Nightmare Game
Copyright© 2025 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 1
A fog-shrouded world stretched out before him.
Ethan Walker blinked in confusion. Wasn’t this his dream?
Every night, he slipped into a dream where he wandered through a similar misty expanse, but with one key difference: a sprawling manor all his own, accompanied by an ape, a wolf, a fox, a snake, and a butterfly that stayed close by his side.
Yet here, only humans surrounded him. Seven of them in total, making eight with him, four men and four women.
He tugged open the collar of his shirt and peered inside, only to spot a blood-red jade pendant shaped like a snake dangling against his chest. The sight made his face drain of color.
No doubt about it. This was the very pendant the snake had found somewhere or other a while back and brought to him in its mouth.
In his dreams, he could wear it constantly, but he could never carry anything from those visions into the waking world.
Now that it hung on him for real, did that mean he was still dreaming, just in a version that had shifted somehow?
“Where am I? What is this place?”
“Who are you people?”
The group erupted into a clamor of voices, men and women alike, their panic mirroring his own unease about their situation.
Ethan studied them closely. Most wore pale expressions, a mix of fear, bewilderment, and outright confusion flickering across their faces.
One boy in particular caught his eye, a scrawny kid with glasses who stood out from the rest. Unlike the others, he showed no trace of distress; if anything, a spark of excitement glinted in his gaze.
Beyond him, Ethan recognized a familiar face. She wore a cream-colored blouse and a black skirt that highlighted her fair skin and youthful glow.
Serena Hayes, the nurse from Good Health Hospital who looked after him. He usually saw her in scrubs, so catching her in casual clothes felt oddly refreshing.
“Serena,” he said, stepping forward to greet her.
“Ethan!”
Spotting a familiar face amid the chaos brought a flash of relief to her frantic expression, quickly turning to surprise.
“Your hands, your legs...”
“I have no idea what’s going on. By the time I noticed, I could move freely again.”
“That’s incredible,” she said, her face lighting up with joy. But as the reality of their surroundings sank in, the excitement faded, her smile twisting into a grimace. “If we weren’t stuck in this bizarre mess, we’d have every reason to celebrate properly.”
Ethan waved it off without a second thought. He knew exactly what she meant. In the real world, he was a paralyzed patient who needed nurses for even the most basic things, like eating or using the bathroom. Only in his dreams did he reclaim his full health.
He couldn’t quite make sense of things now. If this was a dream, why had the manor and his animal companions vanished? But if it wasn’t, how could he be whole again, wearing the snake’s pendant no less?
“Look at that!”
A panicked shout cut through the noise, snapping Ethan from his thoughts. He followed the pointing fingers, and what he saw defied belief: words forming in the mist above them.
[Task: Head to the Castle, survive for seven days, and uncover the Castle’s hidden secret.]
“What does that even mean?”
“Where’s this Castle supposed to be?”
“Is this some kind of prank show?”
A brief hush fell over the group before their fear boiled over into frenzied shouts, as if yelling could release the building tension.
But the next moment silenced them completely.
Countless black specks materialized in the sky ahead, plummeting like raindrops. They assembled like building blocks right before the group’s eyes, methodically piecing together a massive castle as they fell and connected.
Everyone stared in stunned silence, their everyday understanding of the world shattered.
“What do we do?” someone finally whispered.
“What else is there to do? Go inside the Castle, obviously.” The bespectacled, wiry boy named Lucas Bright shoved his hands in his pockets, his calm demeanor a stark contrast to the others’ hysteria. “We’re here now, so might as well make the best of it. You think we have a choice?”
“What kind of nonsense is that?” The tall man surged forward, his face flushed with anger, only to pause as realization dawned. “Oh, I get it. You’re in on this whole setup with the pranksters, trying to lure us in.”
Lucas just let out a cold snort and ignored him, striding off toward the Castle alone.
“Hey! You bastard, cat got your tongue now that I’ve called you out?” The tall man chased after him.
The rest exchanged uneasy glances, still scrambling to process it all, when a sudden chill prickled at their backs.
Ethan caught the thick stench of blood in the air, goosebumps racing across his skin. He didn’t need to turn around to sense the massive, unidentified creature closing in; each step it took sent tremors through the ground.
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