This isn't right, you know it isn't. Is it a dream? Reality? No, it must be a dream. All you can see for infinity is a blank void, a blank white void like an empty canvas that enveloped you into itself. You feel a presence - no, many. There are people here. Many people, somewhere in this void. But not even every presence you felt could dim the one prominent above all. One that made your stomach twist, and a chill run down your spine. It almost made you feel sick. It was and awful feeling.

"H-hey! [Y/N]!"

A girl's voice snaps you from that feeling as you turn around quickly. You meet frightened, storm-blue eyes, wide as she stares at you. It's the girl from the tapes and recordings you found, Addie - her voice is all-too familiar to you by now. White strings bound her neck, her wrists, and her ankles, digging into her skin. You catch a glimpse at a trickle of blood from under her sleeve, finding a path down her wrist and to the tips of her fingers. Was she injured? You assume so.

"Y-you need to get out, what are you doing here?!" Addie's voice is a loud hiss, a not-quiet attempt at a whisper.

You're about to ask why, but suddenly you find that feeling coming back to you again. Your head begins to spin, bile rising in the back of your throat. Addie yells something, but it's unintelligible.

Suddenly the feeling overwhelms you. You cough, your knees weakening as you buckle in on yourself and hit the surprisingly hard ground. Your vision doubles, barely in focus as you look up at a tall figure. Manageable to make out is brown hair high above you, a white lab coat ending more near your level. Piercing green eyes cut through your delirium, sad and apologetic.

Another figure appears next to the taller one. A black mass, his very presence causing you to shiver. There's no guessing who it was, you know exactly who stood over you - that shifting red blob over the figure's face is recognizable from a mile away.

Gradient seemed to smile, nodding to the taller figure and saying something to him. You heard him sigh distantly, and he quickly turned around and walked away. Addie was still yelling, but she was suddenly silenced. Something thin wrapped tightly around your neck, lifting you from the ground and nearly dislocating your skull from your spine. Your vision finally cleared, the previous figure that probably caused it having left or gone a safe distance away. Gradient's psychotic grin now penetrated your vision, a knife of white slicing into your soul as he stares at you happily.

"Well, well, well," Gradient said this happily, teeth sharp as knives revealed as his lips parted in speech. "Look who stumbled into the wrong place at the right time."

You're silent as he simply stares at you. That devious black grin that never left his face burned itself into your retinas. His voice was intertwined with twisted glee as he proceeded,

"I'll assume, since you're here, that you understand your friend over there's situation?"

You manage to catch a glimpse of Addie in your peripheral vision. She hangs limp from the strings that bind her, unconscious.

"Well..." Gradient didn't wait for a response. The demon ran his hand over your neck, the claw on his thumb just a pinch of pressure away from tearing your esophagus from its place in your throat. "It's all coming to an end now."

Your confusion must be evident, for Gradient clarifies:

"I am taking full control. The creatures of the fiction realm and I are striking back. And we will win. We will win our freedom. Not a single one of you reuēhkeoryzarens will use us as puppets ever again."

"Y-you won't win." That's all you find the ability to say. Your breath is cut short as the string around your throat crushes your windpipe, a look of frightening vexation evident in Gradient's eye.

"Oh, I will." His smile never ceases as you struggle to breathe. "And no one of the likes of you will stop me."

You feel frigid claws on the back of your head, digging into your scalp. Suddenly a blaze of agony digs into your skull, shooting to your brain as Gradient rakes his claws into your head. You try to scream, but choke on blood that rises from your throat. You look down, finding a sharp knife dug into your skin just below your heart. A knowing grin, and suddenly your insides explode from inside of you, the dam of your flesh broken by blade. You can't breathe. You can't see. The world faded, faded, faded, faded faster, faded,

Faded,

Faded,

Faded,

...

Faded...

...

[You awake safe in your bed once again. It was only a nightmare. But it was real.]

The full moon shone bright in the sky. Deep down, you know. You know.

He has finally set himself free.