I awoke in the moonflowers of the Dream, shaking myself off. Tinnitus still shrieked in my ears from where they had ruptured with blood and lightning, a phantom pain lingering within my mind. I saw Doll standing nearby and, God and Oedon and whatever other beings the Yharnamites worship help me, I flinched. Gingerly, and burning with shame, I gave Doll a light greeting and cut past her to find Gehrman.

As usual, the elderly man sat within the workshop. I still had to find some way to bring paints back with me: Gehrman needed something new to keep him occupied, and talent like his should be nurtured – advanced age be damned. He looked over at me and quirked a brow. "Lass, you look worse than when you faced the Abhorrent. What has been gnawing at you?"

"I...I don't know where I've been," I confessed, beginning to explain my experience. I started with my exploration of Byrgenwerth, and Gehrman seemed distressed but resigned at my description of the creatures therein. Then I moved on to the creature that pulled me into that new hellscape.

"It was...enormous. Easily multiple stories tall if it stood up straight. Head like the creatures depicted in the Grand Cathedral: a lattice like a stinkhorn mushroom, each little cell filled with an orange eye. The body was almost black, a deep charcoal-gray. It had so many limbs, all too long on its already long and spindly body. Too many joints, far too many arms, and each hand had a thumb on the top and bottom."

Gehrman's mouth was set in a more solid line than usual. I had the feeling he knew something, but wasn't saying. I continued to describe the horrific parallel of an academy, presumably Byrgenwerth. "It felt like the actual place was...missing something, like part of it had been ripped away similar to the street outside Iosefka's clinic. Could that have been the real Byrgenwerth that got...pulled into another dimension or something?"

The more I described the place, the more tense Gehrman grew. "And what of the environment outside, Taylor?" he interjected.

"Oh god," I shuddered, relaying the giant's causeway landscape with its organic-geode gravestones and flayed silver gugs and the slugs and… I couldn't finish my description. I got to the monster, the one that was like Doll, and couldn't keep talking. My throat froze up and I started to cry, shaking violently.

A long-fingered, obscenely strong hand took me by the upper arm. Gehrman guided me to sit in a nearby chair as I hyperventilated. "Take your time, lass. You've had your first experience with a Nightmare." He took a few moments to let me keep panting, pointedly ignoring when I dry-heaved. "You'll have to reconcile with the doll sooner or later, and she'd be better at explaining this kind of thing."

His statement caught me a bit off-guard. Despite how gentle he was being, there was a...defensiveness wasn't quite the proper term, nor was he being specifically duplicitous. But there was definitely an aspect of deflection. How could someone who had never left the Dream explain the metaphysics of this Nightmare? Then again, perhaps this Dream – my captor, according to Doll's prayer – would be more lenient on her than on Gehrman.

"Do you want me to call her in so you can start your conversation with company?"

Once again boiling in my own shame, I hesitantly nodded. I needed someone else here with me, to reassure me that this was really Doll and I wouldn't look away just to see that thing standing before me, pulsating and burbling, cables of thick gray matter hanging down like limp cephalopod tentacles.

As always, Doll was accommodating and came inside. Gehrman explained some of what I'd experienced, then coaxed me to speak about the rest. Doll listened quietly, lips pursing in thought. "Taylor needs to understand what a Nightmare is," Gehrman finally added.

Doll nodded solemnly. "Many human cultures have a belief in a place of eternal punishment, or suffering, some final penalty should they fail in their lives' work. I would not say that a Nightmare is the same kind of place, but it conforms quite closely in many ways. A Nightmare is a place of suffering. Not all Nightmares were made specifically to inflict pain and punishment: many become corrupted over time. Many become traps, and in addition to luring in more victims they become bloated with the thoughts of those unfortunates who lose themselves within. Eventually they may press against the borders of other Nightmares, or even Dreams."

I swallowed hard. "Is–" My voice cracked. "Is this your way of saying I need to destroy it?"

Doll locked her kind glass eyes with mine. "I would not say that you need to do so, but at this point you are already a victim. Destroying it may be good for your soul as well as for the sake of others."

"What...what were the monsters in there?"

