in Between Realms

Chapter 1

Seven years later...

I look up at the dark somber sky, its two moons illuminate the realm. It's a vast, starless void and I believe the sky alone holds many secrets.

For one, the reason why the realm of the night has two moons instead of one. Klara told me it's because each moon represents a celestial being's presence in the realm.

The red moon represents the ruler of the afterlife who is said to be trapped somewhere in this realm due to injuries he sustained eons ago, but how true can the tale of the red moon be when it was practically passed through a grapevine.

The silver moon represents the moon goddess, the goddess of the night. Her moon is the brightest and is the only provider of light in this realm.

I look at my partner Orion who is watching the dream sea for a chance of any activity. I wish I could say that we have been waiting here all night, but this is the third jump we are about to make.

Orion has been my partner for seven years. We have never met in the realm of light nor do we have any idea what each other look like. That's because there is an enchantment in place so that whenever we appear in the realm of dreams we appear cloaked. I always appear in a red cloak and Ri appears in a green cloak. Half our faces are covered only our mouths are showing, but thanks to magic we can see through the top half of our cloaks.

The bridge beneath me is transparent and has vibrant colors flowing throughout it. The realm of the night has its demons but when you look past the bad you get to see how beautiful the place is.

Jumpers are more powerful here than they are in the light, that's because we were only given powers for the sole purpose of fighting off the night terrors.We can do magic in the realm of light but it won't be as strong as the magic we do here.

There is more to the dream realm than just the dream sea and the bridge, but we were advised not to explore because it's technically stepping into a den of lions when you leave the protection of the magical barrier that's keeping the night terrors out, and if the magical barrier wasn't enough there are also sentry's on each end of the bridge.

A loud explosion that resembles the sound of fireworks on the fourth of July gets my head to snap up. In the far distance, the dream sea is lighting up in bright orange sparks in one part indicating that a night terror is terrorizing some poor souls sleep. I watch as other jumpers prepare to jump off the bridge effortlessly as more parts of the sea begin to light up.

The dream sea is a portal to mortal dreams. It will always light up when there is a night terror invading dreams.

When night terrors attack they all attack at once. With this cunning tactic of theirs, they are bound to get at least one soul by bamboozling us.

Each encounter with a night terror increases my knowledge about them. The way they think and the way they hunt.

The elders still don't know how the night terrors keep getting into people's dreams and the night terrors are getting stronger each passing night. Before it could take only one jumper to kill a night terror. Now it takes two or sometimes a group depending on how strong the creature is.

"Are you ready Zel?" Ri asks and I look into the sea of dreams we're about to jump into.

"Yeah, this never gets less intimidating no matter how many times we do it." I couldn't begin to imagine the chaos that was down there. Every night there was something new in-store.