Chapter 268: Nightmares [VI]

Ray Warner’s real name was

Ray Kurtz Absberg

.

He had never liked that name.

Not because it sounded like a fucking tongue-twister, but because it tied him to a man he wanted nothing to do with — Arminius Kurtz Absberg, one of the two Eastern Dukes.

Yes, Ray was a Duke’s child.

...Though his father wouldn’t appreciate it if he heard him claiming that.

Duke Arminius was a fierce man, respected by his allies and enemies alike.

He had built his empire brick by brick, corpse by corpse, all on his own. He climbed his way up the noble ranks until he was finally a Duke.

Since there were only ten Dukes in the entire world — two under each Monarch — becoming one of them was not exactly an easy task.

You’d either have to overthrow one by force — in which case, you’d be held in contempt by the Monarchs — or wait for one of them to fall so you could take their place.

As said, it wasn’t an easy task.

Still, Arminius did it.

He did it and achieved everything in life — power, money, influence, women.

And one of those women was Ray’s mother, a low-tier concubine for the Duke.

She wasn’t his wife or even a proper mistress. She was just a bedfiller who ended up carrying a child she didn’t want.

That child was Ray. Duke Arminius’ bastard.

Being a bastard meant he was nothing more than a shadow in the family estate.

He wasn’t allowed to eat with the Duke’s legitimate children.

He wasn’t given lessons in the grand halls.

He wasn’t praised, he wasn’t punished, he wasn’t even acknowledged.

Even his own mother never looked at him the way a mother should.

Instead, she had her eyes fixed only on the Duke, always yearning for his glance, always scurrying for his attention, always trying to earn his favor.

If anything, it seemed like she was willing to spend more time with Duke Arminius’ legitimate children than Ray.

To her, and as cruel as it may sound, Ray was simply an accident. A responsibility she didn’t care for.

So Ray was raised by servants and maids and tutors and nannies who were paid to keep him out of the way.

But let’s get one thing straight.

It

wasn’t

a miserable childhood. Far from it.

Ray still lived in a palace. He still slept in silken sheets, ate with golden cutlery, and walked on marble floors under his feet.

He wore expensive sneakers most children his age would kill for and collected watches that were worth more than some people’s monthly salary.

He never starved. Never suffered beatings.

He never even got bullied.

...But he also never belonged.

Every time he tried to call Arminius "Papa," the Duke would brush past him like he was a stranger.

His half-siblings mocked him mercilessly. They’d laugh and sneer and flaunt their

legitimacy

like it was a crown.

"Bastards don’t get fathers," they’d say, walking proudly into the Duke’s study while Ray stood outside the door, waiting for an invitation that never came.

Even his mother never defended him.

So he learned to smile, and play it cool.

He learned to laugh along, and pretend none of it bothered him.

But inside, all he wanted — all he

ever

wanted — was just some goddamn attention.

•••

That was when he discovered the world of content creators.

He was twelve at the time, sitting alone in one of the mansion’s unused lounges, doom scrolling through clips on his new holo-phone when he found a video.

Some guy was sitting in front of a camera, doing literally nothing but telling some witty jokes and playing games.

That’s all.

And yet the comments section was

flooded

!

The video was smashed for hundreds of thousands of likes, people were laughing

with him

in the chat, cheering him on and praising him, sending him gifts and money.

Yes, actual money!

They were willing to spend actual money on a stranger on the internet! That’s how much they liked him!

Ray’s jaw dropped when he witnessed that.

He couldn’t believe it.

All that attention, all that love and fame — for just being himself.

It was like lightning striking his small brain and short-circuiting it.

From that day forward, he decided he wanted that. No — he

needed

that.

•••

So, naturally, Ray started filming himself.

And his first few attempts were disasters.

The videos came out blurry and awkward, with him rambling nervously and tripping over words.

Nobody watched them, understandably. The few comments he occasionally got were mostly people asking him what the hell he was doing.

But Ray had never been the type to quit.

So he kept uploading.

Day after day. Week after week.

Slowly, he learned.

He figured out what worked and what didn’t. He learned how to hold a camera, how to hit his angles, how to make his jokes land, and how to cut and edit his footage.

He realized what topics he could talk about and what topics he should avoid, how to bait people into clicking on his videos, and how to hold their interest.

He studied trends, mimicked the best, and added his own spin.

It took over a year before things started clicking. But when they did...

He had fun!

The attention he so desperately craved came.

And it wasn’t because he was a Duke’s bastard. He never revealed that part publically. Nobody followed him for his father’s name.

They followed him because

they

liked

him

.

For the first time in his life, Ray Kurtz Absberg— no, Ray

Warner

wasn’t being ignored.

For the first time, people

chose

to see him.

They

wanted

to see him! They were

addicted

to seeing him!

And he swore he’d never let that attention go.

•••

But as is often the case with stardom at a young age, it hollows people out.

Of course, Ray thought he’d be different. He swore he’d stay the same humble and goofy boy who only wanted to make people laugh.

The boy who only wanted to be seen.

However, fame changes people.

As it changed him.

And Awakening with a high potential at thirteen didn’t exactly help.

He grew a little arrogant. A little shallow and entitled.

Looking back now, maybe it wasn’t just arrogance.

Maybe he was compensating for the fact that no matter how many likes he got, no matter how many fans screamed his name, it wasn’t the same as a mother’s love. Or a father’s acknowledgement.

Attention wasn’t affection. Fame wasn’t love

He realized all that, but he buried those thoughts, suffocating them under layers of ego.

Until one day, another kid online — another creator trying to carve a niche — called him out.

He said Ray’s videos were boring, his reactions were staged, and his pranks were scripted. The usual online slander between creators that only unemployed no-lifers cared about.

