David woke up in the same damned nightmare he'd woken up in 1,000 times before.

  However, this one felt different.

  Lighter, almost.

  Like there was no taut string, pulling him towards the end immediately, but an exit door he could go through at any time.

  It would have been great if he hadn't had an idea of what awaited him beyond that door.

  That damn artifact.

  Honestly, there was nothing he hated more than it, especially the effect it had on his psyche.

  His blood ran cold as the thought of what happened upon reaching it had run through his mind.

  He needed to distract himself, and coincidentally, he was in the perfect place to do so.

  The city of dreams.

  At least, that's what Icarus would have called it, given how much he would have loved it, due to the futuristic nature of it.

  He wondered how it would have been if he had spent a day with Icarus here, before the accident.

  No doubt it would be exhausting.

  The man would likely jump around, from place to place, analyzing each building, wondering how they functioned, and why their technology, while advanced, lacked any form of electricity at all.

  Of course, David would know the reason, because he read the briefings beforehand. A habit the other lacked, often leading to him getting placed in precarious situations.

  But he wouldn't tell him that, it's much more fun to watch the other muse over the fact, each answer more absurd than the other, but closer to the truth.

  Eventually, of course, Icarus would find out that the world could simply not use technology; in fact, it was denied to them. Reports found that once any technological advancement from the other world reached a certain level, it would simply lose its function in this one.

  Which is almost always tied to things using an electric power source.

  It took a while for the team David had been in charge of to find out why that was the case, infact it took all of 5 years to find out the truth, which had appeared on his desk quite recently.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  It was simple, really; this world had an entirely different set of rules.

  In fact, it had few rules at all.

  Their homeworld, which had been laced in invisible laws, like evolution taking centuries of time, and physics. Didn't translate to this world, which was effectively lawless.

  The rules that governed technology were inapplicable here. This had stumped many scientists until one day the answer was found indirectly through Icarus's experiments, though the man was ill-informed on the developments of any other plans, despite his own.

  Turns out, the way power worked in their world functioned as a sort of bartering system. With electricity functioning as coin for trade, and the mechanics of everything electricity ran through as the "order," which the universe would grant, given enough coin. However, in this world, there was no bartering system, because any power the individual wanted, they could just take for themselves, albeit incurring a curse in the process.

  This led to a vacuum when it came to innovation, however, because there weren't any rules present to be bent to humanity's will. Leading to the entire world to be permanently stuck in the steam age.

  David withheld all this information from Icarus, however, and every one of his colleagues knew the reasons.

  Firstly, David didn't want to disturb the man, who was working day and night on an entirely separate project, upon seeing the mages of this world who wielded stolen power.

  And secondly, David just enjoyed seeing him work out the puzzle that had taken an entire team of people, excluding himself, of course, an entire year to work out, in a couple of minutes.

  And he loved especially the little smile that would flash across his face upon hearing how much better he was than anybody else, which would fill his chest with a dull warmth he couldn't quite place

  A smile David never saw after the accident.

  which was a realization that made his eyes sting.

  He reached up, wiping away the discomfort from his eyes, only to find that when they left his face, he was in the one room he had wished to avoid.

  The one holding that damned artifact.

  The air around him shifted to an unnatural hue, saturating each color to a headache-inducing level, causing David to black out.

  Only he hadn't blacked out, because he was greeted by a figure he knew all too well, only the scene was different than the usual one he saw, of a figure looming before an infinite string, weaving it endlessly.

  Towering above his vision, breaching far past the stars above him, David saw a figure cloaked in darkness reach for him, hands cupping around his frame, and raising him to meet its cold, dark eyes.

  "It seems you have suffered a fate you shouldn't have, young one."

  The dark one said, pulling at a string from inside David's chest, analyzing it closely.

  "Yes, all is as I have written so far-"

  The being stopped suddenly, hundreds of eyes opening across its face and hands as they all focused on a single point.

  "Ah, it seems you have come in contact with a remnant of my late son, sorry, but I had no control over that…" The eyes narrowed at the string

  "Though it seems you were only exposed, so the curse was weak enough not to cause immediate harm."

  The thing fixed its gaze on David, causing thousands of eyes to stare at him at once from all around him.

  "I shall fix this discrepancy, though I may not be able to fix your arm; I shall fix your state of mental being, as well as bless you for your hardship."

  Hundreds of arms sprouted from the being's back, each covered with thousands of eyes, all fixed onto David's form as they all descended upon it, encasing him in a prison of hands with eyes sprouting from them.

  "Rest easy now, you are blessed by fate, and shall benefit greatly from its path."

  David awoke with a start, almost waking Icarus's sleeping form that lay perched on a chair, head resting at the edge of his hospital bed.