Nightmare

There was only one thing you could say in response to the strange masked creature in front of you: “Who the hell even are you?”

“Who am I?” the creature mocked, “You dare ask who I am?” It only gets closer to you, and you can see a small glint of a fang underneath its mask. Its large, spiraling antlers threatened to jab you as it leaned to get on eye level with you. “My name is Dysnomia. I am a deity. Do you understand what that means?”

“You’re a god?”

“Yes, but we prefer the word ‘deity’.”

“There’s more?”

“There always was more, dear mortal. Many, many more, each with their own concepts that they represent.” The deity, who you now understood to be named Dysnomia, stood back up and took a step back. You can see a purple glow from the eyeholes of its mask as it raises a clawed hand and summons more, horrifying creatures around it, some which you can hardly see besides their glowing eyes, others are extremely realistic versions of mortal creatures besides a harsh glow that didn’t even help you see the other, dark creatures. Some of the glowing creatures seem almost familiar to you. One of them, a black cat with green eyes, bumps into your leg and purrs. You recognize this creature as a childhood pet who died long ago.

“I, for example, am the deity of spirits, shadows, and dreams. These three, seemingly disconnected concepts combine to create a deity few mortals even know, she who is known as Dysnomia. But do not fear, I am not here to hurt you. This is just what I do.” Then, nothing but darkness surrounds you. Were you dying? Is this what death feels like?

A familiar alarm chime rings on your phone as you sit up in your bed, taking deep breaths as you try to register what the hell just happened. Was it all just a nightmare? There was no such deity as Dysnomia, she was just a figment of your imagination that leaked through to your dreams and corrupted whatever nice things you could have in the fictional world you entered during your sleep, right? Right?

You hear a familiar voice echo from a shadow in your room, “Perhaps,” before everything was back to the way it always was. Time for all work and no play, just like it always was. Even if you have a nightmare and a hallucination beforehand, you still have to work