Safuu stood silently after Saad's death.
She looked at the two bodies lying on the ground.
Then her eyes moved toward the third man.
He was still alive.
Barely.
His breathing was weak, and his body was covered in wounds.
Safuu walked toward him.
She knelt beside him and placed a hand against his body.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
his wounds began to disappear.
The blood vanished.
His breathing steadied.
The pain left his body as if it had never been there.
The man opened his eyes.
He stared at Safuu.
Then at himself.
He touched his chest.
Nothing.
No wound.
No pain.
He slowly sat up.
“What... happened?”
Safuu looked at him.
“You survived.”
The man looked around.
Something was wrong.
The place was no longer the same.
The landscape around him was unfamiliar.
The air felt different.
The mountains in the distance seemed endless.
He looked at Safuu.
“Where are we?”
“The other side.”
“The other side of what?”
Safuu turned toward the horizon.
“Odania.”
The man's expression changed.
“Odania?”
“Yes.”
“But we were just—”
He stopped.
There was no road behind them.
No city.
No buildings.
No trace of the place where Saad had died.
“How did we get here?”
Safuu remained silent for a moment.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Then she said:
“Because there was a time when this land was not what you know today.”
The man listened.
Safuu looked toward the mountains.
“Long before humans built their lives from clay, metal and silence...”
“This was the Land of Freedom.”
“The proud people walked across these mountains like the wind.”
“No one owned the land.”
“And the land owned no one.”
“They were not ruled by earthly rulers.”
“There were no kings demanding taxes.”
“No emperors drawing borders in blood.”
“There was not even a power structure that resembled the human empires you know from history.”
She paused.
“The only thing that ruled over them was something far beyond the power of emperors.”
“The cosmic light.”
“Pure will.”
“And the eternal balance of the universe itself.”
The man listened without interrupting.
“They lived beneath the great Oda trees on the original continent of Odania.”
“A world where everything existed in perfect harmony.”
“If a person took more than they needed...”
“The rivers cried.”
“If someone was violated...”
“The birds fell silent.”
“And the souls of the people were so light that nightmares could not torment them.”
The man looked toward the distant trees.
“It sounds like paradise.”
Safuu did not smile.
“It was freedom.”
She continued.
“But freedom is precious.”
“And precious things attract hungry wolves.”
Her voice became colder.
“The darkness did not come from this world.”
“The invaders came from another reality.”
“A dying parallel universe where everything its inhabitants could live on had been exhausted.”
“They were desperate.”
“They were starving.”
“So they tore open a wound in the cosmos...”
“And entered this world with their armies.”
The man slowly stood.
“The first place their foreign vessels touched...”
“...was this continent.”
“Odania.”
“The entire planet shook beneath the weight of their arrival.”
“From one outer reality came kings with their swords, seeking to plunder the last living paradise.”
“From another cosmic continent came emperors whose hunger for resources had become so great that they wanted to consume even the stars themselves.”
The man stared at her.
“And then?”
Safuu looked toward the sky.
“Then everything changed.”
“In the same moment the invaders stepped onto the land...”
“A catastrophe occurred.”
“Odania was divided.”
“A gigantic, unnatural fracture tore the continent apart.”
“Half remained.”
“The other half was ripped away...”
“...and disappeared into the void.”
The man was silent.
“To this day, no one knows what the other half of Odania contained.”
“No one knows where it went.”
“And no one knows why it disappeared.”
Safuu's eyes narrowed.
“It became one of the greatest and most frightening secrets in creation.”
She turned toward the landscape.
“On the half of Odania that remained, the invaders began destroying everything that reminded the people of who they had been.”
“They cut down the sacred Oda trees.”
“They banned the songs.”
“They forced the people's language into whispers.”
“The foreign kings and emperors took the land.”
“They destroyed what remained of the old order.”
“And crowned themselves rulers over everything that lived.”
The man lowered his head.
“But the darkest thing was not what the outsiders did to their bodies.”
