CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - The Spiritual Dimension

"You're back," said Cordax, acknowledging Attuoria's presence. Cordax was a young demon of only two decades old.

Attuoria ignored his greeting and got straight to work. Pulling out her own dreamscape, which she used to manage nightmares, she waited patiently for a vulnerable human target.

The mortal realm and the spiritual dimension were vastly different. Attuoria already knew that. But there were certain differences that Attuoria never would have noticed, had she not visited the mortal realm.

The human emotions present in the mortal realm created something indescribable and unimaginable to the inhabitants of the spiritual dimension. Perhaps the spiritual dimension was void of emotion because emotions caused distractions and weakness, something that would hinder spirits from completing their tasks. It would definitely explain why humans were unable to remain consistent, unable to solve major problems, and unable to avoid social unrest.

Yet there was something beautiful about emotions. A small part of Attuoria yearned to return to the mortal realm just to experience the high of being happy. But it wasn't just happiness - All human emotions, good or bad, felt like bliss to a Nightmare Demon. Demons like her have lived their whole life with an empty mind, focused on creating Nightmares to keep themselves and the dream sector alive.

Emotions, Attuoria realised, were such a luxury that most demons had no idea it even existed.

The Elder Nightmare Demon paid her a visit later that day.

"You journeyed into the mortal realm," said the Elder.

"Yes, I did."

"Did you find what you wanted?"

"No."

"That's too bad. May I take a look through your memories? Just so it's saved in the records. I need to see what happened from the day you received the strange message to the day you entered the mortal realm."

The Elder's own memory acted as a record for the history of Nightmare demons. It was his job to make sure the Nightmares in the dream sector ran smoothly.

Attuoria opened up her archives and found her memories from June 16th, 1980 to July 30th, 1991...

***

~ June 16th, 1980: The first sign, 12 years ago ~

Attuoria glanced at her dreamscape. It was a typical nightmare, where the human was being chased by an unknown creature in a dark forest. She had tailored the atmosphere in the forest to trigger the woman's flight or fight response.

She watched the woman run through the woods in fear, waiting for the right time to provide her with shelter. But as she created the wooden cabin, some bright green symbols caught her eye. There were lines of small, glowing green symbols along the dirt ground.

The human ran past these symbols, not noticing them in her haste to shake off the monster, but every time she ran by, they would reappear on the ground again.

Attuoria knew exactly what she put into the dreamscape and what she did not. These green symbols were not a part of her creation.

The woman found the log cabin within the forest, and was now hiding from the night-dwelling creature. The green symbols were still on the ground.

Attuoia peered at it closely. The characters looked familiar, yet completely foreign.

Around five minutes later, the Nightmare ended. Attuoria moved on to the next human, a man who had a fear of a clown named Pennywise.

Red balloons drifted around this man's dreamscape. He was panicking, terrified - All of a sudden, a flash of green caught Attuoria's eye. The balloons. Lines of glowing green symbols were etched onto them. The same symbols as the one from the other woman's dream.

Attuoria didn't put those green symbols into the dream. It was almost as if somebody was tampering with her dreamscapes. But who? Nightmare Demons cannot access other demons' dreamscapes. Not even an Elder could do that.

Unless it wasn't a Nightmare Demon's doing.

Attuoria decided to try and find out for herself. She checked the location of this man. He was in London, England. The woman from her previous dreamscape lived in Kent, which was a county right next to London, also in England.

The best conjecture she could make from this information was that there was something going on in England. Something that was causing these glowing green symbols to show up in their dreams.

And from that, one could assume that these symbols were most likely written in the language English, which was the native language of people who lived in London.

Attuoria was determined to get to the bottom of this.

***

~ June 17, 1980 - June 24, 1980: A mysterious message, 12 years ago ~

Days went by quickly. Attuoria asked other Nightmare demons if they had been assigned a human from London, and if they had, she asked to view their memory of the dream they made.

All of their dreamscapes showed the same glowing green symbols. None of the Nightmare demons had even noticed that it was there until Attuoria pointed it out. This confirmed her suspicions that the symbols had nothing to do with Nightmare demons. Someone was tampering with the dreams externally.

Attuoria knew what she wanted to do. What she knew she had to do.

She was going to learn English and get to the bottom of these symbols.

***

~ June 25, 1980 - November 16, 1980: Acquiring skills, 12 years ago ~

Learning English was a hard task. Attuoria had no idea where to start. Months went by, and she made no progress in learning the English language.

The idea of a visual and audible language was completely new to her. In the spiritual dimension, she communicated with other Nightmare demons through simple mental connections.

