Arien blinked.

That wasn’t a particularly odd thing to do, if you’re a human being that is. Rather, it was what Arien saw after blinking that he found to be odd.

An empty hallway, lockers lining the walls and bland, colorless lights hanging above reflecting dimly on polished tiled flooring. Despite their harsh brightness, they seemed to cast shadows in odd places - somehow too bright and too dim at the same time.

But this place wasn’t strange. In fact, Arien knew exactly where he was. This was just one of many copy-pasted hallways found inside Gnósi Junior High; he recognized them from orientation a few days ago.

No, what struck Arien as strange wasn’t where he was.

It was how he got here.

Arien began retracing his steps in his mind, but was interrupted by a sound. His body turned rigid, almost matching the Principal’s tie during his welcoming speech. There was a low rumbling - no, that wasn’t quite it. It was almost . . . low humming, drifting down the sterile hallway to where he stood petrified.

Slowly and cautiously, Arien twisted around until he could face down whatever was humming.

At first nothing seemed out of place, and Arien scrunched his face. Was this some sort of prank, or the start of his bullying? If so, then it seemed his nightmares from the past two weeks were already coming—

There!

Arien’s eyes latched onto something moving in the corner between a break in the line of lockers. He squinted, trying to make out what was lurking in the shadows. The thing lurched out into the hallway, and Arien swallowed hard around the lump suddenly in his throat.

The humming thing wasn’t in the shadows. . . it was the shadow!

The roiling mass of darkness heaved itself onto the floor, long spindly fingers clawing at the pristine tile. Two membrane wings like those of a bat sprung out from the thing’s backArien took an involuntary step backward.

Arien caught sight of the thing's eyes - or rather, the empty sockets where its eyes should have been, and it was all over.

Arien fled.

His heart pounded in his chest. Arien dared not glance behind him, but that whooshing sound was unmistakable. The thing had taken flight. It was coming for him!

I can’t outrun it - I’ve gotta hide somewhere!

It was worth a shot.

Just before the rushing sound could catch him, Arien turned sharp.

His sneakers squeaked on the flat tile. He almost slipped and fell, but caught himself.

Risking a glance, he watched the massive shadow zip past him.

It worked!

Arien yanked on the nearest doorhandle, but it was locked tight. Frantic, he dashed to the opposite side, trying another. Also locked.

He could hear humming from down the hall. It was coming back this way. He was running out of time.

Arien rushed back across the hall and tried the third door. It flung open, sending him sprawling in a heap inside. Adrenaline pounded in his veins. Arien kicked the door closed. He lay there, panting as quietly as he could manage, straining his ears to hear the inevitable whoosh of bat-wings swooping in to get him.

“Ah, there you are Arien. So glad you decided to join us after all.”

Arien yelped, scrambling to his feet and finally taking in the room he’d fallen into. Two dozen students stared at him from their seats, while a man straightened his bowtie with a flat expression. His face looked young, yet his hair was entirely grey, sticking up at odd angles in the back, almost like it had wings of its own.

“I was concerned that you’d written off history class as beneath you. Now, if you’re done being dramatic, I’d ask you to take a seat with the rest of the class.”

Arien gawked at the man a moment. His calm yet stern demeanor served a striking contrast to the chase he’d just come from. The shadow, right!

“I-I’m sorry Mr.-” Arien peered at the teacher’s nametag, “-Mr. Ick-ah, Mr. Icee-”

“Eye-sell-us.” The teacher provided. “And I’d thank you to stop distracting my classroom and take your seat as asked.”

Arien glanced at the multitude of eyes all staring at him, his face beginning to grow warm.

“B-but sir, there was a. . .”

“This instant young man!”

Mr. Icelus placed his hands on his hips, tapping his foot on the tile floor. Arien shut his mouth and obeyed, moving to the back of the classroom.

“Not so fast.” Mr. Icelus rapped his fingers on an empty desk right in front of him. “A front-row seat. This way you won’t miss any more of today’s not-so-important lesson.”

His face grew several degrees hotter, but Arien made his way - stiff as a board - to the indicated seat.

“Better.” Mr. Icelus sniffed, then finally turned back to the oversized whiteboard. Uncapping a marker, he wrote one big word on the board, circling it for emphasis. “Now, returning to the topic at hand, who here knows what this is?”

Arien stared at the word, too embarrassed and confused by recent events to even guess what an Oneiroi was supposed to be.

“Nobody? Not surprising.” Icelus sniffed again. “Oneiroi is the Greek word for the three beings associated with the different faucets of dreams.”

Dreams? Arien shuddered in his seat, flashbacks of the past two weeks of nightmares returning to him all in a flood. Embarrassing moments, each one worse than the previous night’s, slowly getting more uncomfortable, more distressing. . . more frightening.

“Three Oneiroi for three aspects of dreams,” Mr. Icelus continued writing on the white board. Oddly on topic, Arien struggled to focus, shooting the door continued glances. Just waiting for that thing to peer through the door’s window at him.

“Morpheus was said to deliver messages from the gods to man, bestowing knowledge and wisdom. Likewise, Phantasos would contort dreams, making them surreal to force man to ponder their meaning. Finally, there is Phobetor, who forced man to face his fears through nightmares.”

