Dream, Delusion, and Reality is an ongoing free-to-read original Urban Fantasy fiction created by the troper Phoenixion. The story can be read for free here
.
The story is set in 23rd century, in a post-apocalyptic world. Once a peaceful Planet Earth has been ruined by mysterious race of invading creatures. These creatures' origin is still unknown although many believe they are not aliens. They appear in various forms, although generally they are either Humanoid Abomination or Animalistic Abomination. They simply come out of nowhere. Apparently it is believed they can disappear and reappear anytime without warning (no one actually have seen this, because those creatures might be a master of Offscreen Teleportation). It's also unknown what actually happened to their victims, because none of the victims' body is ever found. The invasion of these strange invading creatures will be referred as The Apocalypse throughout the story.
The human population has been significantly reduced. The majority of human survivors take refugee in a newly-built and tightly-protected town called Metropole. Metropole has no formal government and law. What can be referred as government is a council called "Metropole Council", whose members are various from time to time. Due to lack of formal law, Metropole is also plagued by petty criminals who are generally keep a Crazy Survivalist mind: They are willing to do anything, even if it’s amoral, to survive living in this crazy post-apocalyptic world. Thankfully, not all of Metropole citizens are like that.
Metropole is still far from utopia, but the modern technology has been attempted to rebuild. But the lack of various resources causes the process of rebuilding to become pretty slow. However, it’s safe to say the communication and transportation are already established. Tablet and mobile phone are available to use, and various conventional vehicles have also been created. However, the city still lacks of Flying Car, which is common in 23rd century before The Apocalypse happened.
School is only available in the form of Metropole Public School, which is open to every people from any age and gender. Some teachers are volunteers from civillians, but there are also people from government (read: Metropole Council) who become teachers in the school.
The closest thing Metropole has as defensive force is Metropole Militia, who consist not only men and women with military background, but also civillians with various knowledge and skills about self-defense, either armed or unarmed. Their primary job is to keep Metropole safe from the invading creatures outside the town's perimeter. Aside from militia, there's also Metropole Police Department who is responsible for local security.
The central part of the story, however, will revolve around an 18-years-old boy named Friedrich "Fritz" Ivanov, and several other characters related to him in some form, especially Fritz's milk sister and biological mother, Anja Ivanova and Aya Aslanova, respectively.
Dream, Delusion, and Reality provides examples of:
- Action Dad:
- Anja's father, Pyotr Ivanov, is a cop and a father.
- Elias is also a father and Air Force officer.
- Action Girl: Anja not only has athletic physique, but she's also physically stronger than her brother. She's been actively protecting him from bullies. She also saved him from criminal women who appears to be would-be-rapists.
- Action Mom: Anja's mother, Wanda Ivanova, practices martial arts.
- Adoptive Peer Parent: Elsa (22 years old) for her niece and adoptive daughter, Asuka (4 years old).
- After the End: The story is set in post-apocalyptic world after mysterious race of invading creatures ruined the Earth.
- Aloof Big Brother: In his childhood, Aya's older brother, Dr. Ivan Aslanov, is raised by other relatives and lived separately from his sister for many years. This caused their relationship to be restrained, but they still maintain contact. They are also close colleagues in the hospital: Ivan is a doctor and Aya is a nurse.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Judging from the prologue, the invading creatures are implied to be this.
- Ambiguously Human: The mysterious woman in Fritz's Nightmare Dreams looks like a human, except she has shiny crystalline skin.
- Badass Bookworm: Wanda is experienced lawyer and martial arts practitioner.
- Benevolent A.I.: Sera, an experimental AI created by Elias' deceased wife, Hana. She works as personal assistant for Elias, Elsa, and Asuka.
- Big Brother Instinct: Inverted, it is Anja who is protective to her physically weaker brother.
- Big Sister Instinct: Presumably the reason why Felicia attacked Elias' squad in Chapter #4 is to protect her sick brother.
- Big Little Sister: Anja is younger and one head taller than Fritz.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Chapter #4 to a little extent, compared with the previous chapters. At least two people are wounded and one of them had her face bloodstained.
- By-the-Book Cop: Pyotr is a police officer and has strong sense of honor. Naturally, he's in charge in investigating and solving the attempted rape case which victimized his son.
- Cats Are Mean: Felicia, although she's supposed to be human, according to Sera, with Wolverine Claws.
