Daydream (3)

“Haah, ha…”

My mind cleared up.

I saw my fingers stretched out clearly in front of me.

The floating sensation that covered my whole body, the omnipotence that filled my chest, they were all gone.

I was still standing in my studio apartment.

Just like before I pressed the button, I was blankly staring at the floor.

“What the hell… is this…”

It was a familiar scene.

The small room I chose for commuting after getting a job.

I had slept and woken up in that room countless times.

I was still alone in the room.

The only difference from usual was that the smartphone I was holding in my hand had fallen to the floor.

‘I was definitely… playing a game.’

My eyes, which were breathing heavily, turned to the smartphone on the floor.

The game was still on on the smartphone that was bouncing on the floor.

The idle game I always played.

Beyond the small screen, the game characters were having a conversation.

That too, in the stone temple where I had just faced the apostles.

-“You closed your eyes again.”

-“Did the great one not fully descend?”

-“It seems… we still have things to prepare.”

I saw the conversation that the characters were having beyond the screen.

And that content was connected to my previous memory.

The conversation that the apostles had in the temple came to my mind vividly.

Their voices, which I heard for the first time, were very lively.

The story continued from the short fragment of memory.

The next content would probably be similar to what I see now.

The result of the event that I dismissed as a dream was existing in front of me.

“It wasn’t a dream?”

That couldn’t be.

There was no way that everything I created with my own hands actually existed.

I reached out with a trembling hand and picked up my phone.

I saw Eutenia stroking a glass tube beyond the shaking screen.

Eutenia smiled faintly and said, looking at the glass tube.

-“I hope that when you come back next time, the whole world will be under your feet.”

Thud.

Something in my head felt like it snapped.

It felt like I heard something I shouldn’t have heard.

I opened my mouth, looking at Eutenia beyond the screen.

“What are you talking about…”

-“If it’s for you, we can sacrifice the empire and the holy land.”

There are moments when you end up admitting something even if you don’t want to admit it.

Even if it’s something you really want to deny.

There are moments when you give in and accept it.

For me, this was one of those moments.

I found myself affirming what I had denied beyond denial.

“Stop…”

This is not a dream.

I know the truth, even if I want to deny it.

This can’t be a lie.

Yes.

The world on the screen in front of me is real.

-“I’ll work hard from now on.”

I…

I killed people.

I created a monster that kills people.

And I was happy to see them die.

I felt ecstasy as I watched countless people die with a flick of my hand.

“Stop…”

Now the cult that I created is killing people for me.

The ones I ruined with my own hands are doing evil for me.

There is no excuse.

There is no possibility of escaping responsibility.

They will kill as many people as they can for me.

For me.

For that one reason alone, Eutenia Hyrost will keep killing people from now on.

“…”

How many did I kill?

Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?

How many numbers did I sacrifice?

For my mere entertainment, how many people have died so far?

How many more have to die, to end this situation?

“I…”

I don’t know.

I can’t even estimate the numbers that keep floating in my head.

I killed too many lives.

For nothing.

Because I was unhappy.

Because I was depressed.

Because I wanted karma.

I kept killing people.

For something worthless, countless lives were destroyed.

A killing machine disguised as a game was always in my hand.

-“I’ll do my best until the day I die.”

Eutenia’s words keep reaching me as I look at the screen with trembling hands.

The black letters on the white background were engraved in my brain more than anything else.

Even if I cover my eyes, or avoid my gaze.

In the end, I was only looking at Eutenia’s words.

I would only face her who was working hard for my pointless amusement.

“Stop it already.”

-“Only for you.”

“Don’t work hard for something like that–!”

Crash!

The smartphone I threw fell to the floor.

My head was burning.

My heated brain hindered my thoughts, and my breath became rough.

With trembling lips, I exhaled my ragged breath and desperately covered my mouth as nausea surged.

“Ugh…”

The thoughts I had suppressed all came back at once.

Everything I saw disgusted me.

I was disgusted by myself, who felt ecstasy while killing people.

I was disgusted by that tiny device that mimicked a game and turned me into a monster.

I was disgusted by someone who made such a thing as a game and watched me enjoy it.

Everything inside me stirred to vomit.

“Ugh…”

Everything I put in my stomach felt like human flesh.

Every scent that came in through my breath smelled like human blood.

The floor I was stepping on felt like a corpse mound.

My past self, who laughed while killing people, felt like a hellish demon.

The rising nausea was no longer bearable.

“Ugh… Ugh…”

I felt like I would die of suffocation if I didn’t vomit everything right now.

So I ran to the bathroom in a hurry.

And then I grabbed the empty toilet and threw up everything that was piled up in my chest.

My hand that struggled to vomit something clenched with force.

“——.”

What did I eat today?

I don’t remember.

I think I ate ramen.

