“1,584 days left” by Duvencrune, Edgar O. Diary of the Long Night, 111th Edition

  Sweat beaded along Orlo's forehead and dripped off his chin as he reached almost the top of the hill. With each step, Orlo took a sharp shot of pain through his leg, testing the limits of his endurance. He gritted his teeth and pressed on, the discomfort etching deeper with each movement. But he climbed adamant against the urge to retreat, his stubbornness pushing him a step closer.

  The path wound sharply upwards, a rugged trail that seemed to stretch into the sky. Each step demanded his full focus, especially without Zora's steadfast presence to lean on. His cane sank into the loose soil with each measured stride.

  Sweat trickled down his brow, gathering in tiny rivulets before falling to the ground. His breath came in heavy, aching gasps, the exertion evident in the rise and fall of his chest. The climb was slow, each step a battle against the pain in his leg.

  As he reached the crest of the hill, he paused, planting his cane firmly into the ground. He stood there for a moment, surveying the blackness of the landscape below.

  Orlo stood at the hill's summit, the chill of the Long Night creeping into his bones, each gust of wind biting through his thick coat.

  The silence was profound and unbroken, save for the occasional rustle of the Little Mouse stirring restlessly on his shoulder with tiny breaths like soft whispers against his neck. But he was ready, and it was just beyond a spell; the land of Dreams awaited.

  The last time he ventured there, Maggie walked beside him, and this time was no different. He had clutched her clay pot tightly, her seed nestled safely within. Though he was alone, her essence infused each step he took, making her absence feel less real.

  "Well, ladies, here we go, here we go..." Orlo muttered, steeling himself. He was about to dive into the depths of Zora's troubled dreams, ready to confront the hidden fears that haunted her sleep.

  "Master, this is not a good idea," the Little Mouse squeaked, gripping Orlo's coat with her tiny paws. She clung tightly to his shoulder and rattled frantically. The air around them buzzed with her nervous energy, "Not a good idea!”. She was not happy, and Orlo couldn’t understand why.

  "Come on, it's just a dream. I just want to understand what's happening with Zora," Orlo reassured her. He crouched down, extending his hand toward the invisible threshold of the dream realm. His fingers moved delicately, mimicking the turning of a page in the air—a practised gesture of invocation. His eyes narrowed with focus, the familiar sensation of crossing into the dream world tingling at his fingertips. He felt the shift, the boundary between reality and dreams, bending to his will.

  As he completed the movement, the world around him twisted and distorted, flipping over with a dizzying rush. The familiar landscape of the Long Night vanished, replaced by the surreal and mutable expanse of the dream world.

  Colours swirled and shifted, and the ground beneath his feet seemed to breathe with a life of its own. Orlo stood amidst a realm where gravity was an afterthought and reality bent to the whims of imagination. Trees in the distance with glass-leaf leaves chimed in the breeze, rivers of liquid light flowed silently through the landscape, and whales with cities on their back flew through the sky. It was a world that obeyed its own peculiar laws, but one thing all dreams had in common: the Sun.

  Orlo took a moment to adjust his eyes to the light and checked his surroundings, immediately feeling out of place. Everything around him was saturated in various shades of pink—from the sky overhead to the ground beneath his feet, even the walls that seemed to pulse oddly with a life of their own.

  They were inside a gigantic arena of pink marble, and the sight before him was bizarre: thousands of pink monkeys, each clutching cymbals, created a chaotic symphony of clashing metal that filled the air with relentless noise. It was a nightmarish scene, overwhelming in its absurdity and noise, yet it was clearly not the nightmare he sought.

  Perched on Orlo's shoulder, the little mouse cringed, flattening her ears against her head in an attempt to shield herself from the cacophonous barrage. Despite the onslaught, her voice carried a hint of amusement as she remarked over the din, "Well, this is a very pretty nightmare."

  "This is not the one we want," Orlo muttered, his gaze sweeping the chaotic scene until it landed on a door nearly obscured by the frantic activity of the pink monkeys.

  He set off toward the undulating crowd of cymbal-clashing creatures. Each step was a struggle as the throng pressed in from all sides, making it nearly impossible to place his cane and find steady footing.

  The creatures jostled and swayed with their cymbals, creating a chaotic racket. Orlo held Maggie above his head with his other hand, his arm trembling with the effort, ensuring she stayed safe. He moved carefully, avoiding letting her fall.

