Daniel tossed in his sleep, the blankets tangled like vines around his legs, sweat shining on his forehead. Lyta had just checked on him not long ago—tucked him in, brushed hair from his brow, kissed him gently. The child was still recovering from his strange disappearance, still unconscious for hours at a time. But what she didn’t know—what no one could truly understand—was that Daniel hadn’t fully come back alone.Something had awakened in him.Something ancient.The air around his sleeping body rippled gently, unseen by waking eyes. Dreams hummed under his skin. The Dreaming stirred around him like leaves brushing his thoughts. But now it wasn’t the Dreaming that called to him.It was pain.And not his own.He felt it like a thread burning from the stars, winding into his chest and pulling—gently at first, then with increasing urgency. He didn’t understand the source, but it throbbed with a weight that felt… *familiar*. Not in face or form, but in resonance.Another Endless.A kin.

The Realms of Fire were alive, not with breath but with hunger. Every stone whispered, every gust of ash howled with the echoes of consumed worlds. As the Endless and their companions moved deeper, the flames recoiled—not from fear, but recognition. They knew who had come.And then, the fire opened like an eye.He emerged.Azazel.He took no single form. A writhing mass of flame and teeth, wings that folded and unfolded from every direction, and a voice that scraped like metal over bone. His many eyes blinked from within his own inferno, each one a different shade of malice.“Well, well,” Azazel hissed, his voice echoing in the very air. “I expected one of you. *Not all.*”Morpheus stepped forward. He did not raise his voice, but his presence swelled like a rising tide. “We are here for Destruction.”Azazel’s laughter burned. “You’re too late, Dream. He *is* destruction now. All I did was remind him what he was meant to be.”Constantine stepped beside Morpheus, the Rune aglow on her h

The sky above Hell was not a sky at all, but a vast, churning storm of ash and fire. Mountains of bone reached toward it, and rivers of molten hatred carved paths across a land that screamed in silence. Nothing here grew. Nothing here lived. Yet it pulsed with eternal motion—restless, ancient.Morpheus stepped through the obsidian gate alone, though Matthew flew above him, circling in tight arcs. The raven’s feathers twitched with unease.“I hate this place,” Matthew muttered. “Seriously. Every time we come here, I swear the heat gets worse. And those things with teeth for eyes were *staring* at me.”Morpheus said nothing.He walked toward the obsidian steps of Lucifer’s citadel, where reality bent and recoiled in the presence of pride made flesh. The doors opened without a sound, their carvings writhing with scenes of ambition and fall, endless betrayal, and cold beauty.Lucifer Morningstar stood at the top of the stairs, waiting, arms folded across a regal black coat that shimmered

The kitchen smelled faintly of rosemary and coffee, though neither had been brewed that morning. Lyta sat at the table, her hands folded tightly in front of her, her eyes fixed on the old clock above the stove. The second hand ticked like a distant heartbeat. She hadn’t moved in some time.From where she sat, she could see the garden through the window—the cherry tree where Morpheus had stood. He was gone now, or perhaps merely unseen again. The air felt ordinary, but Lyta knew better than to believe in appearances.The back door creaked open.Lyta didn’t turn. “Did you speak to him?”“Yes,” came Daniel’s voice—quiet, full of thought.Now she turned, eyes wide with the weight of anticipation. Her son stood just inside the doorway, his shoulders hunched slightly, as though he’d been walking through centuries. His face was pale but calm. He looked older than he had just an hour ago.“You remember him,” Lyta said.Daniel gave a small nod. “I do. Not everything. But enough.”Lyta stood sl

Ten years later the Dreaming shimmered beneath an amber sky, its rivers flowing with starlight, its towers carved from forgotten songs and ancient memories. In the heart of the realm, on the edge of a balcony made of glass and moonstone, Constantine stood, her coat fluttering softly in the breeze that didn’t belong to any weather system but to the breath of dreams.She felt the hum of the Rune at her side, though now it no longer throbbed with warning or shadow. It was quiet—obedient, almost serene. She had long since mastered it, fused it with her essence, and become something more than human… yet not quite Endless.Footsteps approached from behind, deliberate and elegant.“I thought you hated balconies,” Morpheus said, his voice as calm and infinite as ever.Constantine gave a small smirk. “I did. Until they stopped meaning danger.”Morpheus moved beside her, his presence familiar now—not just a god of dreams, not just a ruler of an infinite realm, but her companion. Her equal.“Thi