- Chest Insignia: As described in Fritz's Nightmare Dreams, each of the mysterious ivading creatures has unidentified symbol on their chest.
- Dark and Troubled Past: In the day of Fritz's birth, Aya suffered certain health problems and was unable to fulfill her duty as a mother; namely provided him breast milk, among others. It caused her to ask Wanda to breast-fed Fritz, allowing Wanda to become Fritz's wet nurse and, shortly after, adoptive mother. And then, for yet still unknown reasons, she didn't reunite with her son until his late teens.
- Death by Childbirth: Elias' wife, Hana, is dead after she gave birth to their daughter. Inverted with Elsa, whose son is dead but she survives.
- Depraved Bisexual: According to Fritz, his attempted-rapists (most, if not all, of them are women) not only assaulted men, but also other women.
- Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female: The attempted rapists (among them are women, if not all of them are women) are also known to rape women. And this trope itself is averted, though, as it's not treated as "okay". see Double Standard Rape: Female on Male below.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Totally averted, and it's an Attempted Rape in this case. The rapists are found guilty and imprisoned for their crimes. The victim (Fritz) is also traumatized by the incident.
- Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: Again, averted, and there may or may not be men among his attempted rapists. Fritz implies his rapists are women (he called them "bitch"), but he doesn't deny nor confirm there are men among them or not.
- Dressed to Heal: Elsa wears typical doctor's white coat in her workplace.
- Dye Hard: Elias dyes his naturally-blond hair into brunette, to match his daughter's hair colour.
- Electric Torture: In Chapter #4, Ingrid incapacitated Felicia this way, an action that is supposedly forbidden on human.
- Empathy Doll Shot: Before everything goes down in the mission, Elias found a bloodstained doll in the forest.
- Enfante Terrible: Felicia is introduced in Chapter #4 this way. She attacked Elias and his squad without provocation, and she claims she killed human scavangers who once attempted to rob her and her brother's shelter.
- Femme Fatalons: Felicia's fingernails are extremely sharp and they are allegedly strong enough to kill humans.
- Fiery Redhead: Anja's hair colour is strawberry blonde and she's protective to her brother. She's also rather aggressive while talking to Elsa in her introductory chapter, namely she doesn't like how Elsa and Aya seem to be insensitive towards Fritz's possible Green-Eyed Monster traits.
- First-Person Perspective: The story is written from first-person Point of View and each chapter has different POV. Chapter #1 uses Fritz's POV, and Chapter #2 uses Anja's.
- Fluffy Tamer: Somehow, Felicia claims the "invaders" are tame towards her and her brother. Fittingly, she calls them "fluffies".
- Forceful Kiss: From Fritz's inner monologue, it's revealed he suffered this from one of his attempted rapists.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: The invading creatures have glowing yellow eyes, as stated in Fritz's nightmare.
- Green-Eyed Monster: It's stated by Anja that Fritz is jealous (or at least sensitive) towards his mother's close relationship to Elsa, as their relationship looks so much like mother-daughter despite they're just aunt and niece. The fact that Fritz is still not very close to his mother doesn't help this.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Elsa is blonde and good doctor, sister, and adoptive mother. The same can be said to Elias, who is A Father to His Men, though his hair is dyed into brown-ish.
- Happily Adopted: Several.
- Fritz is raised by his wet nurse’s (Wanda) family since he was a baby.
- Aya is adopted by Renata after her parents died.
- Ivan is raised by his relative’s family despite his parents were still alive at the time (the reason is not-yet-revealed).
- Asuka is adopted by her aunt Elsa.
- On the other hand, Elsa and Elias both call Aya as “mother” while Aya also treats them as her own children. This is because, according to Elsa, Aya is the coolest aunt they can get, and their father Ivan is emotionally distand and very rarely has time for them. Notably, this displeases Fritz because this makes him don’t understand why his mother left him in another family while she’s more than capable to be Elsa and Elias’ adoptive mother.
- Hates Being Touched: Fritz, after the attempted rape. He regrets having this trait when he accidentally avoided his mother's attempt to caress his chin and immediately apologized to her.
- Healing Factor: Chapter #4 reveals this seems to be default abilty of the "invaders", hence why they are Nigh-Invulnerable. They aren't really invincible, though, and according to Elias, the easiest way to incapacitate them is to sedate them with a very strong tranquilizer. The weakest variant of them can also be instantly stunned with taser.
