Layers Of Nightmare

A blinding white light coming from every direction, sparse land filled with nothing but the same white void; there was nothing up above, nor nothing down below.

William lied down on his back, or more like floating in the middle of the place.

Slowly, he opened his eyes due to the vast whiteness penetrating his eyelids.

"Ugh… What the heck." William put up his right hand to cover his eyes. Even so, he still needed to squint as he just woke up.

After another minute, William finally got used to the light and began to observe his surroundings.

"Where the heck..." Literally nothing was on sight. The whole place was unreal and unbearable at the same time, strangely, William could still feel an invisible bed underneath him and the familiar scent of his room.

He clearly remembered that he had went straight home after the welcoming party last night...

'Don't tell me, the Nightmare realm?!' William went panic for a second, but he quickly denied the thought.

From what people had told him, all Nightmare instances will have a dark environment, or at least having a gloomy and eerie environment. This one, however, was none of those.

"Hmm…" William carefully crawl toward the edge of the invisible bed and let his legs dangling off the bed, trying to feel if there was an invisible ground under it.

Suddenly, a sound of ripping fabric entered his ears.

Krrrkkk~

"Huh?"

Before William could react, his b.u.t.t slid off the 'bed' and he fell to the ground- No, there was not any ground beneath the 'bed'!

"AAHHHHH!" His scream echoed in the strange white space as a feeling of freefall welled up.

"AAHHHHH!" He screamed again…

"AAHHHHH!" And some more…

It was not known how long he had been falling for. Seconds? Minutes? Or perhaps, it has been an hour already?

Eventually, he stopped screaming when he felt his throat sore; instead, he could now feel a churning sensation rising up from his stomach.

"Oh shi- Urp!"

Warm fluid rose up to his throat. William tried really hard to push it back down, but gravity did not have the same opinion.

"Uwargh!"

Just as he was preparing the shitty situation of anti-gravity + vomit, something unexpected happened.

When the fluid reached his mouth, somehow, it tasted like an incredible mix of exotic fruit punch and refreshing mint. As he opened his mouth, impossibly bright colorful fluids flowed out.

He was… puking rainbows?!

The rainbow dissipated into a similarly colorful mist right after that. Just as he thought it could not get any more ridiculous, the glowing mist condensed animatedly, then transformed into tiny fairies that dance around him.

William was dumbstruck by the visions he gained, he yelled into the limitless white space,

"Someone tell me what the f.u.c.k is going on!"

As if the white world heard a part of his plead, William felt a gentle force of a wind pushing his body from below, slowing his fall before finally stopping him mid-air.

Even when he no longer falling, he still zoned out with his mind in a mess. It seemed that he had lost a part of his soul somewhere during the fall.

A weird voice escaped his mouth, a mindless mumbles filled with a mix of grogginess and clattering teeth.

After a few rounds of heavy breathing, William could feel his mind clearing up again. He looked around, but other than the several newly-appeared fairies, there was no change in the white space.

'Is this just a weird lucid dream or is this something else?' William thought. Due to being dragged into the Nightmare realm, he knew that there was an existence of a world beyond anyone's understanding; situation like this should not be underestimated.

"Now what?" Stuck mid-air without any leverage meant that he could not move either, just like an astronaut would stay afloat in the void space without any external force.

Suddenly, the fairies around him stopped their dancing and moved toward a direction in an orderly manner. Not long after that, William felt a mysterious force tugging him to float toward the group of marching fairies.

"Eh, what?" It was impossible to resist the pull no matter how William squirm, as such, he stopped doing so.

He did not know what force was working in this dreamscape. If this was an actual Nightmare instance, he would be at its mercy already. William hoped that all of these were just a normal dream.

Minutes later, something new finally entered his view.

It was a white mausoleum far grander than anything he had ever seen. Rather than stones, the whole structure was made out of quartz of the highest quality. Intricate patterns of hieroglyphs decorate its wall, while a massive golden plaque written in an unknown language hung over the top of its front.

Beneath the golden plaque was a majestic silver gate larger than the most massive elephant; similarly, it was full of ancient runes carved with synergia of multitudes colors.

The sight was so marvelous that William forgot to close his jaw. Before he knew it, he had landed on the platform just before the gate. By then, gravity had returned to his body and the fairies had dispersed in all directions, leaving behind some colorful dust.

