Chapter 85: A Different World in My Eyes

“Parula! Parula! Wake up! Parula!” A voice, insistent and worried, called to me from a great distance, pulling me from the depths of a strange, dark sleep. I opened my eyes. The familiar, smoke-stained brick of the sewer ceiling greeted me. I turned my head. Jared’s familiar, concerned face. I was still wrapped in the musty, threadbare blankets. This was the real world.

“What is it?” I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. He looked worried sick.

“Are you alright, Parula?” he asked. “You were talking in your sleep all night. Shouting, even, near the end. I didn’t dare wake you.” He was referring to the superstition about the converging moons.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Just another nightmare.” A strange dream, indeed. A pope, an upright cheetah, a shrouded specter, all babbling about the coming of some dark lord. It was utter nonsense.

“The nightmares still haven’t ended?” Jared asked, his voice a mixture of concern and a conflicted, hopeful curiosity. The whispers, the nightmares, they were a source of terror, but also of a strange, useful knowledge.  

“This one was… different,” I said, and pushed myself up from the pile of rags. As I did, a persistent itch started on my left arm. I rolled up the sleeve to scratch it, and then I saw it. A gasp, sharp and horrified, escaped my lips. “What?!”

“Parula, what’s wrong?” Jared asked, his eyes following my gaze. “Wha… what is that thing?!” There, on my left forearm, was a tattoo. A bizarre, horrifying brand. It was a knot of writhing maggots, coiled into a tight, pulsating ball, with a few of the creatures breaking away, their segmented bodies pointing up my arm towards my hand. But it wasn’t a tattoo. It wasn’t just ink on skin. They were moving. I could see them, a pale, sickening squirming just beneath the surface of my skin, as if they were burrowing through my very veins.

“Ugh!” A wave of pure, visceral disgust washed over me. I began to scratch frantically at my arm, trying to claw the disgusting things out. I could feel them, a raised, uneven texture beneath my fingertips. I clawed until my skin was raw, until blood beaded on the surface, but the things wouldn't come out. The soft, raised, writhing sensation remained, a constant, horrifying reminder of their presence.

“Parula, stop! Calm down!” Jared cried, grabbing my hands. His voice cut through my panic. An idea, desperate and mad, formed in my mind. 

“Jared, give me the knife.”

“What? Parula, what are you thinking?” he asked, his hand instinctively tightening on the dagger at his belt. His gut told him I wanted to do something irrational.

“It’s nothing,” I said, my voice a low, determined hiss. “They’re just under the skin. A little deeper. If I can just cut them out…” In that moment, I thought it was simply a brilliant decision for Jared to keep the knife with him. It was a tool, and I needed it.

“Parula, calm down! It’s just a tattoo!” he insisted, his voice tight with fear. “I don’t know how it got there, but it’s not hurting you! There’s no need to cut yourself!”

“Just a tattoo? No, it’s not a tattoo. It’s alive, I can feel it moving. They’re trying to eat me from the inside out. I have to get them out. Give me the knife!” I reached for it, my eyes wild.

“No! I won’t give it to you!” he said, his fear of me now warring with his concern. “Parula, you’re just tired from the nightmare! Your eyes are playing tricks on you! It’s just a tattoo! It’s not moving!”

“No, it is moving! Come here, look closer!” I insisted, thrusting my arm in front of his face, showing him the brand. “Can’t you see them? The maggots! They’re writhing!”

Jared stared at my arm for several long seconds, his expression serious and intent. “Where?” he said finally. “It’s not moving at all, Parula. It’s just a drawing, that's all.”

“Impossible!” I cried, my voice shrill with panic. “It is moving! Can’t you see it? Then touch it! Feel it! This soft, uneven, disgusting texture!” I was stunned. Even as he stared, I could see the pale, segmented bodies squirming beneath my skin, a restless, horrifying motion. And yet he said he saw nothing?

Seeing my frantic insistence, Jared could only sigh and hesitantly reach out to touch my left arm. The sensation of his touch was strange—not itchy, not painful, not even unpleasant, but just… unnatural.

“There’s nothing here, Parula,” he said, his voice filled with confusion as he ran his fingers over the brand. “It’s perfectly smooth. Just your skin. Well, apart from the scratches where you've torn it up.”

“How is that possible?!” I snatched my arm back, my own fingers immediately tracing the mark. The sensation was still there, undeniable—a soft, uneven texture, a subtle, sickening squirming beneath the skin.

Jared wouldn't lie to me. I believed him completely. He truly couldn't see the maggots moving, couldn't feel the raised lumps on my arm. Which meant one of two things: either he was hallucinating, or I was going mad.

And how did this brand get here? In the dream, the Pope had bestowed upon us a 'spell'... and then it had appeared on everyone. A jolt of ice-cold terror shot through me. Last night wasn't a dream. It was real.

“Jared,” I asked, my voice now a low, urgent whisper. “Last night… did I leave this place? Did I sleepwalk? Did I disappear, even for a moment?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You were here the whole time. I was holding you. I would have known if you’d left. You were talking in your sleep, that’s all.” He, too, was beginning to realize the impossibility of it all. If I had never left his arms, how had the brand appeared on my skin?

I told him everything. The dream, the conclave, the Pope, the brand. I left out no detail, hoping he might have some explanation, some piece of the puzzle that I was missing. He listened in silence, his expression growing more and more grim.

“I think… I think you were dreaming, Parula,” he said finally. “But I think the things that happened in your dream… they were real. And the people you saw… they were dreaming too.” It was a strange, terrifying explanation, but it made a grim sort of sense. A shared dreamscape. A chat room, meeting place for monsters?

“But if the brand from the dream is on your arm now…” he continued, his voice barely a whisper, “does that mean the dream can… affect the real world?” 

Jared’s words were a bucket of cold water. He was right. If they could leave a brand on my skin from that other place, what else could they do? To him, it was just a strange tattoo; a curiosity, nothing more. But to me, it was a living, writhing violation. I was convinced the Pope had implanted real, living things in my arm, parasites from a nightmare. The thought was terrifying. And I remembered the Pope’s other warning: Death here is final. He had meant it. It wasn't just a dream; it was a place where your soul could be killed, and your body in the real world would simply… stop.

“You know,” I said, trying to change the subject, to lighten the heavy, dreadful atmosphere. “The others in that dream… they could change their forms, couldn't they?” 

“Change their forms?” Jared asked, not following my sudden leap in logic.

“I saw so many strange-looking creatures,” I explained. “But I was just… me, wearing my cloak. It would be so easy for them to recognize me.” I felt a pang of envy. How did they change their appearance in the dream?

“Oh,” Jared said, a look of profound confusion on his face. “You mean the wraiths and the beastmen? They didn't change at all. That's just what they look like.”