Falling Star.

Starlit Resolve

Pain. That was all Aleksander felt as he drifted back into consciousness, a raw and gnawing ache flooding through his battered body. His left arm throbbed with a bone-deep pain, clearly broken, while his legs felt as though they were leaden weights, bruised and twisted from the struggle. Every movement was a reminder of his injuries, even the simple effort of opening his eyes.

For nearly twenty minutes, he lay still, gathering enough strength to lift his head. And when he did, a pang of dread swept over him. Bodies lay strewn across the street in macabre patterns, blurs of familiar and monstrous forms that sharpened into focus as he forced himself to see. The fallen figures around him weren't villagers—they were nightmares, dark and twisted, lying broken and burnt across the cobblestone. An ominous silence hung heavy over Crater's Edge, broken only by the faint crackling of still-smoking debris.

At the end of the street, rubble piled where his home had stood. His heart seized. Eveline. His sister, his only family—he had to find her.

Aleksander forced himself forward, his body collapsing onto the dirt road with a jolt that unleashed a fresh wave of agony. He clenched his teeth and pushed through the pain, dragging himself one slow inch at a time. His good arm dug into the earth, pulling him past the corpses of nightmares, many with charred skin and fresh, brutal wounds that cut deeper than the strange holes that typically riddled their forms. These new wounds bore the sharpness of stabs and slashes, the edges scorched.

A flash of memory struck him—the fierce creature he'd battled, towering above him with a rage that seemed boundless. Its massive, burning form now lay in the center of the street, a monstrous pile of seared flesh atop a collapsed house. Aleksander averted his eyes, focusing instead on the distant rubble of his own home.

When he finally reached the broken remains, he was met with two harrowing answers. The first—a dread-laden thought he refused to acknowledge, a thought that told him all he feared might be true. The second, though, was a grim blessing: a figure leaned against the rubble, slumped but unmistakably powerful. An older man, easily over seven feet tall, with a muscular build and a thick, grizzled beard that fell past his chest.

The man's right arm was gone, severed at the shoulder, fresh blood pooling and spreading beneath him. He was unmistakably dead, his face slack, a lifelessness that seemed almost unreal on the face of a dreamer—one of the famed Venatia hunters. Seeing him here, fallen while protecting the village, shook Aleksander to his core. These dreamers were born to fight nightmares, to be humanity's last line of defense against the dark. And now, here one lay, a monument to the cost of this unrelenting war.

Yet, Aleksander had no time to mourn. He recalled his father's stories about the Venatia, about the vials they wore like amulets around their necks—vials containing a precious, glowing substance known as hope, the energy that strengthened them, that allowed them to continue the fight.

Around the dreamer's neck was such a vial, the small glass container still intact, its contents swirling in a soft, white glow. Aleksander reached for it, gripping the vial tightly before tearing it free from the dreamer's neck. He focused on the contents—a fine, radiant dust—and closed his eyes, willing the energy into himself.

A rush of warmth spread through him, his broken bones snapping back into place, wounds stitching closed as the energy surged through his veins. It was a feeling of unparalleled strength, a fleeting relief from the relentless ache that had consumed him. He rose from the ground, filled with a vigor he hadn't felt in ages.

But the strength was a trick, a momentary gift. His vision swam, the newfound power slipping from his grasp as his body reminded him of the brutal reality—he was not fully healed. His wounds, though closed, were shallowly mended, and if he pushed too far, they would reopen, leaving him as helpless as before. Still, it was enough to stand, to face the grim reality surrounding him.

He turned back toward the rubble, the same rubble that had once been his home. Hours passed as he dug, sifting through broken wood and shattered stone, desperate for any sign of Eveline. His hands bled anew, splinters embedding themselves deep in his skin. And then, just as he felt his hope wane, he found it—a faint trail of red, barely visible against the ground, leading away from what remained of her room. Blood. Her blood.

It stretched away from the ruins in a slow, meandering trail, leading toward the outskirts of Crater's Edge—the direction of the Meteor Fields. Aleksander's hands curled into fists, his jaw tightening as a grim determination settled over him. Something had taken Eveline, dragging her away in the wake of the chaos. He would find her. He would go to the Fields if he had to cross every twisted nightmare lurking there.

With newfound resolve, he whispered into the dirt, "Stay strong, Eveline. I'm coming."

Steeling himself, Aleksander looked down at the dreamer's fallen form once more. Beneath a charred piece of timber, something gleamed—a glint of metal. He reached down, brushing aside the debris to reveal a longsword, its blade seeming almost to pulse with light. The weapon looked almost as if it were forged from pure starlight, its pale yellow metal flickering with an inner glow. The black leather grip was pristine, and the pommel and guard spread outward, their jagged edges reminiscent of stars scattered across a night sky.

As he held the sword, a strange knowledge washed over him. It was the Star Blade—a nightmare token. This hunter had earned it after vanquishing a creature capable of harnessing the power of starlight, a radiant monster Aleksander could only imagine. The sword itself was new, its story only beginning.

Aleksander marveled at the weapon, and as he did, he felt something shift within him—a dormant connection to the Dreaming World awakening. This was the dreamscribe magic, the ancient ability that allowed dreamers to read and rewrite the stories of the world around them. Aleksander had never shown much aptitude for it before, but now, holding this blade, he felt a strange certainty. The Star Blade's story was now tied to him.

He fastened the sword's strap around his chest, feeling the weight settle against his back. The weapon was his now, a silent promise of strength as he prepared for the journey ahead.

With his new sword in hand, Aleksander set off through the streets, taking in the devastation left in the wake of the attack. The few survivors he encountered were injured, haunted by the horrors of the night. Bodies lay everywhere, both nightmare and human. Friends, neighbors, people he had grown up with—all lost. His heart ached as he passed Marian, her lifeless form beside a mound of nightmares she had felled. Her once-nightmarish horse had faded, the terror of her final moments leaving only her human form behind.

The familiar streets felt alien now, filled with loss and silence. Aleksander forced himself to walk on, to not let his mind dwell on the faces of those he could not save. Grief would have to wait; he needed all his strength for Eveline.

As he reached the edge of town, Aleksander paused, casting one final look at Crater's Edge. His home was broken, shattered in a single night of terror. But the Meteor Fields lay ahead, and somewhere within that barren wasteland was his sister, alone and vulnerable. Adjusting the Star Blade's strap, Aleksander steeled himself.

The path before him was bleak, shadowed by nightmares and uncertainty. Yet a spark of light still lingered in his heart, a glimmer of hope that Eveline was waiting. And he would find her, no matter the cost.