After Aiden and Bruce's pitch was successful and it was finalised that Vikings publishing was going to issue the first chapter to critics and the audience, things went pretty quickly.
Bruce was almost unable to believe that his comic was going to be published. He had already given up on it.
But Aiden told him to keep his legs on the ground for now.
The fate of the series was going to be decided by the readers and reception. They had only gotten the pass to participate in the race, they had not won it yet.
Bruce understood his advice and didn't show a lot of emotions, using them to create better work.
At the same time, as the project was under Vikings publishing, they quickly made a contract for Aiden while Bruce became an employee of the publishing company.
Normally, writers in the company were asked to make characters or continue an ongoing one until one could get a chance to pitch their original comic. If the pitch was successful, it was common for that writer to join the company.
But Aiden wasn't going to do that. He had no reason to.
So, there was a separate contract for him to work on the project.
Vikings publishing also assigned a whole space for them to work in and brought in other employees to help in the project. Although there were 4 people other than Bruce and Aiden, it was a lot of help.
These people had the job of a letterer, penciller, inker and colourist. Making a comic took a lot of effort after all.
With their help, the work moved forward in a very professional manner as the others, aside from Bruce and him, already had experience.
Though, for a while, Aiden was scared that it would cause problems as the others might not think of Aiden and Bruce as much due to their age and inexperience.
But his worries were for nothing.
The others were very professional and Jim, who was overseeing the project as the editor, was someone who let the writer and main artists work in their own ways and commanded a lot of respect.
Just because of him, it was smooth sailing in terms of working together.
For the first issue, they needed to add more to their draft and correct a few things according to the suggestion of Jim.
While working on the comic, Aiden felt like he was learning a lot about how things worked in this industry. It was a completely new experience for him.
As he worked on it, he also felt like he was getting a bit better. Maybe it was just because his attention was completely away from his nightmares now or because the pills that Dr. Penny had given him were finally doing its job.
He didn't know what was true, but while writing down the scripts, he was letting out the feelings that he would experience after waking from cold nightmares.
It was an indescribable feeling for him.
Other than that, Aiden was also discussing with Jim and Bruce a very important thing.
The name of the graphic novel.
Originally, the name was simply <Nightmare Guy>, which was obviously something they couldn't use as it seemed like a children's novel like this.
So, there was a lot of discussion about the name as the release of the first issue was coming close.
All of them discussed a lot of names, including 'Night Warrior', 'Shadow Man', 'The Shadow thing', 'Caged God's disciple' and much more.
But none of them clicked with the story.
They either looked too simple or just plain. Some of them were also just names that a 13 year old might come up with.
In the end, Aiden decided to go with a title that he thought really suited the atmosphere of the graphic novel at its best.
<Morpheus>.
The name sounded similar to the name of a very cool vampire but it had nothing to do with it.
Aiden had chosen it because one of the titular gods in the comic has that as a nickname and he was connected with the story in a lot more than one way.
The main character was named Volke Victor alongside it.
The release of <Morpheus> was decided to be 3rd October as generally, Vikings publishing released their new issues every on every Tuesday.
As soon as it was locked, Aiden was a bit anxious.
He had complete confidence over his story, but he didn't know if it would reach the right audience.
Unlike with his first novel where he was assured due to getting an award, a comic was very different and new titles wouldtake time to warm up to the readers as original ones were already running for decades.
People prefer established ones better than new ones and Vikings publishing anyway didn't have too much dominance in the graphic novel industry.
So, it was a risk for everyone involved. But by this point, Aiden knew that his every move was a risk.
He could only endure being anxious till the results came out.
***
While Aiden was recovering from his mental health issues and doing a comic, he had completely slipped from the eye of the media.
The last big news about him was him winning a million dollars in a game show and then, the news of him fainting on the set.
After that, it was nothing and the media soon lost interest, mainly because Aiden's personal life wasn't worth a lot currently.
He wasn't an individual who would be seen in every other party and certainly wasn't someone who did questionable things, so his life was boring for the media.
Obviously, with his popularity rising, that would change as even a small thing like who he was talking to would get into tabloids but that was in the future.
Currently, there was spicier news for the media and as Aiden was also inactive in his social media accounts with his team just sending out a few things from time to time, his fan group started wondering where he was exactly.
At that time, a certain user posted a picture of him in Vikings publishing office cafeteria, eating lunch with a few people.
The photo was taken from a Skygram account.
Seeing that photo, the inactive group suddenly came to life.
[Aiden's wife: Where is that? That seems like a cafeteria? Can someone tell me the address? I feel like wanting to eat some food from the cafeteria.]
[Writer of Art of Yandere: Your stalker side is showing. Remember the Art of Yandere waifu. Never give away your innermost thoughts. You need to be innocent to the world and make them believe that the knife in your hand doesn't exist.]
[Nani: Brother, giving out a whole messed up sermon out of nowhere. Anyway, that's Viking publishing going by the name written in the far right corner. Probably an employee posted it.]
[Levine's wife: The question is what is he doing there? He's certainly not on break it seems.]
[Arthur Morgan's follower: Maybe a new book? Man, reminds me I need to finish up <Behind the scenes>. The story got too heavy for me midway, so I stopped.>
[Hollywood Insider: It's not a book.]
[Moaning Pikachu: How do you know that? Your godly network got more information on Aiden? Man, are you actually a yandere, trying to know everything about Aiden?]
[Hollywood Insider: No, my stupid friend. Just do a simple search. Vikings publishing didn't have any novel with Aiden in their roster for the next three months. Even if it's a novel, it won't come out this year. Secondly, they added a new graphic novel to their roster for digital sales. Aiden's name has it as the writer and creator. He's doing a graphic novel for them. #BigBrain.]
Hearing that, a lot of people searched it up and it was true. They discussed this unexpected news when another post came up in the group.
It was a link to Aiden's latest post on his social media accounts. A post was talking about his graphic novel <Morpheus>.
***
A man entered a comic book store with his hands in his pocket. He was wearing a hoodie that covered his hair and some parts of his eyes, making him look like a shady individual.
It was fairly early in the morning and not a lot of people were inside.
One of the employees was arranging the comic books in their respective shelves next to the poster of a superhero movie that had come out two years ago and had been a box office behemoth.
With the rise of comic book movies, stores like these had benefitted the most as what was nerd culture before became popular culture.
The man took a look around and headed towards a certain corner where young adult comic books were stacked.
He picked up one of them about a man with metal claws and just went through it while keeping an eye on the graphic novel shelf next to where he was standing.
At that moment, a few people who looked to be college students walked in and headed straight for the Graphic novel shelf.
"Man, last month's issue of <Breathe> was amazing. Can't believe his mom was the one to seal his powers."
"Ah, I'm more excited for <It's Vampire Time>. That thing just rocks."
"You two really like comic books."
"You will too if you try them."
The man listened to the conversation of the college students as they walked past him. It was at that moment that one of them saw a strange cover and picked the book up.
"<Morpheus>. What's this one? I never saw it before."
The man's eyes shined seeing that.
He was Aiden, who had come to this comic book store just to see if people were going to buy <Morpheus> or not.
