm can be stored in the dimensional storage, else it will function as a normal bag in response to normal items.

There were also several items inside the bag that they gave him as welcome gifts. They consist of some healing pills, flare gun, distraction items such as noise maker and flashbangs, and another tens of miscellaneous stuff.

That aside, William did not hesitate to take the tram on the way back this time.

Few minutes later, the tram came and open its door right in front of him.

William stepped into it and found himself an empty seat near the door. Suddenly, the phone in his pocket gave out two short vibrations.

He took it out then saw a new SMS, it was from Felicia. As an event that concerned his life and death, William did not shy away from asking the girl's number. He also asked her if she could share with him the other members' contact as well.

He opened the message.

"I have reminded father to add you to our group chat. He said that he will do it as soon as Lee finished what he's doing," Felicia wrote.

'That guy is still writing?' William thought. 'It's been more than two hours!'

Then, he went on to the next line of text.

"Father also asked me to remind you to check for items appearing near where you slept last night (I can't write anymore details than this, but you should know what I mean)."

"Items?" William put a hand on his chin, trying hard to think. "Oh!"

He vaguely remember about the system announcement, something about bonus reward…

'Alright.' He kept a mental note.

Finally, he scrolled down to the last message.

"Try to read the parchment I gave you by tonight, it will give you more insights about us. Also, don't forget to come for another training tomorrow morning at 10, you need to prepare as much as possible before your next one comes!"

His almost swore out loud when he read the last sentence, not because of the training, but because he got reminded on what Alex said about his next Nightmare instance being in tomorrow night.

William could not help but sigh the second time. 'What has my life come into…'

While he admitted that his days were rather repetitive until recently, fighting with his life was never what he wanted.

At this time, William typed a reply to Felicia. "I will keep those in mind. Btw, what chat platform do you use? Facebook? Discord? Others?"

After sending the message, he turned off the screen and put it back into his pocket. Not even a minute later, another two vibrations came from his pocket.

He took it out again to see a new message from Felicia.

"Check out a red orb in the bag I gave you. That's our way of communicating with each other, as normal ways of communication won't work due to the anomalistic limitation. You should be able to talk with us through it now."

'Red orb?' William unzipped the bag that was slung over his c.h.e.s.t.

The inside of the bag looked just like any other normal bag—covered in black nylon with nothing in it. However, when William put his hand halfway in, a sensation of entering a warm water body was transmitted through his skin. But of course, any onlookers would only see him putting his hand in an empty bag.

When that happened, various images of the items stored in the bag entered his brain. He only needed to will it for the item to appear in his hand.

'Can't get used to this.' William thought to himself. 'Now, where is it… Got it!'

A fist-sized red orb magically appeared on his right hand. He took it out and zipped the bag close. Once again, no ordinary people will be able to see it.

Three pulsating glows exuded out from orb, not long after, a silver text appeared on the orb's surface.

"Hello, William."

The text did not have any form of identification like chat apps, yet, William knew that it was Alex on the other side. He felt as if Alex was speaking right in his mind.

William wanted to reply only to realize that it did not have any keypad.

'How do I use this?' He frowned.

Before he could reach out for his phone to ask Felicia, a new silver text appeared on the orb.

"How do I use this?"

"Oh!"

"I got it!"

"Wait, how do I stop this?"

"No!"

"Damn it!"

"I'm sorry…"

All of his thoughts got poured out into the chat as William began to flood it with spams. At this time, another text came in.

"Damn, where did this guy come from?" The voice following it was unfamiliar to William.

Soon, the text was also flooded by William's gibberish.

"..." Alex.

Alex then wrote, "Put the orb down! I'll teach you how to use it properly tomorrow. For now, just use your phone to contact us."

"Okay! Thank you for your guidance, sir! I will give my all to survive the next instance. Nice to meet you all, I hope we can get along well in the future. Please do take care of me, if possible, I want additional tips and more of these items. F.u.c.k! this thing is spouting everything out!"

"Ahahaha! I like this guy! Is he the newbie you told us about, Alex?" Another text followed by an unfamiliar voice appeared.

"..." On the other side, Alex smacked his face and rubbed his temple in embarrassment. He just hoped that he did the right 'investment'.