Chapter 52: Nightmare

The shrill ring of a cell phone yanked Gima from the depths. Her eyes fluttered open to a bizarrely familiar sight: a sleek glass window overlooking a street choked with cars and neon.

A dizzying wave of vertigo washed over her, the kind you get after waking from a dream that felt more real than life. A dream of demons and magic, of women and… a hero in shining silver armor.

Wait a minute, something’s not right. Why the hell am I sleeping here?

She was on the couch in her company’s break room. She knew it intimately; this was her noon-time nap spot. The vending machine next to it, a kaleidoscope of junk food, was a point of pride she’d once used to boast to her college friends about her “progressive” workplace.

No, no, this is wrong. I shouldn’t be here. I’m supposed to be—

“—condensed into a time capsule.”

The phone’s alarm blared, shattering her train of thought.

Shit, can’t let the coworkers hear.

On pure instinct, Gima shot upright, fumbled for the phone, and slammed the alarm off.

A sharp, stinging pain flared on her philtrum. She touched the spot, and the familiar sensation struck her foggy brain like a mallet.

This isn’t right. Was that dream… real?

The question was a spark, and a flood of memories ignited. Images, sharp and vivid, tore through the haze.

A black, barbaric wasteland. A bloody arena, the headless corpses of her demonic brethren slick under her feet.

A wave of her hand, and a city became a funeral pyre.

A palace teeming with maids, every one of them hers to command, to enjoy.

Then, a crushing pain in her chest. The silver-armored hero, impossibly close, the sun emblem on his breastplate burning with life.

The last memory fragment was the one she fought the hardest. I became a woman? A succubus?!

The thought was so repulsive she almost threw up. As she reeled, a voice cut through the fog. “It’s two. You planning on getting up today?”

Startled, Gima scrambled to her feet. Right. Work.

She stumbled toward her desk, her head swimming. That nap had felt like an eternity, a dream so long and vivid it had blurred the edges of her world.

“Are you going to stand there all day? The code you pushed this morning is a dumpster fire.”

A head of salt-and-pepper hair popped up over a cubicle wall. Her tech lead.

“Right, on it.”

She rushed to her computer, but the phantom sting above her lip wouldn’t quit. It was a tiny, insistent alarm, screaming that she was forgetting something vital.

“I…” Her hand hovered over the mouse.

The trash can beside her was tipped over. As Gima bent to right it, the acrid smell of takeout hit her. A plastic container of fiery red Maocai, studded with peppercorns.

Oh, right. Lunch. They ordered that ridiculously spicy stuff. I must’ve gotten some on my face.

She frowned, setting the can upright and patting her cheeks to shake off the last of the grogginess. The weird, intrusive thoughts receded, and her mind felt blessedly “clear.”

Gima fired up her IDE, waiting for the loading screen.

Her gaze drifted across the wide, clean desk and landed on a framed photo. In it, a pretty, gentle-looking woman with long black hair and an oval face was smiling, hugging a young man in a plaid shirt and thick, black-rimmed glasses.

A surge of warmth spread through Gima’s chest. All the overtime, all the grinding—it was worth it.

A car, a house, a stable personality… so what if I’m a little boring? I’m a hot commodity on the marriage market. The matchmaker practically fell over herself to set me up with such a sweet, sensible girlfriend.

And she was sensible. After relentless pestering, she’d secured a fantastic investment opportunity from a relative. Gima had handed over her entire life savings without a second thought.

Soon, I’ll buy her a new mansion, just like her relatives have. And it’s about time I met the parents. I even helped out when her dad was in the hospital and needed cash. That’s got to score some major points with the future father-in-law.

Lost in a rosy vision of the future, Gima’s phone buzzed. The gentle, oval face appeared on the screen. The caller ID read: “My Girlfriend~😘😘.”

“Hey! What’s up?” Gima purred, a wide grin spreading across her face.

“We’re breaking up.”

“...Huh?” The grin froze and cracked.

“Don’t come looking for me. I’ve already moved out,” the voice on the other end was glacial. “Oh, and don’t forget to pay back your loan.”

“What?” Gima glanced at the date on her computer. “It’s not April Fools’ Day.”

“Pay. The. Money. Back.”

Click.

She frantically redialed.

“The number you have dialed is currently busy…”

The automated voice was a death knell.

Waking as if from a trance, Gima scrambled to open her banking app. The long, beautiful string of digits that had been her life savings was gone. All that remained was a single, mocking zero.

She didn’t even leave the goddamn interest!

She slammed her fist on the desk.

The phone rang again. “Excuse me, are you a relative of Mr. Xu Ziqiang?”

“Yes. He’s been hospitalized. He needs emergency surgery.”

A wave of pure, undiluted sorrow crashed over her, an arctic torrent from head to toe.

Time warped, accelerating into a nauseating blur. She searched for her girlfriend, finding only a trail of other victims who confirmed the woman was a professional scammer. She consulted lawyers, who told her everything she did was technically legal. Disbelief curdled into rage, then festered into a deep, gnawing grief, and finally collapsed into the humiliation of begging friends and family for spare change.