Something nagged at the back of Arien’s brain. Distracted, Arien mentally revisited his day.

I went over to Carl’s place, I remember. We played that game on his console. Then, we scrolled memes. But, Carl showed me something, didn’t he? A. . . video?

A video tutorial about how to lucid dream on command. Right, he had almost forgotten! He had told Carl about his recurring nightmares and Carl in turn had shown him a way to possibly break the cycle.

A way to stay in control while dreaming.

Pieces clicked into place. The shadow monster lurking in the halls, the strange teacher with the only active class, the mystery of how Arien even got here in the first place. It all added up.

Arien was dreaming.

Testing his theory, Arien glanced about the room at his fellow classmates. He remembered something about how the mind struggled with faces in dreams. Sure enough, found as he searched the others faces, they all appeared blurry.

This was all just a dream, and if it hadn’t collapsed in on itself yet, then the ritual must have worked.

He was lucid dreaming.

He was in control.

Sighing, Arien slumps in his chair, relieved. This was perfect. It meant he could leave any time he wanted. Nothing in here could hurt him.

Arien jumped as Mr. Icelus slammed his hands down upon his desk, leaning in close to Arien..

“And why, since you seem far more at ease now Mr. Arien, would I consider Phobetor to be the most important of the three Oneiroi, hmm?”

“O-oh, I-uh, well, uhm. . .”

Arien’s mind raced to provide an answer, his face beginning to heat up again from the abrupt spotlight. But, then he remembered what he’d discovered.

“This is all a dream,” he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. “None of it is real.”

Icelus cocked his head. “I beg your pardon, but I couldn’t hear you over the mumbling. Would you care to share with the entire class what you have to say?”

Arien did the unthinkable: he stood up before the classroom and spoke in a level, confident tone.

“This is all just a dream,” he declared. “None of it is real.”

And with that, he turned and headed for the classroom door. Before he could reach out and grab the handle, Icelus’ hand slammed against the door, holding it shut. Arien turned, ready to tell off the dream-teacher, but his words died on his lips. Icelus was still standing at the desk.

Yet his arm stretched across the room to hold the door shut.

“You’re partially right Arien,” Icelus mused. His eyes had changed colors, or rather they had lost all color; just two milky white orbs staring lidless at him, unblinking and unrelenting as his face drooped around them. “This is all just some dream, but whatever made you think that none of it was real?”

Arien cried out and slipped, hitting the tiled floor as Icelus began to approach. Each step his legs got longer, his other arm extending even as the first still held to the door. His face melted away, revealing an inky-black featureless face of pure darkness. Icelus had been the shadow monster this whole time!

“Why Arien? Why is Phobetor the most important Oneiroi? Why would I plague you with such revolting nightmares?”

“I-I. . .” Arien stammered, but the words kept choking up in his throat. He crawled backwards even as Icelus - Phobetor, whatever he was - advanced, looming larger with each second.

“You know the answer. You almost had it. Think Arien, why would I trap you in a nightmare like this?”

I know the answer? Arien thought hard, but the horrifying creature before him was really distracting. Phobetor, the bringer of nightmares - one of three beings said to influence dreams. What were the other two there for again? One made them strange, and the other gave knowledge.

Icelus knocked over several desks with his impossibly long leg, but rather than fall to the floor the students just puffed away, like mist on the morning wind.

There had to be a correlation here somewhere. One being gave information, the other made men think. Nightmares terrified people, forced them to face their fears. But, if it was all in a dream, then that meant. . .

Arien’s back hit a wall.

There was nowhere left to run.

Icelus loomed just inches away, his pupiless eyes trained on Arien. “Well?” The thing asked in a watery voice.

Arien took a breath. Here goes nothing. . .

“N-nothing inside of a dream can h-hurt you, right? So, m-my fears can’t hurt me either.”

The Oneiroi stared at Arien. Sweat dripped down his cheek. 

“Attaboy.” The thing backed up.

Arien stared, numb as the creature began shrinking, slowly turning back into Mr. Icelus as it spoke.

“Phobetor forced man to face his deepest fears, manifesting the worst case scenario and presenting it for him to experience. But, in a dream, nothing can truly hurt you. It’s a safe space, where if you mess up you can try again - no lasting consequences.”

Icelus straightened his bowtie as the last bits of darkness vanished into him. He was once more just a man, who offered his hand to the fallen Arien with a kind smile.

“You understand, yes?”

Arien hesitated, but took the man’s offered hand. It was firm and warm to the touch.

“In here, I can face my greatest fears,” Arien mused as he was pulled onto his feet. “I can prepare for them, so they won’t take me by surprise in the real world. Is that it?”

Icelus smiled knowingly. “I knew you’d be an ace student, from the moment you stepped into my classroom. Now, why don’t you head home. You’ve got school in the morning!”

The bell rang, and with it, the entire school puffed away. Arien blinked, suddenly staring at his own bedroom ceiling.

He was awake.

Arien checked his phone. 6:14 AM - morning of the first day of Junior High. He laid back down, wondering. Was it all real, did I just dream it? He found it hard to even think through, it was all so vague and confusing.

Real or not, one thing stuck out to Arien after waking up.

He wasn’t so nervous about starting school today after all.