"Good night, son. See you in the morning."
I could remember impressionistic visions, murky and unformed, yet the memories of the Yharnam nightmare were still fresh.
A high pitched ring struck through my ears.
Of a place cursed by ghostly monsters beyond the human mind.
The ringing came again.
I opened these eyes. It was so bright, like everything held with it a tint of silver. It was such a change from what was always a dimly lit, if at all scenery. Even my clothing carried the same brightness. Small, clear pipes ran into my flesh, connecting to a see-through bag of blood on a tall hatstand-like object. The softness against my backside told me I was in a bed. I believed I was in someone's home.
There was a periodic, bright sound that could be heard somewhere in the room.
From the blood healing, I presumed I was still in the same land.
But then I remembered a scrap of paper, instructions for the hunter who had entered into the dream.
I then burst from the bed with wide eyes. The nightmare could still be afoot, and my duty is an important one. Unhooking the pipes connected to my flesh, I proceeded to walk barefoot to an exit in an unstable manner. I reached for the Hunter's blade at my side, but only realised that the only thing there was an old habit.
To continue my journey, I had to find my personals. My blades, my items, all of it, had been lost when I awakened.
Searching around, I found that the bright sound came from a contraption connected to a person's chest, above the heart would be.
In the room I was in, I was lucky to find that someone had hung my clothing easy enough to see. I left the room after putting on the cloudy hunter's garb. But before I grasped the handle, I saw myself in the mirror, and reminded myself of my true age. When hunters bore the thin scent of the moon, our age would remain unchanged, no matter what we experience. My own mortality instilled worry in me.
Other than that, I still looked my age. Although the number might not be exact, I am twenty-two. Twenty-three if the end ever came to the night of the hunt.
"What are you doing out of bed? Let's get you back." I entered a pristine corridor with similarly dressed people. They all turned to see me stumbling forward. The white, clear clothing reminded me. I quickly grasped the hem of the one who had called to me.
"Hunter of the church. Where are my weapons? My arms? Surely it was there with me." The church hunter looked at me wildly without a word, before I released him.
This was a new part of life without the Dream, it was possible to lose certain things.
The hunter's wear, it was like a second skin, and I felt so exposed without them. I found the exit to this nightmare of a facility.
What was on the other side made me think if I was still dreaming. I was in a spacious building, with masonry and architecture that yelled 'Cainhurst' to me. Only, the rime of frost was missing.
Yet the people who wandered the halls were not the sad, wailing phantoms or the dedicated servants. It was dotted with people who felt at ease, wearing a kind of uniform he never recognised. It's colours were dark, but not like those commonly worn by hunters. In fact, it was like certain clothing I found exploring abandoned Cainhurst, with the red. There were even some who made certain distinct changes to them, how one of them wore strange flat headwear. I could not conclude anything about where I was from this.
"Excuse me, mister..."
The voice of a woman who made no footsteps filled me with fear for a second, and I darted back from the sound, gripping what was supposed to be the handle of a sword at my back.
"Who are you!?" I interrogated her from a distance, aggression in my voice.
It was more of an adolescent, who scared me. As I gripped the thin air, echoes of an arcane magic began to quietly whir, dimly lighting with a bright green sheen.
"W-woah relax, I'm Blake. Blake Belladonna. You're the person we found unconscious in the snow. We brought you here because we thought you might die."
I was silent at her words, and untensed myself. This reminded me of a situation with a female hunter, where in addition to her gun and blade, her weapons included her beauty. As a young man, I am still weak to that sort of weaponry.
Actually, that hunter, and the adolescent before me share similarly snowy skin. A great difference was the opposites in hair colour. That, and the two wore very different clothing.
I released my grip from my back when I saw that she had her hands forward, empty. I now realise that the other people here had begun to look at me attentively. The arcane light had long disappeared by now
"Very well, Blake. I, am truly sorry for my hostilities. Union is hard to come by, where I am from."
Something from long ago surfaced in my thoughts. The hunter Djura in Old Yharnam had said that at the end of his Dream, time had passed beyond what he had expected, and all he had known has changed. He also mentioned how some things remained the same.
At this time, I saw what must have been a spectre of a woman wearing nothing but bandages across her whole body standing at the centre of the hall, staring at me uncomfortably. All the other people ignored it.
Then, someone walked through it. Her.
