Submerged in the darkness of sleep, I dreamed. Though this was unlike any dream I had experienced before. I wandered the halls of the Sanctum, feeling the solid stone beneath my feet and smelled the burning incense all around me—as real to my senses as the pangs of pleasure that ravaged my body in the hours before I laid myself to rest. It was real. And yet it was not. For the Sanctum was deathly still and the ground rippled at my touch, flowing out like water before me.

I wandered on for quite some time until I happened upon a familiar door. Two slabs of ornate jade, carved with scenes of execution. A voice was trapped inside. A woman’s. Pressing my ear to the door, I tried to listen to the mysterious message. I caught the faintest whisper…
‘Wex… My precious boy…’
Before I could make out any more, another voice drifted into the hall. Deeper and more strained. A old man’s. Then there came another. Fragile and frightened. A little girl’s. All at once a thousand more disembodied voices rose into a haunting chorus. They blended into an indistinguishable symphony but all of a sudden, from the midst of that chaos I heard a tone I recognised. A ghostly timbre that sent shivers up my spine. I had heard it in the temple and I had heard it in the meadow. It bored into my mind with insidious intention, spitting words like venom.

‘Sanctum whore!’ it said with such disdain that I felt the hall grow cold. I heard the words echo against the shifting stone walls and realised that they were not inside my head. The voice had come from behind me. Standing there to greet me as I turned was a floating figure, black as the shadow for which it was named. It had the suggestion of a woman’s curves and eyes like smouldering embers, weeping tears of smoke. The Shadow flung herself at me, and to my shock, I felt her hands wrap around my neck as I was shoved against the doors. I tried to grip her arms but my hands simply passed through the gaseous flesh. The blank mask that was her face parted to form a mouth. A tongue lashed out from the void, looking like a serpent made of soaking wet mist. She slithered the length of it along my reddened cheek. Life began to drain from me as my breath weakened. When she pressed me harder into the doors I felt them give a little, parting down the centre, allowing a thin pillar of light to seep through. With it came that trapped voice. In my panicked state I could not hear the words it spoke but as the noised spilled out into the hall, so too did more light. The Shadow’s choking grip was loosened, and air rushed into my lungs. I closed my eyes to take it in and when they opened suddenly I was in the meadow once more.

Waking to find myself with Wex beneath me, I was aghast. My legs were bare as they straddled him. I could feel my hips gyrating, grinding my sweet spot against Wex’s rock hard bulge, but I was not in control. Someone else was. My spirit seemed to be floating outside of my body, however, I could still feel the sensation. My eyes were glazed and I was panting uncontrollably. Between sharp breaths, my lips began forming words.

‘You want him. I can sense it.’—my voice was not my own. At least not entirely. My soft vocality was entwined with the phantasmic voice of that vicious Shadow.

‘Naia?’ said Wex, in a panic. ‘Naia, can you hear me?’

‘Oh she can hear. And she can feel too. Feel that hard cock. She loves it…’

I tried to break free of the Shadow’s possession, thrust my arms forward and push myself of off Wex. My effort was in vain. The mythril chain that snaked from my waist to Wex’s wrists seemed to weigh a thousand tonnes in that moment. I tried to shut my mouth and stem the flow of sinful secrets that she spilled. I wanted to run away from this dark place, from all of this chaos, all of these questions and doubts.

‘You want it too, warlock.’ the Shadow continued. ‘We want to feel it. Let the little Sanctum slut feel something before she slips away.’

Frightened, I screamed inside my mind, but the sound could not free itself. My hips ground faster and harder and I saw Wex stifle a groan. I could see the lust in his eyes. It filled me with fire. Perhaps it would be best to burn? Flames of pleasure licked my dripping flower. I wanted to give in. I was so weary, so tired of fighting. At least in this death, I would for a few moments feel alive. The fire burned white hot as I surrendered.

‘Naia…’

‘The chain!…’

‘Naia!’

The flames were snuffed out at the sound of Wex’s voice.

‘Stay with me, Naia!’ he pleaded. ‘Free me! I can banish it! My hands, free my hands!’

I saw him crawling away from my puppeteered body, which was now standing menacingly in the midnight glow.

‘Fine.’ came the Shadow’s voice, no trace of mine remaining. ‘If you don’t want her body, then it’s no good to me.’

‘No!’ said Wex as the Shadow moved my body towards my sword.

I watched in horror as it was pulled it from the scabbard and desperately tried to move my arm and force the blade back in. The steel slid from the scabbard with a terrible metallic whine.

‘Naia, the chain!’ Wex roared.

Summoning every ounce of will that I could muster, I seized control of my mind and wrench the mythril rope from Wex’s wrist—I felt the Shadow retake my body in the blink of an eye and saw her bring the sword down towards my belly!

‘Vakkara!!’ shouted Wex, his hands flung forth!

The Shadow erupted from my body like a shooting star! It faded into the ether as my body crumbled in a heap. I heard Wex’s footsteps pounding the grass as my consciousness slipped away. Then nothingness.