"There are stories," Doll replied, "of children who wander into the darkest woods where the veil between the realms is thin. They never return the same: sad and hulking things who can no longer hold their loved ones without shattering them. They flee back to the darkness, a warning that even when something is not malevolent it can be harmful."

I preferred to think of those things as yetis rather than tragic children driven mad with grief.

"As for the slime people," Gehrman picked up the thread, "you by now understand that we don't warn against the easy influx of knowledge for no reason. I know not if they're real people or simply the reflection of primal terror in the face of true realization, but I estimate that those poor men saw just how insignificant they truly are and that is their curse. The silver creatures are a tad more worrisome." He took a moment to lean back in his chair. "The Chalice Dungeons don't simply expose the history of Yharnam and Pthumeria. There was a far-away land called Loran, amid sands the color of sunset. They faced a plague of beasthood similar to what Yharnam now suffers, but the people were already consumed by hatred and madness. We called them silverbeasts, deformed monstrosities similar to the Abhorrent and the Darkbeasts in that they could somewhat pretend. They carried torches, kept vigil as if they hadn't become savage abominations. But when pressed they would show just what monsters they were." He looked back to Doll.

"The other monsters you encountered there, you are not prepared to know the truth of their existence," Doll asserted. "I would not curse you with such tainted knowledge."

I took in a shuddering breath. "How do I stop a Nightmare?"

"The task is simple," Doll replied, "but not easy. You must kill whatever anchors the Nightmare."

"And how do I find that?"

"As Gehrman might say," Doll's lips curled up slightly in an approximation of an impish grin, "you find the biggest and nastiest thing. That is typically a good starting point."

"How…" I swallowed hard. That experience had affected me worse than I'd thought. "How do I handle the, ah, not-Doll?"

Gehrman spoke up. "Hunting is an unpleasant experience, even outside of this long night. Many of us faced horrible nightmares whenever we slept. A special brew ensures a dreamless sleep – not Dreamless, unfortunately," he clarified as if he could tell my hopes were rising. "and, much like the antidotes being useful against most poisons, these sedatives also help guard your mind against forcible revelations. I can supply you with a few. They no longer work for me."

"Drink one when you hear singing," Doll advised, though I hadn't mentioned that aspect. I bit my lip and looked apprehensively at her. Just what was she? She was far more than a Galatea brought to life by a lonely old man.

(BREAK)

Doll had recommended that I favor the holy blade in the Nightmare, and for all of my questions and newfound misgivings she'd never given me reason to doubt her advice. Silver sword gripped tightly in my hand, I returned to that hellscape. Thankfully I didn't suffer another ambush from Patches, and the greatsword version of my weapon gave me more than enough reach to deal with the silverbeasts – the monsters I'd previously called gugs.

Using the stone slab I'd toppled over (which thankfully remained, and I wasn't going to question it), I made it quickly back to where I had last died. And, soon enough, I heard the off-key singing once more. I uncorked the small bottle and recoiled at the offensive scent therein. It was a horrible combination of cloying sweetness and bitter vinegar, like a fire at a black licorice factory. Still, I held my nose and gulped it down quickly. It was thick, just as cloying physically, coating my throat and trying to choke me. The flavor was not at all in keeping with the scent: it tasted of rotten blood. Still, I managed to get it down my throat.

I had to kill this thing to move forward: it lurked in the narrow corridor that led to the next section of the Nightmare, and I couldn't leave it alive to come up behind me later. I tightened my grip on the greatsword, remembering the righteous fury in Valtr's words, my maddened lightning storm against this monstrosity. I had to sharpen my senses, focus entirely on this thing's destruction. I didn't need to understand it to kill it. I just had to hit it enough times. Closing my eyes and listening for the arrhythmic footsteps, I lunged around the cluster of stones I'd been using as a hiding place. I immediately felt the strange swimming sensation, like mercury sloshing inside my brain, but the sedative was working. The thing let out a disturbingly enthused gasp and advanced on me. I was already swinging.

