Lost Tail.

VALENTINA

I didn't ask to be chosen.

One night, my sleep stopped being rest and turned into a prison. Every dream became a game with rules I didn't understand and punishments I learned to fear. I wake up shaking, my body remembering things my mind refuses to explain. Streets that don't exist. Dolls that watch me. A presence that feels too close, too aware.

I know something is following me.

Not just in my dreams - in the quiet moments, in reflections that last too long, in the space behind me when I'm alone. I've tried to fight it. I've tried to run. I've even killed him.

It never works.

Because he doesn't die.

And the worst part isn't the fear - it's the way my nightmares feel designed for me. Like someone knows me. Like someone is learning what breaks me best.

I don't know his name yet.
I only know that he wants me awake just as badly as he wants me asleep.

⸻

DRAVEN

She screams beautifully.
Not because she is weak - but because she resists. I have haunted dreams for centuries. Watched minds shatter, watched terror turn hollow and dull. Most humans blur together, their fear predictable, their endings inevitable.

Valentina Song is different.

She adapts. She questions. She survives longer than she should. Every challenge I create sharpens her instead of breaking her, and that alone makes her dangerous.

And fascinating.

She doesn't remember when she became mine. That happened long before her first scream, long before she ever learned my face. I felt her presence before she knew what I was - a pull, a tether, something old and instinctive locking into place.She kills me in the waking world.

Again.
And again.
And again.

As if death could separate us. I let her believe she has control. Let her think fear is the only thing tying us together. But obsession is patient, and eternity has taught me how to wait.

Because fear fades.
Resistance weakens.
And eventually, she will understand:

The game was never about escape.

It was about her.

She.
Is.
M-I-N-E.