Arcadian Dreamleech
Dream Eaters
Lovely things, perfect pleasure makers... But you might want to book some time off if you consider using one of these to find bliss.
Arcadian Dreamleeches are insect-like wildlife native to Bleached Arcadia. They feed of the imagination of their victims, leaving them in euphoric comas.
Dream-Eaters
Anatomy
On average, they are no bigger than one’s finger, appearing as a hybrid of a bloodsucker and a cicada. They do not have any legs but possess a hard shell that protects their soft bodies.
Beneath their shells they hide two pairs of colourful transparent wings. Each one’s mouth also comprises of a circular sucker with hair-thin teeth used to penetrate the skull.
Life Cycle & Reproduction
A Dream Leech begins its life as a larva planted into a host’s brain. Feeding of euphoric thoughts, they slowly grow of the diet by keeping them in such a constant state.
Once large enough, the soft-bodied creature squirms its way through the eye socket out of the host, where it then develops its hard shell. Within a few days, its wings and shell are strong enough to support flight, allowing it to seek new hosts.
From the moment a leech a mature, it seeks to reproduce. They do this while feeding, often laying their eggs into the victim’s brain at the same they latch onto the skull.
Within only a few days, most die of starvation, as after reproduction they will stop feeding to let their young feed instead. On average, one leech can produce a dozen offspring.
Dietary Needs
Like many other species native to Bleached Arcadia, it feeds off emotional energy of people. It does so by latching onto the victim's head and putting them in an euphoria-driven dream state.
Feeding only takes a few minutes, but the effects can last for hours. Together with their habit of laying eggs in people's brain, its offspring may continue the dreams. Victims can then end up in a comatose state for months, if not years if they don't die from starvation first.
Drug Usage
Dream Leeches sometimes get harvested for their hallucinatory properties. Demons squeeze them dry, only to bottle the liquid into a drink offered at local establishments.
This drug causes one’s dreams to feel more intense and realistic, even blurring the lines between it and the real world. With a high enough dosage, the effects become permanent, leaving people in a trance state where they can’t distinguish the two anymore.
This is terrifying. I'm not a fan of bugs to begin with, but having one climb out of the eye socket just sounds horrifying. Great job with the imagery; I'll have a hard time getting to sleep with this thing living rent-free in my imagination.
If you want to know something worst, originally I had it they just burst out the skull when hatching and kill the host. Though I do think this methods feels both more logical and more horrifying.