  He pushed forward, stretching and sidestepping cautiously through the chaotic mass. After what felt like an arduous journey, Orlo finally reached the door. Relief washed over him as he escaped the overwhelming tide of cymbal-clashing monkeys, his fingers closing around the doorknob. He took a deep breath, bracing himself as he prepared to step through, hoping this would bring him closer to Zora's true nightmare.

  As Orlo crossed the threshold, the forest closed around him like a living, breathing entity. Vines curled over gnarled roots that snaked across the earth, a riot of flowers bursting into colours so vivid they seemed almost to pulse. With each cautious step, the undergrowth whispered and rustled as though the ground itself protested his intrusion. Warmth enveloped him, the air heavy and damp, clinging to his skin and clogging his lungs with the musky scent of moss.

  "Mouse, this... is... the... wrong," he gasped out, the very oxygen lacking in his lungs.

  The little mouse lay sprawled belly-up on his shoulder, the humid air sapping her energy as well. Her voice was faint and strained as she managed to utter, "Master, fly... fly!"

  "Fly?"

  Orlo fumbled with the fastenings of his coat. His fingers felt clumsy and slow. The vest and shirt followed each layer peeled away with growing distress. His arms felt distant, almost foreign, as he struggled to command them.

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  He tried to stretch his wings, yearning to fly to the skies above the towering trees. Yet his efforts faltered, his mind fogging over. A curious light overtook his head, his senses dulling until the edges of his vision blurred and darkened.

  The forest spun quietly around him, and before he knew it, the ground rushed up to cradle him in darkness.

  "Master, wake up!"

  Orlo winced as something tugged insistently at a strand of his hair.

  "Master, wake up!"

  He gently pushed Little Mouse away from his face and struggled to a sitting position. Blinking, confused, he realised he was again fully clothed, the forest and the pinky monkeys nowhere in sight.

  Instead, he found himself in the grandeur of what seemed a white palace, its walls and archways crumbling in slow motion. The air held a stillness as if each stone held its breath, suspended in a dreamlike pause.

  Orlo rose himself upright, using his cane for support. "Where are we?"

  The Little Mouse clicked her tongue, "Well, surprise!" she exclaimed, spreading her arms wide. "I have no clue! Nothing! Nada! Nyeo!" She was obviously upset. "We are completely, utterly, shitly lost!"

  Lifting his gaze, Orlo's breath caught in his throat. He had always held that Muna was beautiful, Zora was breathtaking, but this? His eyes widened as they drank in a scene that defied words. No language held the terms or semantics, no poet the skill to encapsulate the majesty unfurling before him. The splendour was ineffable, transcending mere verbal expression.

  Hovering before him was a young woman with hair shimmering with strands made of fine diamonds, each thread catching the light and casting prisms around her. She was garbed in the traditional attire of the Menschen—a modest white tunic with colourful embroidery that seemed to dance with life, paired with corsair pants revealing her bare feet. She was no doubt a Menschen.

  Clasped above her heart was a copper dagger, its point menacingly close to her skin, as if threatening to pierce it at any moment but held back by an unseen force. The dagger gleamed ominously, a silent promise of fateful danger.

  She seemed trapped in a time that stubbornly wouldn't let go of her. Or, perhaps, she was just sleeping for a very long time, her timeless beauty untouched by the passing of Falls or Winters.

  "Who is she?"

  "Her name will be Eura."

  Orlo spun around, the dreamscape warping with his movement. Colours bled and shifted, the boundaries of reality behaving as soft waves. He immediately recognised the man he had encountered while travelling from Faewood to Ostesh. "You!"

  The man's lips curled into a smile, the corners barely lifting as if weighed down by secrets. His silver cane gleamed under the surreal light, intricate engravings shimmering unnaturally. His brown suit seemed to shift and ripple, blending with the dream's ever-changing background. An eyepatch covered one eye while revealing the other in an unnamed shade.

  In his free hand, he held a white cardboard box. His smile was shadowed, and a hint of gloom flickered in his one good eye, which Orlo wouldn't fully grasp until 1,584 days later.

  "Isn't she pretty?"

  "I don't think 'pretty' is the correct word." Orlo looked at the woman again. A deep and sudden inexplicable sadness welled up inside him, feeding the void growing within. "What happened to her?"

  The man stepped closer, the tap of his cane echoing through the emptiness. Shadows stretched and contracted around them, the dreamscape flickering like the flame of a candle. "That is something you'll need to wait to understand."

  "Why? If you know, and you are I, why the secrets?"

