“I hate her…!”

My inner voice continued to shout. Maybe I did hate her, but part of me felt there was some truth to what she was saying. By trying to improve this story, did I end up overcorrecting it? Adding too much, changing too much? Was this the “truth” I was supposed to find out, that she was leading me to? That my story sucked? That I was a bad writer? I was just a teen, of course I wasn’t going to come up with an award-winning story. I still had time to learn and improve.

“I don’t hate it… I love this story! I will write it one day, I’ll improve it, I’ll finish it, and it will be great!”

Yeah, I loved that story. Of course, the issues she pointed out were frustrating, and I must have known about them all along too. But that wasn’t going to stop me. I could still fix it, I could still make it good. Once I’d have figured all of this out, I’d start putting it to paper and blow everyone’s minds. Including hers.

“I won’t let her speak badly of my story!”

She was direct. She was harsh. She hated this story viscerally. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder. Why did she sound so sad when she explained why?

“Anyway, can we move on?” Mo eventually said, taking me out of my thoughts.

Right, my thoughts. She could “hear” all of them, after all.

“Oh, I don’t need mind-reading for this one”, she replied to what I hadn’t said. “Anyway, hate me all you want, this doesn’t change the fact of the matter.”

“Which is?”

“That we’re really, really running out of time.”

She shook her head, signalling me to look behind me. I turned around, and was presented with a terrifying sight: a large crowd of demons was marching towards us. The same demons that came out of the ground and were slain by Athena a few scenes ago were somehow back — and we were their targets.

“Your dream is back on the offensive,” Mo said with a sigh. “Since this is your dream, it can’t hurt you, but it will definitely try to capture you and regain control over your memories. Maybe I overdid it a little… It must feel that you’re getting close.”

“Close to what?”

“To achieving complete lucidity. Let’s see, what do we have here…”

Her eyes darted around the street, and landed on a broken sword on the ground, a few steps away in the demons’ direction. It must have been Ares’ sword, its blade broken in two, likely shattered during one of the epic fights Mo had nonchalantly skipped.

“Yeah, I guess this will do. You should be lucid enough to make it work.”

Mo took another bite of the rotten leg she was holding, and threw it my way. I refused to catch it. She then took a step forward.

“Think long and hard about everything I told you, Ash,” she said, turning her back to me. “Think about everything you’ve heard. You’re close to the truth. The truth of this dream.”

Again with these words. The truth of this dream. This truth that had felt just out of reach this whole time, this strange feeling that I could never shake off. Somehow, it did feel like I was getting close.

“When I find the truth,” I replied, “the dream core will appear?”

“Yup.”

“Then you’ll eat it, and I’ll wake up.”

“Oh, I look forward to eating this core so much, you have no idea.”

The demons were getting closer. I tried pausing the scene like before, but I couldn’t get them to stop — my dream had full control.

“I hate her!”

Maybe I did hate her. But at this point, she was the only one I could rely on.

“I can feel I’m close,” I said, “I can feel that I’m close to figuring it out, but I still need a bit more time. I’m going to need your help, Mo. And when I wake up, I’ll write that story. No more notes, no more doodles, I’ll actually get to writing it. Maybe it’ll suck at first, but as I grow up and gain more experience, I will turn it into a great story. One that even you will not hate. One that I will not hate.”

Mo let out a short laugh.

“I thought you’d say something like that,” she replied without looking at me.

Then, in the blink of an eye, she began running towards the broken sword. One of the creatures picked up speed and proceeded to run as well — the dream must have figured out Mo’s intentions and decided to send a demon to grab the sword first. That did not faze her, however. She kept running as fast as she could, and threw herself towards the demon, legs first, dispatching him with a powerful kick in the head. She then quickly reached for the sword pieces on the ground.

“Let’s see how lucid you’ve become, Ash… That stupid dream has taken back control right now, but surely you still have enough in you to allow me to do… this!”

She held both pieces of the blade in each hand and closed her eyes. Meanwhile, more demons had begun running in her direction, and would be surrounding her in a second.

“Mo!!” I shouted from afar.

She didn’t pay attention to my voice — she didn’t need to. The two sword pieces began floating up from her hands and moving towards each other. The upper half of the blade connected with the rest, and the sword began emitting a bright glow.

“There you go.”

