A Dream?
Aside from the times a Hero-grade adventurer showed up, push notifications never came. So what on earth was flooding his phone with this many alerts?
He rubbed his eyes and shifted onto his stomach, unlocked the screen, and logged into the game.
"Ugh… so sleepy."
His eyelids felt like lead after being yanked out of sleep. He forced them open and glared at the phone.
"Just check what it is, then go back to bed…"
The familiar temple and empty lots filled the screen. He dragged his sluggish hand toward the message window—
──Fulfilled! Spe─cial of─.҈̨̣̝͕͐̐͗͆̿͝.̶̧̤̲͙͓̀̾͂͝.҉̛͖̥̳̀͗̋͢.̵̡̰͓̬̫̇͛͂͆͠.҉̡̠̤̝̗͓́̈̊̑̇͠ !
His eyes kept sliding shut; everything went soft and blurry. He was so tired his head seemed to spin. Hmm… what did that even say?
Looks like it's asking me to agree to something…
Whether it was a download or an install, he had no idea. He tapped the screen roughly and let his head drop. His whole body felt heavy and limp.
Sleep swallowed his mind.
Ba-ba-bam—!
Somewhere beyond his sinking consciousness, a fanfare rang faintly—then cut off.
Where am I?
He opened his eyes and looked around. Everything was pitch-black.
He couldn't tell whether he was sinking or floating upward. Only darkness filled the space in every direction.
Ah…?
Above his head, a single faint thread of light parted the dark and wavered down toward him.
Where is this, really? A dream?
It was deeply disorienting. He had definitely been asleep in his room. When he waved his hand, his arm moved thickly, as if submerged in water.
…Underwater?
Blub-blub—
Ugh—!
The moment he recognized he was underwater, his breath seized. His drifting body was crushed from every side by the pressure; air burst from his mouth.
"Mmph?!"
Blub-blub-blub—
Up—I have to get up!
Panic forced even more air out of him. His whole body screamed for oxygen, shrieking at him to surface.
He flailed his arms and legs and clawed toward the light.
Splash—!
Just before his vision went black, he shoved his head above the water. God, air had never tasted so sweet.
"Pwah—! Hah, huff!"
He hung there, drinking in the precious oxygen. He had nearly died.
"Thought I was done for…. Where the hell is this?"
Was he dreaming? All around him… the sea? Could you even call it a sea? Something black and water-like filled his entire field of view.
"What even is this…?"
If it was a dream, it was a nasty nightmare. No wind. No waves. What did you call a sea like that?
"And what's wrong with the sky?"
If you took every star in the universe and drove them into the heavens, would it look like this? The sky was packed solid with stars.
Faint ones, already guttered out, like the last embers of a fire. They covered the whole sky.
A world where life had gone out and the breath of the cosmos had stopped.
"What in the world is…"
Blink—
"Ah. Light."
Far off, a faint light flickered through the dark. Instinct pulled him toward it; he swam.
Splash—
How long did he swim? He had no idea. No sun, nothing but water in every direction—he couldn't measure time. Ten minutes? Thirty? An hour?
Just when he thought he would drown from exhaustion, his feet finally found solid ground.
Splash—
Water streaming off him in sheets, he collapsed flat on the earth.
"Hah, hahh…. I'm dead…."
He lay there a long while, catching his breath. Once he had rested a little, questions about the whole situation started to surface.
What is going on?
Was this really a dream? Reality? A kidnapping? Where was he? Was this even Earth? Thoughts crowded in and tangled together.
A sky with neither sun nor moon. A barren sea with not a single living thing. Where was this place?
Twinkle—
"Ah—that…"
The light he had seen from the water glittered far ahead. He still didn't know what it was… but it beat sitting still.
He scrambled up and walked toward it.
Crunch—crunch—
The source of the light had been closer than he expected; it revealed itself soon enough.
"This is…?"
A smartphone…? Half-buried in the ground, its screen blinking. He picked it up, turned it over—it was unmistakably a phone.
"Okay, this is a full-on fever dream."
Nearly drowning, then finding a phone. When he woke up, he was definitely looking up what this dream meant.
Swipe—
He traced the familiar pattern and the lock screen opened. The home screen held a single app.
"What's this?"
…He couldn't read it. He was clearly looking at the app's name, clearly reading it with his own eyes.
It wouldn't resolve into words.
"…They say you can't read text in dreams. Guess it's true."
He muttered in mild wonder and tapped the app. A familiar game lobby appeared.