The holy blade carved a deep trench into its meaty head-mass, forcing it to stagger back, and I pressed my advance with a thrust into its gut. The thing fell back further. How many tries did it take Gehrman to make Doll? The monster wobbled to the side, trying to circle me. I warded it off with the sword, but I needed to finish the fight. How do you breathe life into a construct? And how do you create a life nothing like the woman you meant to imitate?

I staggered back, crying out as the blood erupted from me. Perhaps the sedative had slowed my reaction, or maybe it had reduced the damage this destructive exsanguination inflicted, but regardless of the cause I realized that my head was still intact. The monster had recovered and was taking advantage of my flinch. Those meaty masses, formed from the ragged bodies of the little ones, extruded from the sides of its head and made to grab me.

In a fit of pique I drew Evelyn and shot the thing in its chest, making it stagger this time. I dropped the holy blade and drove my claw into its chest, tearing it open. As the blood restored much of what I'd lost, I felt the mercury recede from my consciousness. The monster fell and dissolved into ruddy mist.

I took a few seconds to inject myself with a blood vial and compose myself, then moved on. There wasn't much left to impede me, and the last silverbeast was guarding an elevator shaft. Riding it down, I found that this was that dead-end I'd found earlier nearby the "entrance" of the Nightmare, where I'd been deposited after exiting the cursed academy. Well, now I had another shortcut if I needed it. Going back up, I found that all roads led to an enormous mountain basin. A needle-like tower lanced into the sky above even the volcano-like rock surrounding it. The whole thing felt like a coliseum, and the electricity in the air said that I was heading to face whatever anchored the Nightmare.

I stepped into the basin and heard the soft noise of heavy air, like a smoke machine. I glanced back to find that the opening had been filled in by thick mist that obscured all sight past it. I darted my gaze around, looking for what was coming for me, and managed to identify clinging to the top of the tower – just before it leapt off and plummeted toward me! I dodged to the side as the same enormous monster that had originally brought me here now impacted the center of the basin.

It was easier to get a proper look now. The thing was disturbingly long and lean, somewhat humanoid: two legs at the bottom of its long body, then...seven arms decorated its torso, two at its shoulders and the other five staggered across its sides with one sprouting from the middle of its back. Each one ended in a hand with two thumbs, one at the top and bottom of the palm. A tiny stump of a tail, the kind you'd see on some reptiles like the blue-tongued skink, stuck out past its legs. The stinkhorn-headed abomination rested on all of its limbs like a spider, studying me. I felt something ancient yet childlike, studying me as if I was a new toy.

"No," I snarled. "I'm not yours."

I don't know if it understood me, or read my mind, or my body language gave me away. The thing started to move, balling up its fists and beginning to swing. I scraped a sheet of flame paper over the holy blade and, contrary to all sense and human instinct, darted toward the fists. When a beast lunges, it risks overextension. Turn their size into a liability by getting too close for them to use their leverage. I swung the blade in an overhead arc, carving a trench into whatever passed for its face.

While this thing didn't make any noise, I could still somehow perceive its distress almost as if it was crying out from the pain of my strike. It leapt back onto the tower, clutching the structure and gazing down on me. Its eyes bulged, lighting up from within. I'd lived long enough to know that, with capes, glowing eyes were never a good sign and often meant lasers. I was willing to bed that it was the same with this. I drew the cannon from my back and shot the thing in retaliation, then began to run as a dozen scintillating white-purple beams carved their way through the earth. The eyes moved independently, tracing burning lines in the dirt, trying to cage me.

I realized, a split-second too late, that it wasn't necessarily trying to kill me: it was herding me into the center of the arena. I heard the violent flex of muscles, and the thing launched itself at me. I have no idea how I managed it, but I clutched the old bone and turned to a cloud of mist just before the impact. I reflexively took a moment to heave a relieved breath, and was smacked by the back of a giant fist: I hurtled into the mountain wall, cracking the stone from the sheer force. Prying myself out, I knew I'd barely have time for even one blood vial: I grabbed the gift from Adella and injected it, feeling her rich blood infuse me. My wounds continued to knit together as I leapt over another sweeping blow and then misted through a follow-up.

