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imagined—as embarrassing as that is to admit—and I
needed a fuller understanding than what was provided by
intermittent dreams and murdered men. Thus, my next
stop was a place I had only called upon once before—New
Victoria.
The city had been erected from the broken corpse of
fallen Boston, its name and aesthetic lifted from the only
part of the Cradle of Liberty to survive the mysterious storm
that killed her—the South End. In short order, it would
serve as the surest counterexample to solid reality, prior to
the Darkness, that is. The New Victorian Dream Plague was
almost twenty years older than the Great Darkness. And
while it might have been more circumscribed in its range,
it was no less portentous for the lesser reach. It was only
after the military proved insufficient at halting the spread of
contagious nightmare that it was determined the city would
be evacuated and quarantined. Despite the plague and razor
wire and walls, and given its association with dreams, I had
once found it a suitable place to visit. But I was quickly and
thoroughly disillusioned of any relationship my art and the
city might have shared.
Perhaps foolishly, I fear very few things. What I
encountered in New Victoria inspired a feeling that
surpassed any of the best formulations of fear I know. While
my memories only carry back a hazy recollection of my time
in the City that Never Wakes, they’re more than enough to
convince me that sometimes, sleep is not worth the risk of
dreaming.
Unfortunately, New Victoria was the only place my
recent—and apparently, shared—dreams might be given
some useful interpretation. I knew of certain persons who
dwelt there, somewhere between this world and some much
darker place, who interacted with dreams as intimately and
completely as sculptors work clay. Given my insight into the
wicked city, I hoped to safely and ever-so-briefly revisit it. I
only needed to stay awake within its borders, or I might find
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