Wonderful Insane World-Chapter 83: Vanishing

Dylan jolted awake, ripped from the nightmare by an inhuman scream — a scream that burst from his own throat without him even realizing.

His voice echoed off the surrounding stones, hoarse and alien, as if it still belonged to that scorched world he had just fled.

But he didn’t have time to catch his breath.

A metallic clash tore through the air, inches from his head.

His entire body was yanked backward with brutal force, thrown out of harm’s way. The ground spun, his limbs screamed, and it was only when he felt Elisa’s fingers clenched around his collar that he understood: she had just saved him.

Before him, the rock his head had been resting on a second earlier shattered under a brutal axe strike.

Maggie stood there, panting, arms still raised, eyes wide with feral tension.

"It was just a nightmare, Maggie!" Elisa shouted, her voice quivering with fury. "You gonna kill him in his sleep now?"

Maggie clenched her jaw, but her voice stayed cold, detached.

"I told him not to move."

"Shit, this girl’s insane!!" Elisa snapped, her golden eyes blazing, fixed on Maggie like twin blades ready to strike.

She was still gripping Dylan by the collar, but her fingers trembled — from rage, from fear, or maybe both. When she turned toward him, her gaze softened slightly.

Dylan clutched his shirt in both fists, as if trying to close something inside him that had opened too far, too deep. His breathing was ragged, raw, disconnected from reality. He looked around without seeing.

Elisa slowly released her grip and let him go, then crouched in front of him.

"And you..." she said more gently, though still firm, "tell us what you saw to scream like that in the middle of the night."

She didn’t move.

Even Maggie, behind her, remained silent, the axe still in hand but lowered.

The night had gone quiet again, but heavy, as if the echoes of the nightmare still vibrated in the air.

Dylan blinked. Cold sweat slid down his back. His lips trembled, but no words would come out.

He searched for his breath. For his voice.

And in the distance, he thought he heard — or remembered hearing — a child’s voice saying:

"Come into me. Give me your tears."

He opened his eyes, staring at Elisa.

And murmured, in a near-dead whisper:

"It was... more a memory than a nightmare."

---

Dylan lowered his eyes to the fire crackling slowly in front of them. The flames danced, uncertain, long and thin, casting shifting gold and red across his face. They reflected in his eyes, as if some part of him was trying to follow their movement to avoid falling apart. The smell of burning wood filled his nose, acrid and alive — a brutal reminder that he was still here. Still alive.

"I can feel my mind twisting..." he muttered, more to himself than the others. "That thing... that demon... she’s trying to take over."

He raised his head slightly, though his gaze stayed low, locked on the embers.

"It wasn’t a nightmare. Not really. It felt like I was reliving a memory. Not mine... someone’s soul she devoured, long ago."

A thick silence settled, as if even the forest around them held its breath.

Then Dylan spoke.

The city. The well. The friends. The smile. The fire. The crowd. The screams. The arrival of the awakened one. The indistinct carnage. Faces crushed in the light. And the girl. The child with eyes without reflection, words too sweet not to betray a void.

When he finished, he fell silent, throat dry, back damp with a cold sweat.

Elisa stood slowly, arms crossed, brows furrowed.

"What you saw..." she said, staring into the flames, "was a memory shard that refused to be consumed."

She breathed in, then continued, her voice steady but calm.

"The Church sees awakened ones as blasphemies. Their paladins don’t draw strength from their own essence, but from their faith. A faith so fanatical their gods grant them power — or the illusion of it — to hunt in their name. They believe themselves the hands of their deity. Judges. Executioners."

She turned her head slowly toward Dylan.

"What you saw wasn’t a dream. It was the memory of a world that once existed. Before the Holy War. When the Church burned everything it didn’t understand."

Maggie said nothing. Seated, her axe planted in the ground, she listened, eyes fixed, brows drawn tight.

Elisa went on, softer:

"They didn’t see half-humans, nor awakened ones, not even the children born of spirit beasts as human. To them, we were... mistakes. Impure mixes of man and what they called monsters. So they purged. Cleansed. Burned."

She lifted her gaze, her golden pupils cutting through the dark.

"That’s why the war broke out. The awakened guilds had enough of being hunted, slaughtered. They united against the Church. And even though the fire changed hands, the ashes stayed."

Silence fell again, heavy as a soaked blanket.

Then she added, more gently:

"It’s a good thing you saw that. That you felt what she felt."

She knelt in front of Dylan, locking eyes with him.

"We can guess one of the demon’s powers is to manipulate souls. She doesn’t just devour them. She carries them within her. Keeps them. Maybe even becomes part of them."

Her fingers brushed the black earth.

"What you saw might be useful. Maybe in those fragments of horror, there’s a key. A weakness. A trait. A detail we could exploit."

She lifted her chin.

"The real question is how deep you can dive into that memory... before you stop being you."

"I don’t think I can..." Dylan murmured, lowering his eyes to his trembling hands. Small, uncontrollable shakes. Fragments of fear left under the skin.

"I have no control in those dreams. With every memory... it feels like I’m fading. Slowly."

His fingers clenched, as if to grab something that no longer existed.

Elisa came closer silently, placed her hands on his cheeks, gently, and pulled his face toward her, until his forehead rested against her flat chest, where a calm, steady heart still beat.

Her voice was firm, but soft:

"That’s where you come in. If you know your life’s at stake in those memories, then you have the right to resist. You have to."

She took a deep breath, then continued, her words weighed:

"That demon thinks you can’t fight back. Prove her wrong. Try thinking with your soul, not your fear. In your dream, hold onto something. Someone. Find an anchor. A thought... or a person... that can help you stay yourself."

She pulled his face back just enough to look into his eyes.

"I believe in you, Dylan."

He stayed silent for a moment, arms slack. Then, slowly, almost too sincerely to be a joke, he wrapped his arms around her waist and murmured against her:

"Guess I’ll just cling to your flat chest, then."

Elisa blinked. Slowly. Then sighed.

"Oh, Dylan... you can die. I don’t care."

And she hugged him tight, violently, as if she could seal up the cracks already opening inside him.