In the void that Moreno created after the consumption of Souls, Bode stirred. They were not born, for birth implies a beginning, and Bode is a paradox—a thing that simply is, was, and will always be. Beyond the bounds of time and space, where even Primordials falter in comprehension, Bode floated through the static chaos, bored. They had woven countless timelines already, stories with beginnings and endings, joy and sorrow, that of the same quality and tapestry of the Astral trees timelines, but these had grown dull, like a well-thumbed book. Bode desired more. Something endless. Something worse.
And so, they reached into the deepest folds of their mind and shaped a creation unlike any other: a multiverse of nightmares. But not just one nightmare—no, that would be too simple. Bode wanted something recursive, a lattice of universes and planes that would fold in on themselves, stacking fear upon fear. There would be no end to it, no closure. Only layers.
They began by constructing the First Layer, a pocket of reality stitched from primordial fears: the dark corners of childhood, the faceless shadows in forgotten memories, and the suffocating dread of isolation. This realm was filled with things half-glimpsed—creatures whose existence was implied rather than seen, always just beyond the labyrinth of sight. The beings that lived there knew only fear, but the fear was manageable, like a bad dream one might wake from.
But Bode was not satisfied. They plucked the worst of these fears and refined it, amplifying its cruelty, and with a subtle twist, created the Second Layer. In this new realm, the fear was not just present—it was the foundation of reality itself. Sentient beings found that to think of safety was to invite something worse. Here, even hope was a predator that lured minds into traps, only to consume them whole.
Yet this, too, was not enough. What if they tried to escape? Bode wondered. The answer: They couldn't. In the Nightmare Multiverse, no one ever truly escapes—each exit leads only to another nightmare, deeper and more grotesque than the last.
Bode began to spiral outward, pulling threads of fear from every conceivable source, each more harrowing than the last. Layers multiplied exponentially, each plane containing horrors shaped by the worst concepts imaginable. There was the Eternal Labyrinth, a realm where beings wandered forever, unable to remember where they came from or where they were going. There was The Timeless Maw, where time looped endlessly, and those trapped within relived their worst moments infinitely, aware they would never change their fate. And beneath them all was the Layer of Forgotten Things, where even the Primordials became nameless, fading into the static void as stories without an audience.
Each layer was a perfect trap, a self-contained nightmare, yet all connected in ways that defied logic. To climb out of one nightmare was to descend into another, more terrible version of it. The multiverse folded in on itself, an ouroboros of terror feeding upon its own fears. This was Bode's genius: no matter how many times the nightmare seemed to end, the victim would always awaken somewhere worse.
And then Bode smiled—or at least, what could be called a smile. They had created stories that devour themselves. Realities that could think, dream, and suffer endlessly. Even the beings born into these nightmares—those unfortunate enough to be sentient—were storytellers in their own right. They spun narratives of escape, of triumph over fear, only to find that every ending they imagined birthed new horrors. Each resolution was another nightmare waiting to be born.
Bode's creation began to take on a life of its own. Entire pantheons of cosmic entities were born within the layers, believing themselves to be the architects of reality, unaware they were puppets dancing to a script written by Bode. Some gods fought against the nightmares, only to realize they were characters in stories of divine failure. Heroic beings, defiant to the end, would sacrifice themselves to save others—only to awaken in a deeper layer, their sacrifice twisted into a cruel joke.
The Nightmare Multiverse was complete, yet it was never truly finished. It evolved, feeding on the fears and minds of those within, growing more complex with every iteration. Bode watched with satisfaction as the multiverse writhed and expanded, a self-perpetuating engine of suffering. Entire universes within the layers blinked in and out of existence, born from fleeting thoughts of fear. Entire lifetimes were spent fleeing from terrors that had no beginning or end.
And yet, even Bode did not fully understand the scope of their own creation. They had woven something too vast, too recursive. There were whispers—faint and fragmented—that somewhere within the nightmares lay a story even Bode could not control. A nightmare so pure, so absolute, that even its creator might one day be swallowed by it.
Bode drifted beyond the layers of their creation, and content. They were not bound to any one nightmare but existed as a presence that touched them all, an author who never stopped writing, even when the ink ran dry. And so, the Nightmare Multiverses carried on, growing further and further into infinity—a story with no beginning and no end, only suffering without resolution.
Somewhere, deep in the folds of these endless layers, a voice whispered into the void:
"There is no waking from this."
And Bode, the Weaver of Infinite Dread, chuckled at the thought of their masterpiece—a multiverse where nightmares are the only truth and reality itself is the worst story ever told.