An Anguished Heart has shown its cards, revealing the map it did, in its first attempts at communication. The Lurching Intruder didn’t even choose its host. The Cloven Stranger… his choice will be hated by the others, by a quality of where the host stands.

A Grasping Self’s host will realize before any others, that there is more in play. That the power being traded comes with gift and cost both, but he can handle that because he has been honing his ability to handle emotion for much of his life. He will realize that the dreams can be altered, but he has already been doing this, and if he is subtle enough, then the others will not know it is possible…

⊙

Night six and… Jonathan.

The dream had ended. For the sixth night now, they were in this room.

It was easiest and best to remain quiet, to observe, even if he spent a lot of the time listening to the moaning and periodic screaming of the grieving mother. Nicole or ‘Nic’.

The remainder of the time was often spent listening to the cocky Fallen asshole in the demon mask.

Except he’d been quiet tonight.

Three of them had met on a return trip to the site of the incident. They’d exchanged names and details. The Fallen boy hadn’t turned up, which had probably saved his life.

“Nothing’s better,” the Fallen boy said, quiet.

Ryan turned his head.

“I thought it would be better. But the dust has settled and it’s all shit. I feel like shit.”

“Good,” Ryan said. Weakness was good. “Then fuck off and die. Crawl into a hole and don’t come out.”

“Can we talk? Can we work on this?” the Fallen boy pleaded.

Jonathan’s voice was a growl. Worse, probably, because he’d just relived his dream. They’d all relived Jonathan’s dream. “Last night, you taunted us. How many times did you tell us that we’d burn in hell?”

“I’m not—that’s not about you. I’m bashing my head against the walls of this goddamn cage.”

“No you fucking aren’t,” Jonathan said. “No. Fuck you. Because you said her daughter, the daughter she’s still mourning—”

Jonathan stopped as the woman made a pained sound. She was curled up into herself, sitting in a nursing chair, pink and low to the ground. Her arms wrapped around her head, fingers in her hair, fingernails against scalp.

Jonathan leaned as close as he could get without hitting the invisible barrier. “You said her daughter would burn in hell. While she’s in the worst pain imaginable.”

“While we’re all in pain,” Ryan added. “She may have it worst, but all of us hurt, and it’s apparently never going to stop. It wasn’t just five and done. We looped around back to—to him. This—this dream thing. The nightmares, this room. It’s going to keep going.”