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She walked along the coast, one foot in the surf and the other in the sand. Nothing moved and nothing changed: sand as far as the eye can see, moon lingering in the corner of Clerise's eye.

Last time she had been so eager to ascend, to look in the house where Balthazar would be, settled into the comforts of her mind. She had been so mad that he had abandoned her, her partner, her ally, her friend-and-enemy in a single breath.

But this time, Clerise was afraid. It was a small seed of fear, nestled in her chest, and what had started out small had grown exponentially, taking root in between her ribs, constricting around her heart, ascending through her throat. It was palpable, a low-grade of pain that thudded without a beat, a noxious ichor expanding inside her.

The sanctity of her mind had been violated by a foreign presence-- somewhere in this landscape was a stranger.

A stranger that was watching her.

The pitch-black poured out of her mouth and nose like water through a sieve, and while it seemed infinite, nothing truly lasted forever. Every bad dream had its end, every horror story had a conclusion, bad news was usually delivered last.

The grains stopped, but that was merely the conclusion of one chapter and the beginning of another.

Clerise's fingers scrabbled for purchase against the sand, carefully controlling her breathing to avoid sobbing because the pain of it was worse than anything she'd never known, in this life or any other, and she could feel movement beside her, and with effort she cracked open her eyes, breathing shuddery and--

Two red eyes peered down at her, cut like rubies and inlaid in a face of obsidian. Red teeth gleamed back at her, pointed at every edge, the grin so wide a crocodile might be jealous. It was featureless besides that, without any nose to speak of, and its jaw was in no way connected to its head. Its body was sleek like sculpted sand, completely black with a few cut swaths of red, the same shade as its eyes and teeth. Its limbs floated much like its jaw: the legs had no connection to the torso, nor did its arms. At every joint limbs were disconnected, hands floating in front of a smooth nub that would have been the end of the arm and the start of the wrist.

It reminded her of a living marionette without strings, unaffected by gravity or physics or the rules of reality.

"Pitiful," the sand-thing said, and Clerise whimpered because that voice was one she knew intimately and completely because it was her own. It was hardened with disgust and fuelled by a pure sort of hatred that Clerise would never know, but it was hers, and it was clear that this thing had robbed her of her speech, of her identity. "You're the version that gets to live on, between the two of us?"

She could not reply, for she had no voice. She could not move, for there was only pain. She could not look away, for there was only horror.

It laughed-- no, she laughed, because this thing sounded like her and talked like her and-- and circled her, its shape inconsistent, hands turning into long scissor-claws, snipping in the air, her face twisting into something more like Clerise's own instead of a blank shadow.

And then, the shadow kicked at her broken ribs, abrupt and without mercy, and the yelp Clerise released was pitiful to her own ears, barely a sound at all in the deafening silence of her shadowed realm.

This place was foreign to Clerise, but the shadow was familiar.

"Let me tell you a story," she crooned, false-saccharine sweetness dripping out from between garnet teeth, and the shadow ducked down to press her forehead to Clerise's, tongue changing into a forked thing akin to a snake's, flicking it against the tear-streaked face.

"My name is The Fool, and I am from a place where shadows reign supreme, a Kingdom built on Revenge and darkness and death." The shadow laid a foot upon Clerise's back, toes shifting into talons of a bird, thick and sharp and pressing into the fabric of her skin, slicing through it with ease, rubbing sand into the wounds with the callous cruelty of a sociopath.

"I was The Fool, for no one got to have my name save for the King himself, and I masqueraded with a personality akin to yours; stupid and vapid and carefree. Honest and open and loving and childish, and all the court laughed at my antics. All the King's shadows knew me, for I was a great entertainer, if not the best." Clerise's mind latched onto the shadow's words, for they were the only thing distracting her from the feeling of her lung collapsing, pierced by the claws, and she breathed so shallow she thought she might faint.

"But," the imitator continued, voice lazily dripping with derision, "Unlike you, I actually made myself something great."

Out of the corner of her eye, Clerise saw the black moon slowly sink towards the ocean, careening towards it in slow-motion. The shadow laughed, and it echoed in the confined space of the dream, even if it seemed to be an infinite beach, the force of the waves rising, rocks raising out of the dark water with jagged edges.

A storm of catastrophic proportions was brewing.

"As I was saying," The Fool continued, happily cutting past Clerise's navel, gleeful, "I served a great king, and a Voice spoke to him. A Voice that promised him great things, that wanted him to go to war with so many other Kingdoms, so that he might sit upon the true throne and be named the One True King."

Clerise's lower lip trembled.

"So he picked his most loyal of servants, and while he did not choose me, he chose many others, and we all competed so that the Kingdom of Shadows might become the greatest of them all. But we failed, and true to our name, we remained in the shadows of the other six Kingdoms."

With nausea so great she thought she might faint, Clerise watched The Fool remove each piece of her-- but instead of true organs, they were ideas, thoughts, affections, memories, little pockets of who she truly was.

This was not a comfort, for the Fool was making room for her own memories, for the darkness that would forever be in Clerise's mind, rearranging them at will and filling them in with the blackest of sand.

"Know this, Clerise Nicole, first of your name, from the family of Wilson. I am the greatest creature you will ever encounter."

Thunder sounded in the distance, and obsidian lightning flashed in the distance-- with hazy eyes, she saw that the moon had finally collided into the sea, dissolving into it.

Dream is collapsing.

"Know that I despise your existence, for you are the inferior product, a creation of a coddled world and a spoilt life. You know nothing of death or war or the darkness that lies in the heart of men. I am the end of innocence, and to you, I am the alpha and the omega alike."

The water level rose, the already choppy sea growing more and more distressed, and she thought she heard the baying of a hound in the scream of the wind.

"You do not deserve to continue on, but you will do so with the gifts I bequeath upon you, even though I suspect you shall do nothing but wallow in your squalor without ever truly achieving anything great at all."

She smiled, the shadow, and the dark heavens above opened up, rain pouring down upon them both: it was a cleansing rain, and The Fool began to erode under its torrential power, until all that was left was a cheshire smile, individual rubies clicking against each other as they spoke, and Clerise's body began to slowly heal itself: ribs knitting, skin pulling together, queasiness fading.

"My memories will be your upraising, or you will be your own downfall. Consider this to be your personal responsibility."

The teeth dropped, one by one, a collection of uncut rubies rested on Clerise's belly.

She laid on the sand, chest healed over without a scar, and let the water wash over her, taking pleasure in the drowning. Unlike the churning Arctic waters that had nearly ended her life, this ocean was warm and pleasant, and, sudsy--