Standing on the platform, William could not see the full view of the gate, even if he bend his neck up ninety degrees.

A cool waft of air exuded out from the ancient gate, making him wondered if there was a world of winter behind it.

Unconsciously, William had move his hand to touch the gate. The sense of coldness on the silver's surface was unmistakably transferred to his nerves. Right at that moment, a mysterious voice entered his ears, carrying with it a solemn voice of a man of unknown language.

"Ye'ra ereste tuk'namun deadecim tera ulzambl'e un evdominta dyo Shem ha-Mephorash. "

It was impossible for any person to understand what it said, and yet, the meaning was somehow clear to William.

'Here lies the twelve disciples of the earth and the seventy-two Shem ha-Mephorash…?'

'What is Shem ha-Mephoras?' This was the only word he could not understand; regardless, the voice did not say anything anymore, so William could only ponder by himself.

Right at that time, another information entered his head: he needed a certain item if he wanted to get in, and he somehow knew what it was.

"That strange ticket?" The next moment he blinked, the ticket which was dense with hieroglyphs suddenly appeared before his eyes.

Floating in the air, the ticket was glowing with a flaring white light. The hieroglyphs pasted on it seemed to come alive as they began to wriggle out of the ticket and transformed into a net of magical symbols.

When the transformation stopped, there was no longer any hieroglyphs on the ticket. The empty piece of paper slowly burned into ashes, scattered into the air, whereas the dense ball of white magical symbols shot off into the massive gate.

Plink~

Just like a drop of water falling into a pristine pond, a similar effect of water-surface disturbance distorted the gate's surface when the magical ball merged merged with it. Before long, the gate open inwards without any noise, though, the blast of cold wind whizz pass his body and onto his face.

William shivered the moment the cold air engulf his body. His breath became visible, but he could care less about that as utter majesty entered his vision.

Beyond the gate was a grand hall so massive that a thousand people would probably the same as a thousand ants, yet, the hall has nothing in it. William found that this whole structure was more similar to a throne room rather than a mausoleum, with the grand hall and…

'Is that a step?' William thought as he squinted his eyes to see a set of short stairs leading to a dais in a distance.

William took several steps into the mausoleum, by then, he saw that there were several smaller-sized gates on both his left and right side. Each of the gate has a unique pattern engraved on it. Some had similar shape of plants, another from animal kingdoms, while the rest were of unrecognizable pattern.

Minutes later, William had walked all the way into the flight of stairs. He had counted all the gates as he walked in. One side of the hall had 31 gates; together, there were a total of 72 gates in the mausoleum.

"They must be related to the 'Shem he-Maphoras'," William mumbled.

He did try to push open the first gate, but to no avail. Thus, he arrived there without trying the other gate too, since all of them looked similar in material.

Now, he saw that there were eleven coffins on the dais in front of him. They were human-sized and could not be any more simpler than a white stone coffin used for commoners in ancient era.

At the back of the dais were two dark side-corridors—something akin to a path leading to backstage.

'Only eleven?' William pondered. 'If everything matched to what was told by the voice, shouldn't there be twelve coffins?'

Before he got his answer, a dull echo of someone walking entered his ears. From the left corridor on the dais emerged an old man wise with age.

The man had a long goatee beard and a pair of short side mustaches. His hair was long and unkempt; regardless, none of his hair had any remaining pigment.

A trail of ethereal light followed the man as he walked onto the dais. Coupled with the fact that he wore a set of chiton and chlamys, the figure looked like a living treasure coming from ancient Greek.

"Hm?" The man finally took notice of William. "A guest? How unusual…"

A flash of light fell onto the man's eyes as he glared at William. Instantly, William felt his body shivered uncontrollably for unknown reasons.

'Who?!' William was alarmed by the sudden shock. He took a step back in panic, but the old man did not make any more move other than just staring at him quietly.

Moments later, the man shook his head and said, "Not yet. You shouldn't be here yet."

"What?" William was stumped by how this eccentric old man act.

Without considering William's reaction, the old man lifted up his right hand and pointed a finger at William.

A ball of white light the size of a toe gathered on the man's index finger. Soon, it exploded into a flash between the two.

As if a mini sun had exploded in front of him, William was instantly blinded by the light. At the same time, a feeling of drowsiness struck him.

His eyelids grew heavier and heavier until he could not open them anymore as he collapsed onto the cold stone ground.