The world dissolved and reformed into a sterile hospital room. The reek of disinfectant was thick with the stench of death. The bill in her hand was an astronomical figure that laughed at the pathetic pile of cash she’d managed to scrape together.

“How could you be so stupid?” her mother’s voice flayed her.

The world lurched forward again.

Money vanished. Debt collectors became her new roommates, celebrating the New Year by pounding on her door. The day she returned to work, HR informed her she’d been let go. Time might be skipping, but the agony was playing out in excruciating real-time.

Then, everything slowed to a crawl.

Gima stood on a rooftop, her leaden feet planted at the edge. Below, the concrete beckoned. She raised her cracked phone one last time, a final, desperate plea for her ex to return even a fraction of the money. Anything to survive. The reply was as cold and hard as the pavement waiting for her.

She was falling. CRACK. She shattered into a million pieces.

The concrete ground became a living, writhing tar pit, swallowing her, dragging her into a bone-chilling, soul-tearing abyss.

No!!

She threw her head back, just in time to see the last pinprick of light wink out.

Gima thrashed, clawing wildly at the suffocating darkness where the light had been.

But the abyss had her. It pulled her deeper, flooding her mind with the greatest hits of her despair: the zero balance, the dead-end phone call, the impossible medical bills…

The despair was a creeping frost, stiffening her muscles, turning her limbs to stone until all she could do was twitch her fingers.

It’s hopeless. I know it’s hopeless. I know no one is coming. So why am I still reaching? Why can’t I just give up?

It’s time.

A profound weariness settled over her. Her fingers stilled. Her eyelids, heavy as lead, began to drift shut.

Suddenly, a flashbang detonated behind her eyes. Blinding, searing white light flooded her senses, vaporizing the drowsiness, melting the icy dread that had encased her heart.

The darkness was gone. And Gima, perversely, missed it. Her eyes felt like they were being scorched from their sockets.

“Son of a bitch, who’s got their high beams on?!”

Gima’s eyes snapped open—and stared directly into the face of the youth who had run her through with a sword. A primal scream of terror lodged in her throat as she shoved at his chest, but it was like pushing against a mountain.

“Gima! Gima, it’s me, George!”

His voice was a lightning strike that jolted her fully awake. The dream world shattered. The room blazed with white light, emanating from the holy emblem cupped in George’s palm.

It all came rushing back. The potion. The backlash. She had almost been devoured by her own power.

In the cleansing light, the last dregs of that cold, bottomless despair began to recede.

For reasons she couldn’t fathom, her eyes began to burn. A choked sob escaped her lips. “George… I’m still alive.”

“That’s all that matters.” He pulled her into a crushing hug.

Gima’s head fell against his shoulder, her heart hammering against her ribs.

The suspension bridge effect, her treacherous mind supplied. That dirty, underhanded, psychological trick.

She thought about pushing him away, but her hands, acting on their own, lifted, hesitated, and then clenched tightly around his chest, grounding herself in the solid reality of him.

After a long moment, her head finally cleared. She had done it. She was a Nightmare now, a bona fide Bronze-rank.

“George,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

“Mm.”

As she murmured, distracting him, her free hand snaked out, snatching the empty test tube from the bed and trying to discreetly tuck it into the pocket of her pajamas.

“I almost died.”

“What happened?” George loosened his hold.

“I… I think I’m getting stronger,” Gima improvised, her mind racing. He can’t know about the potion. He can’t! “A nightmare… it attacked me in my sleep.”

“You should have told me. You need a guardian when you’re advancing.”

“I, well…” Gima fumbled, her fingers clumsily trying to guide the test tube into the tiny pajama pocket. “I didn’t know.”

Damn it, why do these pajamas feel like they’re shrinking? It’s so tight.

“You should have said something,” George said, holding up a nearly full vial of ginger oil. “You were clutching this, trying to drink it. That’s incredibly dangerous.”

“I know, but—whoops!”

The test tube was too slick. It slipped from her grasp, arced through the air, and landed on the carpet with a soft thud, rolling to a stop.

“What was that?” George asked.

“Probably a southern cockroach,” Gima said, her face a mask of pure innocence. “The flying kind.”

George raised the glowing emblem, casting its light on the floor. The test tube lay there, a tiny droplet of pale purple liquid clinging to the inside, shimmering with a thousand iridescent, dream-like colors.

“A potion? Gima! Huh, where do you think you’re going?”

She was already off the bed. The moment she heard his voice, she made a break for the door, her fingers brushing the cool metal of the knob.

Then, a sharp tug on her tail. Pain exploded from her tailbone, and she hit the floor with a yelp, getting dragged backward across the carpet.

“No! Help! I’m sorry, I was wrong, I was wrong!” she shrieked, her hands clawing desperately for the door, for escape, as she was unceremoniously hauled back to the bed.