You didn’t know why you’d come. Perhaps it was the agonized roar from the other day, or maybe it was pure curiosity. Either way, you were here, staring at the grotesque scene of your old friend Dream, Sam’s keys jangling in your hands.

Old, rotting blood was splattered almost everywhere in the tiny, oppressive cell. Chunks of what looked to be flesh and even bone were haphazardly shoved near the corners of the room where the obsidian wall met floor, bubbling under the heat of the lava.

Dream’s body, his warden-hybrid self, was on display like a tortured painting. He was chained in thick shackles to the wall, head bent at an awkward angle. His faintly blue skin looked sickly grey under the lava; the speckles of his skulk patches didn’t dare sparkle. It seemed even his bones had been ripped out or sawed away. His breathing was loud but dangerously shallow, and on top of it all Dream was horrifically skinny, bones visible through his stretched-thin scarred, maimed skin.

The sight made you want to hurl.