I woke with a start in the dead of night, gasping for air. For the last four nights, my dreams had been haunted by a recurring vision, an eerie replay that my subconscious insists on revisiting each night, albeit with a different version. Each night, the scene changed, yet it was always the same at its core: my blood, welling from a superficial cut on my wrists, twisting and turning, ensnaring me in its crimson ring, each instance taking a distinct trajectory, suffocating me until I jolted back to consciousness.
I ran my fingers through my sweat-soaked hair, clenching them tightly as I curled into a ball. Try as I might to push them away, the nightmares persisted, dragging me into their dark embrace whenever sleep beckoned. Arucard had told me it would lessen with time, that it was my min