- Herr Doktor: Ezekiel is a German doctor and surgeon.
- Human Popsicle: Fritz is somehow being frozen in his nightmare, maybe the crystalline woman is An Ice Person?
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Felicia's phylosophy. She claims she once killed human savagers that attempted to rob her and her brother's shelter.
- Icy Blue Eyes: Felicia and Felix each has blues that are as cold as ice, or at least that's how Elias describes them.
- In-Series Nickname: Friedrich is called "Fritz".
- In Touch with His Feminine Side: Fritz lacks of athleticism, lacks of aggression, has emotional personality, and has effeminate appearace. Whether he also has feminine interests remains to be seen.
- Incest Subtext: Elsa and Elias sleep in the same bed, though with Asuka between them in the middle. Elsa also adopts Asuka, making herself essentially her niece's mother.
- Little Big Brother: Fritz is older and one head shorter than Anja.
- Mama Bear: Wanda is protective mother to both of her children. She helped her husband's investigation on their son's attempted rape case.
- The Medic: Elsa, Ivan, and Ezekiel are doctors. Aya also qualifies for being a nurse.
- Mystical White Hair:
- The hair colour for Fritz and his mother, Aya, is platinum blonde.
- Felicia's and Felix's hair are even paler shades of platinum blonde, as both Elsa and Elias silently agreed.
- Muscle Angst: Fritz is relatively small for a boy of his age, as well as having health problems throughout his life. It doesn't help that all of his family members, both the biological and adoptive families, are physically fit, making him the odd family member out compared to them all.
- Never Found the Body: The bodies of all invading creatures’ human victims are never found.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Fritz silently wonders if Elsa is this when she's not only interested but also forced him to tell her about his nightmare.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Elias attempted to stop his subordinate Dior who wanted to kill Felicia. During this skirmish, Elias' arm is stabbed by Felicia's sharp fingernails instead.
- Non-Action Guy: Fritz, he occassionally needs protection from his sister whenever he's bullied.
- Offscreen Teleportation: It's implied the invading creatures are capable to do it.
- Our Monsters Are Different: As seen in Fritz's Nightmare Dreams, the mysterious creatures appear in the form of Humanoid Abomination and Animalistic Abomination, among others.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Poor Elsa has to accept the fact her son died in childbirth.
- Parental Abandonment:
- Disappeared Dad: Fritz's biological father is still unrevealed. His identity is completely unknown. According to Elsa, Aya is still unwilling to reveal who he is.
- Missing Mom: Aya for Fritz, before the story. Also, Asuka's mother, Hana, is dead by childbirth.
- Parental Neglect: Ivan is emotionally estranged from his children, Elsa and Elias.
- Parental Substitute: Renata to Aya. Wanda and Pyotr to Fritz. Elsa to Asuka. Ezekiel to Lily and Chris.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Elsa and Elias (twin siblings) live in the same house and raise Asuka together.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Elias' two superior officer, Colonel Castleton and Lt. Colonel Brunnhilde, especially the latter, who managed to convince Felicia and Felix to come with them to Metropole.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Elsa lampshades this trope when she almost did a red-light running on the road, citing that she has Pyotr Ivanov as connection in the police department.
- The Shrink: Elsa is The Awesome Shrink. She's willing to help her cousin's mental illness.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Anja and Wanda's eyes colour is green. They have strawberry blonde and auburn hair, respectively.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Elsa and her father, Ivan, are doctors; they wear glasses, and contact lenses for Elsa.
- Stoic Spectacles: As stated in his bio, Ivan wears glasses and is somewhat distant to his sister, though they still maintain close contact.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Fritz looks very similar with his biological mother Aya. Anja also resembles her mother, Wanda.
- Super-Reflexes: Felicia. She easily avoids many shots of Sniper Rifle from Elias' two squad members.
- Statuesque Stunner: Wanda is tall, well-endowed, and physically fit.
- Teen Pregnancy: Aya was only 16 or 17 years old when she conceived Fritz. For two less controversial examples, there are Elsa and Hana who are much likely 18 or 19 years old when they were pregnant. Unlike Aya, it's at least confirmed they're already married at the time.
- Vague Age: Mentioned in bio, Renata (Aya's adoptive mother) looks remarkably youthful in her 60s, although her skunk stripe might be caused by her aging.
- Would Hurt a Child: Ingrid. On her defense, said child almost killed her two teammates.
