The Sleeper.
It rested in-between.
Not a dimension. Not a plane. Something else—something vast, something unknowable—lurking in the spaces between. A being that did not belong to the ordered structure of reality, yet existed all the same. It had no beginning, no end. Just presence.
And I had shaken it awake.
A mistake. An accident. But it noticed me all the same.
The interference pressed against my mind, not like words, not even like thoughts—more like static forming into concepts. And somehow, I understood. It had been asleep for an eternity, an existence without identity, drifting in a state beyond time. Not waiting, not watching—just being.
And then I came along. Stumbling through magic I thought I understood. Testing theories I had no right to tamper with. My experiment had brushed against the in-between, tapping on a door that was never meant to be knocked upon.
The Nexus trembled in response. The Sleeper's attention wasn't like that of a mortal mind—it wasn't directed, it wasn't intentional. It was simply there, pressing against the edges of reality, shifting without meaning to. But even an unconscious twitch from something that enormous sent ripples through existence. I could feel them, see them—patterns unraveling, strands of the Nexus vibrating in distress.
It wasn't malicious. It wasn't even awake in the way I understood wakefulness. But that didn't make it harmless.
The space between spaces shuddered. My vision swam with cascading symbols and shifting geometries, impossibilities stacking upon impossibilities. The enormity of it struck me like a physical weight—this wasn't just an entity. It was a force. A fundamental truth of the unknown, stretching across the boundaries of comprehension.
I swallowed hard. This was not something I could fight. Not something I could reason with. It didn't even know I existed. Not fully. Not yet.
The Sleeper had no name. Nothing had ever dared to name it. And yet, as I grasped for a way to understand, I settled on one.
The Sleeper.
Because it rested between dimensions, unseen, untouched.
Because it was unsettling.
Because I had woken it up.
The Nexus trembled again. Energy patterns wavered, threatening to destabilize. One wrong move—one error—and I wouldn't just be closing this connection. I'd be ripping something open.
I exhaled slowly. "Okay. No pressure."
I needed to sever this link carefully. No sudden moves. No rash decisions.
And absolutely no snarky comments directed at eldritch beings who didn't know what sarcasm was.
Because let's be honest—if it actually did hear me, I'd be so, so screwed.