Ray could’ve ignored it. He could’ve laughed it off.

...But he didn’t.

He tore that kid apart in a reply video. He called him small-time and irrelevant. He called him inferior.

To be honest, Ray only meant it as content. Just casual online banter. A feud for clicks.

But he made one mistake.

He leaned into his Awakened status and dropped lines about how

’unAwakened civilians’

like him could never understand what real greatness looked like.

He didn’t seriously mean it. Of course he didn’t. Ray never believed in that radical Awakened-superiority bullshit.

But many other Awakened did.

And Ray’s words fanned the flame.

His unAwakened viewers turned on him, furious that their idol had revealed what he really thought of them. His following dipped and he received some serious backlash.

The feud, on the other hand, continued to drag on. Video after video. Comment after comment. All of it was petty and childish and toxic.

And then, one night, Ray did a live stream and sarcastically told his audience to, "Go show him some love."

The next day... the kid was dead.

He was beaten to death in a back alley by some Awakened supremacists.

When Ray first saw the news headline, his chest caved in.

Then he opened his private inbox and found a message from one of his fans that read:

"We did it for you, Ray. Don’t worry, they’ll never know. We’ll never take your name. We just wanted you to know we got your back!"

That’s when the horror set in.

Ray vomited when he saw it.

He was horrified.

His hands shook so badly he could barely hold the phone. He didn’t sleep that night. Or the next. Or the next.

And when the news went viral — when the boy’s parents cried on broadcast about losing their son — Ray saw the dead kid’s face in his dreams. Again and again and again.

He thought about confessing. About posting that text for the world to see and letting himself be ruined, punished, or even jailed — anything, just so he wouldn’t carry this guilt alone.

But he never did.

He hated himself. The remorse ate him alive.

He stopped eating for days and cried himself to sleep most nights.

He’d stare at his own reflection for hours and ask,

"What the fuck have I done?"

He really didn’t mean for it to happen.

He didn’t

want

it to happen.

But it

did

happen because of him.

Because people

listened

to him.

And the worst part? They

kept

listening to him. The fans

kept

loving him.

They forgave him for saying those things. They forgot about his silly feud. They moved on after only a few months.

But Ray never did.

Two years later — after a lot of therapy, after rebuilding his entire channel, after rebranding himself as the

’funny streamer with a heart of gold’

— he tried to be better.

He never started another feud again.

He gave back to the community. He cared for people. He became genuine, positive, and generous.

And when he turned seventeen, he even enrolled in Apex Academy, not because he wanted to chase clout, but because he wanted to be someone real.

He wanted to be a hero.

A better man.

Kind

. He wanted to be kind.

But still, at nights when the screens would turn off and the laughter would die down, he’d see that kid’s face again.

He’d hear that text in his head:

"We did it for you."

And no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he smiled, no matter how loud he laughed or how bright he pretended to shine...

Ray Warner knew he was living with blood on his hands.

It was a crime for which he would never forgive himself.

•••

And now, the temple chose that exact moment to torment him... to be his nightmare.

Ray stood in complete darkness, helpless as the worst parts of his life replayed before his eyes over and over again.

He couldn’t turn his head. He couldn’t stop looking.

All he could do was watch.

Watch a vision that showed him the same moments on repeat. His feud. His words. The stream. The stupid smirk on his face when he said,

"Go show him some love."

And then the news headline. The crying parents. The bloodied alley.

On loop. Again. And again. And again.

Ray’s chest tightened with every cycle. His throat burned raw from the sobs he couldn’t let out.

Then, suddenly, the vision before him dissolved into a wall of text.

[We did it for you, Ray.]

The words stretched and multiplied, filling the darkness until they were all he could see.

[We did it for you.]

[We did it for you.]

[We did it for you.]

He tried to shout that he never wanted it, that it wasn’t his fault, that he hadn’t meant it—

But the words

swallowed

his voice.

When the text finally peeled away, the scenery around him shifted.

Now he was standing in a small and unfamiliar bedroom.

Some movie posters hung on the walls. Cheap furniture was scattered across the floor. A single holo-monitor glowed dimly on the desk.

And in the middle of the room sat that kid — the kid he had mocked and ridiculed... and indirectly killed. Bruised and broken, his body slumped against the wall.

His filmy eyes were devoid of any traces of life... and yet they were staring straight at Ray in silent accusation.

Ray’s stomach churned and his legs went weak. He was suddenly nauseated. "I didn’t— I swear, I didn’t mean—"

The boy didn’t answer. His lips never moved.

But his voice came anyway, low and hollow and echoing from everywhere at once.

"You killed me, Ray Warner."

Ray shook his head violently. "No! No, I didn’t touch you, I— I wasn’t even there!"

"You didn’t need to be."

The boy’s body jerked unnaturally, like a puppet yanked by strings. He stood up, hunched with his neck still bent at a sickening angle.

"You told them to do it

for

you."

Ray fell back, scrambling on his hands, shaking so hard his teeth clattered.

"I didn’t mean it! I didn’t— It was just a joke! I didn’t mean it!" he screamed.

"It was just a joke, you say? So was my life, huh?"

The boy tilted his head farther, and the sound of his bones cracking resounded.

His dead face, already pale and rotting, began to decompose even faster right before Ray’s eyes.

Then he lurched forward at Ray like a vengeful corpse.

Ray flinched, his eyes snapping shut in half-instinct and half-terror.

But a second dragged by. Then another.

Nothing happened.

So, reluctantly, he reopened his eyes.

And when he did... he once again found himself stuck watching the replay of his life, right up to that horrific moment.

He had no choice but to keep watching this never-ending nightmare.