About a dozen demons had caught up to her and were about to attack. Without hesitation, Mo grabbed the sword floating in front of her by the hilt, and swung it with all her strength. Every single one of her assailants was sliced in half. The broken sword had been miraculously repaired.

“Miraculously?” she scoffed. “Anything is possible when you’re lucid in a dream.”

She stood up and, sword in hand, she continued to run, zigzagging through the horde in front of her and mowing down monsters left and right. More kept coming, but she didn’t stop — every creature that got near her inevitably got cleaved in two. From tens of demons, there were only a dozen left, then a couple, then none at all. After less than a minute, Mo was the only creature left standing, surrounded by dead bodies. She let out a sigh of relief and let go of her sword, which fell to the ground with a loud clang.

“Phew, that was exhausting!” she said while taking deep breaths. “Now I’m hungry again.”

“Is there ever a time when you’re not hungry!?”

Huh?

Hungry?

It was true that she had been acting very hungry this whole time. She ate a lot of things, from pieces of furniture to human bodies, to the point where I somewhat stopped caring. But for some reason, just now, that word, “hungry”, sounded strange. What was so strange about that? Was it strange for her to feel hungry? I had heard that word, countless times, so why did it sound significant now?

Was that part of the truth of this dream, too?

“You are a real thorn in my side, dream eater…”

I heard a man’s voice coming from behind me. I turned around to see Ares’ dead body moving.

“Ash!!” Mo yelled at me, “Don’t stay there!!”

Ares’ injuries healed up in an instant, and he began to stand up. Frightened, I turned around and began running, but I could only make a few steps before the Greek god jumped towards me and grabbed me by the back on my shirt, lifting me up from the ground.

“Mo!!” I instinctively screamed.

“Leave,” Ares told her. “You will never have him! He will stay in this dream and there is nothing you can do about it!”

The ground began to shake, and a large fissure started forming between Mo and us. Another crevasse leading to the underworld — though I had a feeling that, if Ares were to take me down there, I wouldn’t land in Hades’ realm, but rather back in the bedroom I started this dream in.

“Why!?” I shouted at the god who was towering over me. “Why are you keeping me prisoner in my own dream!?”

“I’m curious too, actually,” Mo said nonchalantly.

“You know full well why I’m keeping him asleep, dream eater!” Ares yelled at her, ignoring me in the process. “I can’t let you wake him up… For his sake… But also for this world’s sake!”

For this world’s sake? What did he mean by that? Was me being awake a danger to the world, somehow? This made no sense.

“I’m not so sure about the ‘for his sake’ part,” Mo replied. “I think the truth is you’re just scared and don’t want to get eaten. Isn’t that right?”

The crevasse continued to form in front of us. It widened, forcing Mo to step back. The sword she had let go of moments earlier, still on the ground, began to slip and eventually fell into the depths.

“It’s too late,” Ares continued. “I have him, the moment we jump down there, we will be out of your reach. I will then make this entire story setting, this ‘New Athens’, disappear, along with you. Your attempts to make him lucid were impressive, but it’s as far as you’ll go. You have lost, dream eater.”

The crevasse was now fully opened. I could see the fiery depths of the underworld below me. Ares let out a laugh and prepared to jump.

However, Mo laughed back.

She wasn’t just laughing, louder and stronger than Ares did, she was even clapping.

“Hey,” she said with a smirk on her face, her hands joined together. “Hey, hey, hey. ‘Dream eater’ this, ‘dream eater’ that. Not cool. I have a name, you know.”

“Absurd. How could a creature like you have a name?”

“Easy. I just chose one for myself. Wanna know what it is?”

“I heard that name earlier. It’s ‘Mo’, isn’t it? What a strange name.”

“Wrong! My true name is…”

Mo’s hands separated, and with her thumbs pinched against her index fingers, she began opening and stretching her arms. That’s when I noticed it, as light briefly reflected off it.

A thing piece of thread she was holding from both ends.

“That’s…!!” Ares shouted.

“My true name is Moira, the goddess of destiny.”

In a panic, Ares tried to jump away, but Mo was faster. She pulled strongly from both sides of the thread, breaking it in two. The next moment, Ares’ heart stopped beating. His now lifeless hand let go of my shirt as he collapsed, and I landed back on my two feet, just barely regaining my balance to avoid falling down the crevasse.

“You…” I was at a loss for words. “You used Moira’s power…”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Mo said with a smile. “She would have made a much cooler villain.”