The difficult task of learning English made her question if she was ever going to decipher the mysterious symbols.

***

~ November 17, 1980 - May 29, 1990: Learning English, from 12 years ago till 2 years ago ~

Attuoria's prayers were answered six months after her first discovery of the symbols. It was another regular session of creating nightmares when Attuoria came across the most absurd fears she had ever seen.

This was a boy, 19-years-old, and he had a fear of learning. Sophophobia was what it was called. The sight of a textbook, a worksheet, or even just the thought of studying caused him extreme anxiety and panic attacks.

As Attuoria created the dreamscape for this boy, she noticed the large array of textbooks that were stored in this child's mind. Hundreds of textbooks, probably every textbook he had ever seen, was associated with fear.

She delved into his mind and found everything he associated with learning English. There were books, memories, sounds, dialogue - it was the perfect learning resource.

Attuoria memorised a range of his books, keeping the contents in her mind as she slowly progressed in learning the language. She started from the simple things - just bits of vocabulary and spelling, before progressing to more complicated ones such as forming sentences and expressing thoughts using words.

Years passed by as Attuoria neglected her duties as a Nightmare demon. All of her time and focus went into learning English. She read through at least a hundred picture books, more than two hundred chapter books, around thirty novels, memorised the dictionary, and reviewed through forty different standardised-testing textbooks.

Attuoria was now as eloquent as the 19-year-old human boy.

***

~ May 30, 1990: Deciphering the message, 2 years ago~

After ten years of hard work, Attuoria's was finally satisfied with her English proficiency.

Whether or not her efforts were worth it lies in the meaning of the glowing green symbols she had discovered in multiple dreamscapes ten years ago.

Bringing the memory back out, the green symbols no longer looked like symbols. She was able to read the text fluently, as if she had been reading English her whole life:

"I have established a passage between the mortal and spiritual dimension. By placing yourself within the mind of a human who is at rest, you will be transported to the mortal realm when they wake. I invite you to come and join me in a discussion about the future of humans. -T.M.R."

Never before had a demon or angel from the spiritual dimension entered the mortal realm. At least, not on record. The idea itself was absurd.

Humans lived their human life down in the mortal realm, angels lived their angel life on their sides of the spiritual dimension, and demons lived their demon life in other parts of the spiritual dimension. There was no way to cross paths, and so their paths have never crossed. But the messenger claimed that they found the connecting path.

The only way to verify this, was to try it out.

Before Attuoria could make any impulse decisions on her own, she decided to bring this news to the Elder. Having lived for millions of years, the Elder was bound to know the reliability of this claim.

"The passage works," the Elder said after hearing the message Attuoria decoded. "It has been there since the beginning of time. I'm rather surprised that a mortal discovered it. Most demons don't even know about it."

"Can I go?" Attuoria asked, being as straightforward as possible.

If the passage really worked, then she wasn't going to let ten years of studying English go to waste. She might as well head down to the human world and meet the mysterious messenger. Plus, the journey would allow her to collect information on humans, giving her insight on how to make nightmares more vivid and terrifying for humans.

"These trips never end well." The Elder said. "You can go, but whatever happens down there, you must face your own consequences. Do not bring business to the spiritual dimension. Once you enter the mortal realm, we are no longer associated with you until you return. If anything happens, we wipe you from our records."

"I will keep that in mind, Elder." Attuoria promised.

She returned back to her own inactive dreamscape, awaiting for a human to enter sleep. The messages sent by "T.M.R." all came from the dreams of humans who lived in London, so Attuoria knew her target had to be specific.

Her only choice was to wait for a human from London to be randomly assigned to her. With all the humans in the world, and all the Nightmare demons in the dream sector, she needed the perfect coincidence.

***

~ May 30, 1990 - July 29, 1991: Waiting for the right human, 1 & 1/2 years ago ~

Everyday was a repetitive routine for Attuoria.

First get assigned to a human, then check their location. If it's not London, give them a dream based on their fear. If it was London… Well, it was never London.

After a year passed with no results, Attuoria decided that any county near London would be acceptable. She couldn't wait forever.

***

~ July 30, 1991: Entering the mortal realm, 1 year ago ~

It had been eleven years, one month and fourteen days since T.M.R.'s first message was sent on June 16th, 1980.

And the stars finally aligned for Attuoria.

4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. That was the address of the young boy Attuoria was assigned to. The county of Surrey was not far from London, so if she landed there, it shouldn't be too hard for her to find her way over to the main city.

