Nightmare
Kael awoke from sleep. He glanced around. It was a familiar place—no, a place that had become unfamiliar. The Knight Academy. A place he had graduated from long ago. He had met his beloved lovers, Lucrecia and Eleonora, there, and now they traveled together like this. As that thought crossed his mind, Kael quickly realized this was a dream, or perhaps a glimpse of the future vision granted by his ability.
But doubt soon crept in. His future vision was an extremely brief power, showing only a few seconds ahead at best, and even then, it required intuiting the truth amid countless afterimages—an incredibly inconvenient gift. Yet now, there was no such discomfort. It felt utterly natural, as if he truly existed in this space.
The courtyard, revisited after so long, was chillingly desolate. The warm sunlight that once bathed it had turned pitch black, shrouding the entire academy in darkness, while the lush greenery withered, faded and dying. And there was no one. Not even an ant.
Kael wandered the courtyard, looking around. The academy matched his memories with startling precision.
Squelch—
Then, a strange sound echoed from somewhere. The sticky, slimy drag of something brushing against itself. Kael scanned his surroundings, tracing the noise. The distant auditorium seemed the likely source. He had only ever been there for entrance ceremonies, graduations, and briefings for real-world missions. Just wooden floors, wooden walls, and an empty space to cram in crowds of students.
A sudden foreboding gripped him, drawing Kael toward the auditorium.
Squelch❤ Squelch❤
The closer he got, the clearer the sound became. Something intensely sticky slithering somewhere... In a flash, Kael intuited it was flesh. The unmistakable noise of that viscous thing touching, sliding over, and enveloping skin.
"Haa...❤"
As he neared the auditorium, lewd breaths leaked from within. Kael swallowed hard without thinking. What was this inexplicable future vision—or dream—trying to show him? Clutching his tense heart, he pushed open the auditorium doors.
Hot air blasted out the moment the doors swung wide. It was intense enough to make him throw up an arm to shield his eyes.
Squelch❤! Squelch❤!
Once the gust faded, Kael cautiously lowered his arm to face the scene before him. The auditorium, which should have been empty, brimmed with black tentacles. The sticky, writhing tendrils tangled and twisted in grotesque abandon.
But they weren't the source of the sounds. Kael's gaze locked onto the center of the tentacle nest: a massive monster fused with the writhing mass, and beneath it, his lovers—Lucrecia and Eleonora—bound and helpless, producing those noises.
The black tentacles bound their bodies tight, violating them outright.
"Ah......."
At the sight, Kael could only gape, transfixed as his lovers endured their defilement. The black tentacles coiled around their porcelain skin, wrapping and squeezing. Elastic tendrils gripped their massive breasts, flesh bulging between the gaps, while forked tips split open like gaping maws, suckling their nipples greedily. Some tentacles sprayed thick, milky fluid across their bodies, marking their territory in obscene splatters.
The ever-calm and resolute Lucrecia shed silent tears, her mouth open in unheard screams. Eleonora, who always led the party with her brilliant mind, stared into empty space with dead, vacant eyes, utterly limp.
Glowing ominously on their lower abdomens were strange, dark pinkish-purple patterns—unfamiliar yet foreboding—that pulsed intensely at intervals.
As Kael stared at them amid the tentacles, they noticed him too. Their eyes met his, lips moving soundlessly. Kael focused on their mouths, straining to read the words.
What their lips formed was...
'This is all...'
Kael's eyes snapped open. Sunlight streamed through the window into the cozy, if cramped, room. The bed was soft with fresh straw stuffing. Faint shouts and whooshes of practice swords drifted from outside.
Drenched in sweat, Kael sat up in the inn room. Only then did he intuit the truth. The scene he'd just witnessed was too vivid for a mere dream, too distant for his future vision. It was a prophecy of ruin—for him, and for them.