  The man took a deep breath, his presence flickering as if caught between moments. "This is not the first time we've talked about it. But what you see is what we must prevent. What you see is the End of Time knocking at our door."

  Orlo didn't fully grasp the meaning. "So, what do we need to do?"

  The man's form shimmered, blending with the dream's fluid reality. "I don't know," he said. "I'm still trying to learn, understand and build a plan."

  "Well, maybe start from the beginning!" Orlo demanded. He was tired of mysteries and needed answers. He was tired of feeling he had absolutely no control over anything.

  The man chuckled, a sound that echoed eerily through the dreamscape. "It doesn't work like that because what you think is the beginning isn't where it started." He turned to face Orlo, a disappointed smirk on his lips. "I thought if I changed my parents' fate, it would stop the End of Time. But how could I stop something if I didn't exist? If Zora didn't exist... or Muna... or Jericho, Doriana... names and names and names."

  The dream around them shifted, scenes from different times and places flashing by in a blur: a young man with golden hair and a wolf crying in the rain, a woman with heterochromia screaming in despair, a tiefling falling into darkness and killed by the one he most trusted, three kingdoms washed away into a mushroom made of ashes and death. Each image was a fragment of a story, pieces of a riddle that refused to fit together.

  Orlo's frustration grew. "Then where did it start? What am I supposed to do?"

  The man's form wavered, his expression softening as if caught between anger and sorrow. "I still can't find the point of no return. We are caught in a loop, a cycle of trying and failing. The End of Time is not just an event. It's a culmination of choices, regrets, and forgotten moments. But there is one that could change it all!"

  "So, how do we break the cycle?"

  The man stepped closer, his voice a whisper now, barely audible over the chaotic swirl of the dream. "That is you to find out."

  Orlo didn't reply, feeling more confused than a mouse in a maze chasing its cheese. "So, where do I start?"

  "You don't. You aren't ready. I'm not ready."

  "I really have no idea what you're talking about..."

  Before Orlo could finish, the man interrupted, "You have already met him!"

  "Who?"

  "Xendrix."

  "I have no clue who..."

  "We say it all the time; we forget until we don't." The man glanced at Orlo and grumbled just loud enough, "Damn, I really was a dimwitted cunt when I was younger."

  "Excuse me?"

  The man sighed, shaking his head. "You really don't remember, do you?" The man said, pointing to a scene in the mist. "Look!"

  Orlo tried to grasp at the fleeting memory, but it slipped through his fingers like sand. The dreamscape around them shimmered and shifted, images of a chubby young man scavaging grass with a basket.

  The scene faded, and Orlo was left staring at the man, "But what does it all mean?"

  "It means," the man said, his gaze piercing, "that the answers you seek are already within you. You just need to have the correct eye. We need to remember all of it."

  He said while his gaze shifted to Little Mouse, and the Spirit recognised what he meant. She nodded franticly her head, “I have it, just waiting as you asked.”

  Orlo felt a tremor run through the dream, the world's edges fraying and unravelling. The man's form wavered, blending with the shadows. "Forget about Xendrix; focus on your education, on girls. It's too soon to fight back anyway," he whispered, his voice echoing as the dream dissolved. "There are people, especially her, who will fight the dark, so you may write about the light. Now, enough of this! Wake up now. They're all waiting for you," the man commanded, shoving the cardboard box into Orlo's hands.

  Orlo instinctively grabbed the box, the dream's hazy edges pulsating. Before the man could turn away, Orlo shouted, "Where can I find Zora's nightmare?"

  The man's expression twisted into a sneer, shadows deepening the lines of his face. "You can't."

  "If it's a dream, I can find it!" Orlo's voice echoed unnaturally, bouncing off the distorted dreamscape.

  The man laughed, a harsh sound that reverberated through the shifting surroundings. "It's not a dream. Stop wasting your time and go home. They're waiting for you."

  "Why?"

  "Why what?"

  "Why can't I find it?"

  "You're chasing memories, not dreams," the man said with a chilling finality.

  "So, I can't find it because Zora's nightmares are memories?"

  Orlo's surroundings began to flicker, the colours bleeding into one another as the man's words sank in. He felt the weight of the box grow heavier, the lines between dream and reality blurring further. The man's figure started to dissolve, leaving Orlo to wake up in the freezing grass of the Long Night.

  As he sat in the cold with Little Mouse and Maggie, he realized he had still held the white cupboard box. He opened it and found a chocolate cake with a note: 'It's not your favourite, but eat some. Better than apple pie is to see your Hexe smile. Orlo Y. Sternach'