Blood... an endless tide of crimson. It flowed, endless, stained, and suffocated.

The Duke of Oceania, the Oldest Dominatus, jolted awake, panting.

Another nightmare. Markus, or Oceani Pater, once believed such mortal torments were beneath him, relics of insignificant pasts he'd long been numb to. Yet, nightmares had now become his constant companion.

They were always of his spouse, his beloved. Them, dying in a thousand different ways, some brutal, some peaceful, all devastating. Each ended with Markus jolting awake, the phantom grip of terror tightening around his heart, the horrifying images burned into the very core of his soul as he stared at the ceiling above.

Fuck...

It was an unthinkable paradox: a deity, an architect of worlds, brought low by the fear of loss. He found himself questioning if this was the cruel tax for his lingering humanity. Was this the price for daring to embrace the fragile, beautiful intricacies of a mortal heart, even as eternity stretched before him?

No one answers, not when Oceani Pater was supposed to be the one who knows more than most.

He clenched his jaw, the muscles in his face rigid with the effort of self-control.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Slowly. Ground yourself in the now, Markus.

"Reality." The word was a whisper, a faint echo in his royal chamber. What a microscopic concept, "reality," when one had witnessed the birth and death of galaxies, when one had existed for trillions upon trillions of years. The Markus of a mere century ago would have scoffed, perhaps even laughed, at this vulnerable spectacle of himself. He, Dominatus of the Unseen, reduced to clinging to fleeting moments like a common, flesh-and-blood supplicant, desperate for every second with the one he cherished.

A sigh escaped him, heavier than the last – a sound that had become far too familiar lately. The quiet battle for his spouse. The battle for his own sanity. With a weary push, he cast aside the silken sheets, the spectral images of death still dancing at the edges of his vision.

He had to find them.

Every second not by their side felt like an eternity wasted, and he, Markus, had already squandered enough of those.

He ... would not waste another.