Safuu touched her chest.
“It was what they did to what was inside them.”
“To survive the occupation, the people learned to hide.”
“They learned to swallow their anger in front of beings from another reality.”
“They learned to smile.”
“To obey.”
“To live beneath foreign flags while their true selves screamed in silence.”
“They buried their pride.”
“Their courage.”
“Their will.”
“Deep inside their chests.”
“They thought they were hiding those things from the kings and emperors.”
Safuu paused.
“But they were hiding them from themselves.”
The man looked at her.
“And the people today?”
“Only a few who live today know the truth.”
“They learned it from old books.”
“Books written before history was manipulated.”
“Before the stories were rewritten.”
“Before the truth was buried beneath generations of lies.”
The man looked confused.
“Then why doesn't everyone know?”
“Because history is easier to control when people forget who they were.”
Safuu looked toward the modern world beyond the mountains.
“And now?”
“The foreign emperors and kings are gone.”
“Their empires have fallen.”
“And the remaining part of Odania has become the modern world.”
The man looked around.
“But freedom came back.”
Safuu shook her head.
“No.”
“The foreign iron was replaced by global asphalt.”
“The cosmic chains were replaced by concrete, technology and silent rules.”
“The chains simply became invisible.”
She looked at him.
“That made them harder to recognize.”
The man remained silent.
“Today, they are a modern people living beneath the shadow of an interdimensional inheritance.”
“They have forgotten how to take the first step toward the freedom they once possessed.”
“Generations of suppressed silence became a habit.”
“A safe trap.”
“They live ordinary lives.”
“They work.”
“They laugh.”
“They build families.”
“They wake up every morning believing they are free.”
“But deep inside...”
“something ancient still remembers.”
The man looked toward the horizon.
“And the missing half of Odania?”
Safuu's expression became unreadable.
“That is the question.”
“The question that history was never meant to answer.”
“And perhaps...”
“the question that should never have been forgotten.”
The man looked at Safuu.
“Why do you know all this?”
Safuu did not answer.
Instead, she turned away.
And somewhere far beyond them...
the wind moved through the trees.
Then—
everything disappeared.
Darkness.
Silence.
Chains.
Safsan.
He was still there.
Still trapped inside the dream.
The black snake remained in front of him.
But something was different now.
Safsan no longer fought.
He no longer tried to break the chains.
He no longer tried to run.
He simply stood there.
And felt.
Everything he had suppressed.
Everything he had ignored.
Everything he had kept himself busy to avoid.
The fear.
The hesitation.
The anger.
The pain.
The things he wanted.
The things he had lost.
The things he was afraid to become.
For once...
he allowed himself to feel all of it.
And the longer he felt it...
the quieter the darkness became.
The chains were still there.
The snake was still watching him.
But Safsan was no longer running from himself.
He looked at the snake.
He breathed slowly.
Then he understood something.
He did not need to defeat it.
He did not need to destroy it.
He did not need to understand everything.
He only needed to make a choice.
Safsan closed his eyes.
He thought about the world outside.
About his life.
About everything waiting for him.
And then he realized something simple.
He wanted to wake up.
Not because someone told him to.
Not because he was being forced to.
Not because he was afraid.
He simply wanted to wake up.
Safsan opened his eyes.
“I want to wake up.”
Nothing happened.
The darkness remained.
The snake watched him.
Safsan took another breath.
“I want to wake up.”
Still nothing.
For a moment, the old hesitation returned.
Then he remembered everything he had felt.
He remembered running.
He remembered looking back.
He remembered the endless false awakenings.
And this time...
he did not hesitate.
“I want to wake up.”
Something moved.
Not around him.
Inside him.
The darkness trembled.
The chains loosened.
The silence cracked.
Safsan looked forward.
The black snake slowly disappeared into the darkness.
For the first time since the dream had begun...
he was not trying to escape.
He was choosing to leave.
Safsan closed his eyes.
And woke up.