"Well, there's someone who wants to speak to you, I'll show you where. Come on." Blake turned to walk into the halls, and I followed her to catch up. I passed the ghost of a woman, who held our her arm at a low angle, then disappeared completely when we made contact.
"We couldn't find out your name, mister..."
"Oh yes, sorry. I am Andenette. And thank you for retrieving me, I truly might have died in the frost." It was a moment before I snapped from my confusion of the ghost.
"Don't worry about it. One of our teachers said we had to bring you back with us, and he would be here right now, but-tah, he's on an important duty. Oh, and you're at Beacon Academy, if you're wondering.
Blake and I passed to the end of the hall, and arrived into what must have been a large eatery. As scores of identically-dressed students sat in rows eating and chatting. Some of them called out to us, yelling Blake's name, but I was focused more on a uniquely-figured student. She was normal, yet the large, protruding ears of a rabbit stuck to the top of her head would suggest otherwise.
The sound of cutlery clinking against plates and other cutlery reminded me of the sounds our trick weapons would sometimes make when we changed their forms.
There again, I could see the ghost of a woman wrapped in bandages among the students who must not be able to see her. She continued to stare at me uncomfortably.
Blake called my name out, and I hurried to her.
"When you found me in the snow, did you find any of my weapons there? I cannot seem to find them when I woke." I asked Belladonna this question, when we stood before what I thought was a new type of elevator.
"Yeah, actually. We couldn't figure out what to make of it, there was two, right? A longsword and a kind of double-bladed weapon, right?"
I felt there was more to it than that.
"You're a huntsman, right?" What were you doing that got you unconscious in the snow?"
I could not tell young Belladonna of the long hunt. I felt it unwise at this time, but...
"I can remember only hazy images of what happened. Anything else... I'm unsure about."
For whatever reason, I was acutely aware that I was not referred to as 'Hunter', but instead, as 'Huntsman'. I attributed this to the differing cultures in the land. But it could also have something to do with Djura's experience of time moving out of place from what we would believe.
I could be a hundred years in the future, or a thousand years in the past. I could still be dreaming, in away that feels as if have awoken from the Hunters Dream for the final time. Was existence entirely the dream of one of the Great Ones frequently mentioned in Yharnam?
The elevator arrived, with a bright 'ding' that was not present in the elevators I was used to. The two of us went inside, and again, I was impressed with the design of this place.
Their elevators were like little rooms that couldn't be peeked through!.
"You talked a little about where you came from earlier. So Where did you come from? I'm guessing Mistral."
I've never heard of that place before.
"Somehow, the only memories that are clear to me, begin in the town Yharnam. Though it might all be a forgotten place by now."
"I've never heard of that place before." The elevator became a silent place, and I ached to say something, but also felt the urge to not do so.
She folded her arms underneath each other. She really is beautiful.
But soon, I found that the phantom that only I could apparently see was inside as well. She must have been a benign spirit if she did not harm me, yet the way she would look at me was still a discomfort.
Luckily, I could keep this from Blake. I'm not sure what would happen if she discovered a grown man such as myself was still afraid of ghosts.
The phantom's gaze became a neutral one, and she extended her arm towards me, a white ball of fire burned slowly and soundlessly
It was a silent ride in the contraption, until we then arrived at our destination.
"Well, Andenette. This is us."
The doors receded, and she led me into a room that I thought I had envisioned before. The entire room seemed to show part the inner working of a clock. Parts of a giant circular gear protruded upwards from the floor.
I entered, and saw a lone chair, a person slumped sideways seated within.
No, that was an unformed memory. Or vision?
"Ah. Miss Belladonna, thank you for showing the huntsman part of the academy. You are free to leave."
"Unless of course, you wish to listen on our conversation. You are free to do as you choose."
A grey-haired man in an important looking chair spoke to Blake. He sat behind a large desk. Through his small spectacles, he eyed me with the look of friendship.
There was another person already here. In whitish-yellow hair and oval glasses, she really carried a particular type of weapon I was weak to.
"Actually, I think I'd like to stay here awhile." Blake said. I already knew she was curious about who I was, and what I was doing in the middle of nowhere.
"Very well." Blake went to stand next to the other woman, again crossing her arms. A shadow came between me and the man, by the sun shining through the inner workings of the clocktower. The ghostly woman stood at the side of his desk.
"Good morning there."
:) pls tell what is ur thuts