*“The Bloodtiger is not rage. Rage is sloppy. When the turning completes, it does not feel like madness. It feels like clarity. It feels like permission. And the worst truth settles warm in the chest: It was always possible. The Bloodtiger only taught the body how to stop pretending it wasn’t.”

~* Codex Somniantium, Reverie XIII ~ Broadcast Date: Unknown

It’s suffocating my thoughts and dragging me down. Breath. If it’s air I’m looking for I am finding none of it here. The grip holding my ankle pulling me deeper under, the atmosphere thick and restrictive. Its grip has spines, cold barbs, digging into me like a thousand needles, but I can’t scream. A shadowy figure emerges from the blackness, an Amber Krowen like myself, but twisted, monstrous, warped. It stalks towards me, each step leaving a trail of sticky, corrosive, crimson ichor in its wake.

Panic grips me again. Can't move, can't breathe, as the grotesque specter draws closer. The darkness inside of me, my lurking copilot, finally manifests. I’m flung through the now soft air in the darkness and my back being crushed against the cold rock beneath blows the ever harder and harder to come across air out of my lungs. Simultaneously it’s open ghoulish hand, a mirror of my own, lands flat near my face on the unforgiving stone. Some of it’s discarded, cast off black slurry lands on my face. I shutter.

The ordeal shifts and I'm back on Caisteal, standing amid the yelling and chaos as the villagers brandish their pitchforks and kitchen knives, anything they could find to try to defend themselves - against me. They never stood a chance though. It was an extermination. I cleave through them one by one against the orange sunset. The brave ones approached first. Methodical. Unhurried. The screaming thinning with each pass until only the wet sounds remain. The taste of iron in my maw. So real, so vivid.

My blood is everywhere. The shadow demon knees in the wreckage of overturned furniture, illuminated by now red moonlight through shattered glass windows. Its jaw of bone extends through the flesh, mouth twisted in a scowl. It wears my soaked armor. It’s covered in the chunky and sticky leftovers of others. One hand claws at a contorted wound in its gut while the other grips the straight-sword, Himmel, its sacred orange glowing Varunium Steel softly illuminating the area around it. On the wall, smeared in blood, the word "JETHRO" taunts me. With a shriek of shearing flesh and metal, the creature digs its claws into its own chest and pulls, splitting its torso open. Welcome to my panic room.

As the nightmare continues, I try desperately to claw my way out of this hellish mindscape, but I'm trapped, pulled back again and again by memories that refuse to let go. I know what I've done. I know the pain I've caused. And yet I can't escape the grip of these nightmares, a constant reminder of the monster I am and the darkness inside me. “I’m so sorry, Forza,” says Rio’s shivering fox’s jaw resting atop of my head, holding me tightly as she cries. “It’s not fair,” she continues. Her tears land on my forehead and run through my once muted-yellow fur and down between my muzzle and quivering eyes. It was cold, wherever we were. So cold.

The scene shifts once more, the blood-soaked walls of the room giving way to the battlefield where I met said Caistealian fox, Rio. Our fates had knotted together in ways neither of us had chosen, each of us dragging the other deeper into whatever this was. As much as I long for freedom from this torment, I can't help but wonder if it's possible to ever truly escape. Where is Rio now? Where did she go? I watched myself eviscerate her and the panic sinks into me as she falls to her knees.

"Go back to sleep," the Bloodtiger’s black voice screams, spitting blood with the words at the side of my head, staining my fur a deep, sophisticated dark red color with purple undertones. The color I am now truly stained with while awake. Not the true me. I didn’t move. It didn’t like that. It’s whole open hand gripped the entity of my head and squeezed in anger with claws tearing their tracks across my cheeks.

Black feathers fall like snowflakes again, a testament to the past. Their soft descent in the wind mockingly reminds me that this is not just a dream – it's a reality I cannot deny. Over Rio’s body, I cry. I ache. I defend again into madness.

"Wake up!" a new voice calls out, shattering the eerie silence, yet no face accompanies it. Vision blurred, I struggle to distinguish between dreams and reality. The world around me shifts, distorted and uncertain.

"Where are they?" I ask myself, searching for the source of the voice that had tried to rouse me from my slumber. If I can find them, maybe I can finally wake up and leave this.

I felt the hands on my shoulders gripping me with an urgency that sent shivers down my spine. My eyes were locked onto the bloody sword in his hands and the crimson liquid dripping from its blade like a macabre metronome. Go back to sleep... But as the fog of the nightmare began to lift, I recognized the touch belonged to Shiinx. The battle for my soul was won… but tomorrow… we'll start anew.

My blue eyes opened, my wide pupils constricted, and I let out a long exhale.

“Forza, it’s okay,” she said in a soft, soothing voice. She tenderly ran her slender fingers through my damp hair, slowly drying off the water and calming me down. Her warm look of concern reassured me more than her words ever could. It felt good. Her touch.

I still stared at the ceiling with apprehension for a few more moments. Taking a few deep breaths, I raised my arm and gently placed it against her cheek, feeling the warmth of her fur as she held mine in hers. I tried to manage a small smile, although I wasn’t sure how successful I could be.

“Was it one of the 'bad ones'?” she asked softly.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

I swallowed hard before finally managing to whisper, “Yeah.” My gaze wandered to the clock on the wall and I realized that Shiinx should have been on shift. What was she doing here? Had she taken a break from work in order to check on me? Even though part of me wanted to thank her for caring, another part of me resented her presence. I felt embarrassed for her to witness me this way, yet it was moments like these that I required her support the most.

“I wish I could do more.”