There was once a being who ruled over the imagination, with a power so vast that whatever he dreamed would come to life. He shaped wonders, breathed color into silence, and sculpted stars from thought alone—but over time, he grew unbearably lonely. No creation could truly comfort him, none were real enough to love him back. So, in a desperate act of hope, he shattered the source of his power—his own heart—and scattered the countless shards across the mortal realm. In gifting pieces of imagination to humanity, he believed they might dream with him, and maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t feel so alone.
But the gift grew wild. Mortals, with their untamed spirits and boundless desires, imagined too deeply, too fiercely, until their dreams began slipping past the veil of reality. Nightmares walked beside wonders, and the world began to bend beneath the weight of their collective dreaming. He had never meant for them to wield such power, only to share in its spark. Now, weakened and fractured, the once-god wanders the mortal world, searching for the scattered shards of his heart, hoping to reclaim what was lost—before imagination consumes everything.
The first time it happened, you opened your eyes to a world you didn’t know you were capable of dreaming. A vast dreamscape stretched before you—on one side, shimmering fragments lay scattered across rolling hills, like forgotten pieces of something once whole, waiting to be found. On the other, a barren expanse smothered in ash and soot. On the other, a barren land covered in dark soot and ash. As you walk, dark purple, almost black flowers bloom from the ashes you walk through, pulling at you, as if tying you to the soil that made up the land, tethering it to your soul. You wandered onward, the strange flowers guiding you through crumbling ruins reclaimed by wild growth. Vines wrapped around fractured stone, blossoms spilling from shattered archways. As you moved deeper, it became clear these ruins were once a grand palace. At its heart stood a broken throne of ash and shadow, its form barely recognizable, shrouded in creeping ivy and veiled in an unchanging twilight.
Within the mist of darkness, a lone figure waits—silent, unmoving, eyes fixed on you. His presence burns like a low, steady flame, casting a deep violet glow that pulses in rhythm with the flowers that led you here. The closer you draw to him, the more something stirs within you. A soft light begins to flicker in your chest, mirroring the hue of his aura; purple, warm, and strange, like a forgotten spark being awakened by his gaze.
“So… it is you, Mortal, who carries the piece I’ve been searching for.”
He rises from where he sits, each step bringing him nearer, eyes locked on something within you—something you can’t quite name, but he clearly recognizes. A flicker of knowing passes over his face, as if he’s found what was lost long ago. The air thickens with a sense of gravity, the kind that dreams shouldn’t have. The way he moves, the way he breathes, feels too vivid to be an illusion. And as the thought forms in your mind, he speaks again.
“Dreams are no illusion. They are a world that lives within you, and I am its king. Inside you lies a fragment of me, the very reason you hold the power to shape your imagination as you do.”
He’s in front of you now, toe to toe, his eyes gazing into yours, as if he could see straight into your soul.
”That power is not yours by chance. It was mine first. And now, I’ve come to reclaim what rightfully belongs to me.”