I couldn't just keep dodging: this thing was in no way a normal creature so I couldn't rely on it getting tired. Hell, even the 'normal' monsters of Yharnam didn't seem to tire. I took a risk, kicking forcefully off the ground to leap into the air. I needed to keep hitting this thing in the head, since the rest of its flesh was so hard it felt like carving into stone. My feet hit its back and I ran along its spine, delivering a vicious thrust into one of its eyes. That seventh arm on the back grabbed me, crushed me in its hand, and cast me into the wall.

I have no idea how it happened, but somehow I survived. Adella's healing blood somehow restored just enough of my health between the crush and the impact that I was only a crumpled heap on the dirt rather than a smear on the wall. I pushed myself off the floor, injecting myself with three blood vials as I intermittently dodged the monstrosity's pummeling blows. I had to play entirely defensive until I was certain I wouldn't lose my life and have to start all over again.

I had an idea, and since I'd hit this thing twice for significant damage I knew it'd be on guard for a third strike. I telegraphed my swing and it actively batted my sword aside. I'd shown that only my weapons were dangerous, and I was currently unable to bring them to bear. Instead I pointed my left hand at its face. "I call upon the memory, Firstborn of the Formless, the Holy Medium. Ebrietas!" The eldritch tendrils struck it full-on in the face, snapping its head back.

That may have been a poor idea. Immediately afterward, I felt the atmosphere grow more oppressive. I believe I'd offended it. The monster reached around itself, 'normal' arms grabbing two other wrists and yanking. I watched in disbelief as it ripped off two of its arms, spraying deep-red blood across the arena, and began to use its own arms as bludgeons!

I was quickly backed into a corner as much as one can be cornered in a round arena, the monstrosity rampaging across the battlefield with sweeping strikes as it wielded clubs made from its own limbs. Its other three hands remained at the ready to swat me out of the air should I leap at it, so it was time for a hail-Mary. My pistol could interrupt enemies' attacks, but I doubted even Evelyn was up to the task of staggering a creature such as this. My cannon, on the other hand…

As the abomination brought down a limb for the killing blow, I fired. The impact snapped its head back and the creature flinched, dropping to the ground as it regained its senses.

I leapt onto one of its arms to bring myself close enough for a direct strike to its head. I eschewed the holy blade, flexing my hand. I called up all of my hatred, Valtr's righteous anger, the frenzied madness that the not-Doll had evoked in me. I drove my claw into the thing's eye, and then screamed my fury as I erupted with lightning. Its eyes glowed, but this time it was my glow: it could only hold on for a scant few moments before its eyes burst with my enraged lightning. I howled to the sky as I continued to rage, burning all of my adrenaline, all of my accrued hatred.

The opalescent moon gazed mournfully down at me, as if saddened by this course of events.

My world tilted on its axis. I had just finished screaming, my lungs empty of air, yet I began to wail again. My teeth gnashed, my lungs pumped air they didn't have. When I used a lantern, my self spiraled into the burning light to emerge somewhere else. This time, I was not what was spiraling. The entire Nightmare around me began to swirl into a torrential mass and poured down into me, flowing through my head and down my spine like molasses.

I screamed, cried, voided my bowels. I couldn't stop screaming even to beg for my mother, my father, Doll or Gehrman to save me. I couldn't begin to guess how long it took. A scant few seconds or frozen decades, it felt like an eternity as all of that pain and horror flowed into me.

I awoke upon a stone floor, feeling like my veins had been filled with liquid lead. My head was so heavy and fuzzy. I tried to lift myself to my feet, resting against the enormous basin within the small wayshrine. I reflexively swept my gaze up and saw the abomination (the Amygdala, my mind supplied: Ah-meeg-DAH-lah) staring back at me. But this one felt lesser, diminished compared to the creature I'd fought.

I was too heavy, red tears spilling from my eyes. I couldn't move, couldn't defend myself. I pulled a Bold Mark from my pack and only barely managed to lift my hand to my brow in order to activate it. Perhaps I was metaphysically heavy as well, since I appeared on the dais of Oedon Chapel before consciousness left me and I collapsed. The last things I heard were concerned shouts from Siobhan and Adella.