As the dreamscape started getting blurry, Attuoria checked the time zone for the boy: two minutes to twelve, it was 11:58PM. She had to place herself into the dreamscape before he woke up.

Another minute passed. The dreamscape was near incomprehensible now, a foggy mist taking over the viewpoint. He was about to wake up any second.

Attuoria threw herself into the dreamscape.

Sucked into a spinning vortex, she disappeared from the spiritual dimension

***

"So you left the spiritual dimension on July 30th, 1991. What happened after?" The Elder asked.

"I landed in the mortal realm as a human."

Attuoria could still remember how it felt. How she felt her entity slowly materialise.

She first gained access to a sense of touch, then smell, then hearing, taste and vision. Her body was heavy and tightly bound together with atoms, a peculiar feeling that mesmerised her.

There was white light all around her. It was blinding, emitting piercing heat rays that pricked at her sensitive eyes and skin.

She had spun, and spun, and spun. Her mind, under transformation, had been empty for the first time in centuries. No thoughts occupied her attention. All she could feel were the sensations searing through her newly-made body.

"You returned today on May 20th, 1992. No complications in the mortal realm?"

"No. None of them knew that I was a Nightmare demon."

"Good." The Elder left, satisfied with the records he made.

Attuoria would've sighed if she still had her human body. She was back into the cycle again. The redundant, unemotional, systematic life as a Nightmare Demon. A life where humans were tools for survival. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Harry Potter? Ron Weasley? Hermione Granger? Tom Riddle? T.M.R.?

They meant nothing to her.

At least that's what she told herself for the next few years.

***

Three years passed since Attuoria returned to the Spiritual Dimension. It was around July of 1995 when something appeared in many demons' dreamscapes. For a week, green symbols that none of the demons could recognise filled the backgrounds of Nightmares. When they traced back to the origin of each of these Nightmares, all of them were from Europe.

Especially London.

Attuoria recognised it immediately. T.M.R. 's power had grown. He'd done it on a larger scale this time, accessing countries such as Romania, Albania, Ireland and more.

"This is the same message as the one from 1980." The Elder said to Attuoria.

"Yes, it is."

"It looks like this person wants something from us. They have penetrated our Nightmares twice. This situation isn't safe. We can't keep letting this happen. Who knows how many humans already know that we exist because of this message? You need to go down there and figure out what's going on."

"Me?" Attuoria was surprised. Last time, the Elder had advised her not to go down to the mortal realm. But this time, he was asking her to go.

"You have proven to be capable of surviving in the mortal realm without revealing any sensitive information. You have the skills necessary to communicate with these humans. You even have your own human identity. You, Attuoria, are our safest bet."

"What would you like me to do?" Attuoria responded, suddenly eager to head back to the mortal realm. She might finally discover who T.M.R. truly was.

"Go down there and see what they want. If their intentions are hostile and their abilities are a threat to our world, come back immediately and we shall discuss a plan of action," said the Elder.

"If they do not have ill intentions, you can make your own decisions on what is best. But be reminded, your actions in the mortal realm can cause consequences. Do not bring these consequences to the spiritual dimension."

"Of course. I am familiar with the protocol."

"Good. Remember to return once every twenty years."

"I will. Thank you, Elder."

When Attuoria returned to her own dreamscape and immediately got to work.

She formed her own message, which said:

"Your message has been received. We accept your invitation to join your discussion. I, Attuoria, am the representative that you shall be meeting with. As you might already know, we must enter the mortal realm through a human's dream, and that human's location will be our point of spawn. If possible, please indicate the human that I should be using as the target of entrance."

This was written in English, and could not be read by other demons. She distributed the message to all the demons who currently had the green message from T.M.R. in their dreamscapes, and told them to add it into the background.

A few minutes after the message was put into place, Attuoria got a response from one of the Nightmare demons.

Underneath her own message was a new line of green symbols.

"Enter through this human's mind. You will land in a large manor located in Wiltshire, England. I will ask someone to meet you at the entrance."

This was it for her. This was her chance to go back to the mortal realm and finally uncover the mystery that she tried to solve three years ago.

She created another message and told the demon to add it into the dreamscape in one minute. It was a message that notified T.M.R. that she was ready.

Attuoria entered the dreamscape, making sure that the demon in charge didn't know she was in there. There was no turning back now.

One minute later, the blue message showed up, indicating that the demon had done her job. Within the next few seconds, the dreamscape started to blur, and Attuoria could feel the warping begin.

If she had checked the identity of this human beforehand, she would've realised something.

She was in the mind of a man named Lucius Malfoy.

And she was heading straight to a place called Malfoy Manor.