It looked a lot like the idle weapon game he played all the time.
"Have I been playing too much…? Even in a dream like this, I'm gaming."
Maybe he should cut back when he woke up. He poked around the interface, muttering to himself.
Unlike the stubby proportions of the game he actually played, this one was modeled so close to reality it was uncanny.
"What kind of game looks this real?"
He swiped through the screens and saw people. A black-haired woman fighting in a snowfield with a massive axe. Someone dozing against a giant tree. A dangerous-looking figure waiting for someone in a dark alley.
If this hadn't been a game inside his dream, he would have sworn it was real—the figures were that vivid and alive.
"Is this… Kenis?"
His hand stopped. The red hair and golden eyes that had been so striking even at the game's tiny scale—Kenis. Meeting her in a human-sized form felt strangely moving.
She gripped a huge sword and swung it hard at a training dummy.
Whoosh—
Crack!
The dummy shattered in a single blow. Watching it, he felt an odd little swell of pride.
"That A-Grade weapon I bought with real money is earning its keep."
Ba-bam—!
A familiar fanfare rang from the screen. A message window appeared.
Div──ine─! "Bles.̴̢̧̜̄.̷̡̺̪̝̝̫̈́.̸̯̱̭̱̭͌̽̄̆͌̀ "─!
Broken, scrambled letters. He was a little more used to the dream now, so he could almost make them out.
"Hmm…. Div…? Charging something? Fulfillment? Wait—congrats? Is it saying congratulations?"
He tapped through the screen, and a glittering star-shaped icon appeared over Kenis's head.
Almost without thinking, he tapped above her head. One of the faint stars in the sky began to drift—then fell.
Whooosh—
It streaked toward the smartphone's screen.
Fwoosh—!
"Whoa! What the—!"
The star that fell from the sky left a long tail and punched straight through the phone's display.
Startled, he toppled backward and dropped the phone.
"Wh-what even is…"
Even for a fever dream, this was too much. Playing a game and then a star falls out of the sky? What kind of dream was this?
"Hoo…. What is any of this, seriously."
He steadied his racing heart and picked up the phone. He shook the sand off and looked at the screen—and there was Kenis.
"What is…"
Kenis, wrapped in a countless swarm of luminous stars. They trailed along her fingertips, coiled around her body, and slowly orbited her.
Multicolored stars blazed; a galaxy that had come down to earth circled her.
Bathed in that sacred, wondrous light, Kenis looked as if she were receiving a blessing from a god.
"…A blessing? Was that message a blessing?"
A shooting star that fell into the screen. Kenis wrapped in that beautiful starlight. Given the circumstances, the text in the message window earlier had almost certainly been Blessing.
He stared blankly at Kenis beyond the glass.
Her face was frozen in shock; she stood there flustered, not knowing what to do with herself.
"Haha. That expression is hilarious."
It was absurd. She was only a game character. Dream or not, that his imagination could invent a face that pretty—and make her emote so vividly—
Had he really gotten this deep into the game?
Leaving the still-frozen Kenis behind, he swiped through the screens. But the dream seemed to end there; only black filled the display.
Twinkle—!
"Hm?"
A star far away seemed to flash. Just his imagination?
Rrrrip—!
A sudden sound like fabric tearing. He turned and looked behind him.
"Oh…."
The empty air was torn open. A crack, ripped and ragged, as if something had forced it apart by hand.
Through the gap he glimpsed his familiar room.
Time to wake up.
"Ugh—! That was a seriously weird dream."
He sprang to his feet and stretched hard. Out of habit he pocketed the smartphone and brushed the sand off himself.
"Better get up, wash, and head to work."
He stepped through the roughly torn rift toward his room. The moment his body fully crossed the crack, his sense of direction twisted.
From above to below. Then to the left. Flipped over, surging up, then falling.
Falling… and falling…
Bzzzt—
Bzzzt—
"Hup—!"
He sucked in a rough breath and bolted upright. His room.
The black sea, the faint stars. Kenis, the shooting star. All of it had been a dream.
Hoo—
He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. The single most ridiculous fever dream of his life.
"Ah—what time is it?"
He checked the clock on impulse.
"…Eleven?!"
He yanked the screen open and checked texts and call logs. Missed calls and messages piled up like a mountain. The manager alone had called more than ten times.
Cold sweat poured down him; the strength went out of his pupils; the world began to spin.
Please let this still be the dream.
"…Am I still dreaming? Haha, ha…."
As if to ignore his wish, the sunlight beyond the window shone bright and clear.