It didn’t feel good to vomit what I had accumulated.

“——.”

How many lives did I trample to be here?

I don’t remember.

I think I killed countless people.

My heart was heavy as I recalled what I had forgotten.

“Haah… Hoo, ha…”

I felt nauseous.

My lips stopped spitting out the emotions that had been flowing back.

I felt relieved after vomiting for a long time.

It was dirty. And ugly.

Swoosh.

I turned on the water in the sink and rinsed my dirty mouth.

“Ha…”

I saw myself rinsing my mouth in the mirror.

There was a man with a pale face in the mirror.

He had a scruffy beard and a shaggy hair, looking at the mirror.

He was not the usual me.

He looked like a miserable man who had been broken somewhere.

“What is this…”

Crack.

My hand that exerted too much force stopped the faucet.

The sound of water that echoed in my ears stopped.

Only my voice echoed quietly in the silent bathroom.

“Is this… me…?”

The man in the mirror was ruined.

It wasn’t because I faced the truth now.

The image of myself that was reflected in front of me looked like it had started to go wrong long before that.

Half a year.

Or a year.

Maybe even more.

I looked like I had aged so much.

“What a ridiculous sight.”

Click.

The distorted image in the mirror changed back to my normal self.

The monstrous appearance that suited a murderer was gone.

It was just me, as I used to be.

“Hoo…”

I was losing my mind, seeing things that weren’t there.

It was a ludicrous story.

A shoddy idle game that I played alone at home was actually a reality somewhere else.

Anyone who heard it would laugh at it.

It wouldn’t matter if I told my friends, or my coworkers, or anyone else.

They would never give me a positive answer.

“Is this a god? Is this pathetic thing a god?”

I snorted with a hollow laugh.

After the nausea subsided, I felt a terrible exhaustion.

Just by touching my smartphone, they called me a god and looked at me.

The more I thought about it, the more absurd it was.

“Is this… an evil god…?”

The evil that killed people was mine.

The machine only conveyed my will.

The deeper I thought, the more I despised myself.

Creak.

I opened the bathroom door and walked out. There was a thick front door in front of me.

“Anyone can see… this is impossible…”

I wanted to run away.

I wanted to escape from this suffocating feeling in my chest.

For a moment, that thought filled my mind.

I didn’t resist the huge impulse that moved me.

I didn’t feel the need to do so.

“Feeling guilty for a game… how stupid.”

Clang.

I opened the heavy door and went outside.

I slowly walked out of the building in my slippers.

The cold autumn wind that grazed my cheek made me feel more depressed.

“Yeah. It was just a game.”

Thud. Thud.

My staggering steps walked along the empty street.

There were no people. No cars.

I was walking alone on the silent road where everything had disappeared.

“If I had known it was real, I wouldn’t have killed them.”

What came out of my mouth was a prickly excuse.

I needed words.

I needed a word that could deceive myself.

Just like he had lied to me, I wanted to lie to myself too.

“It’s his fault… he tricked me.”

My advancing steps reached the crosswalk where there were no cars.

A red light. I saw the dimly glowing traffic light.

There were no cars.

I ignored the signal that blocked me and stepped forward.

I wanted to run away somewhere as soon as possible.

“It’s not my fault… right?”

Thud.

As I took a slow step, I heard a loud engine sound.

A car was coming.

I lifted my head as I realized it.

“…”

My eyes crossed the road and looked to the right.

I saw a car coming from the far lane towards me.

The car didn’t slow down even though it saw me.

It would crash if it kept going like this.

Even though I sensed it, my stiff legs couldn’t move easily.

“It’s not my fault.”

Vroom!

A noisy horn sounded towards me.

The sharp sound that made my eardrums tremble warned me of the danger.

But that was all.

The car that was coming towards me didn’t slow down.

Facing the bright headlights, I closed my eyes with no strength left.

-[Demon Sword: Causal Killer] is activated.

-<Reversal>: Regenerates the body by ignoring causality.

-All negative effects are removed.

***

-Crack. Crack.

When I opened my eyes again, I faced a quiet world dyed in dull light.

There was no trace of the intense headlights or the speeding car.

All I saw in front of me was a broken car that had stopped right in front of me.

The car with shattered windows was covered with dust.

I couldn’t see any people behind the broken glass.

The car looked abandoned for a long time and I doubted if it could even drive.

“What is this.”

The first thing that came out of my mouth was a word full of panic.

Was I scared of the damaged car with no driver and closed my eyes?

My mind couldn’t keep up with the sudden change.

I was sure I had seen the headlights, but the car in front of me had no lights on.

I started to scan the surroundings with confusion.

“…”

The asphalt with cracks.

The cars that were all broken and left alone.

The bonnets that were so dirty that I couldn’t tell when they were washed last.

The traffic lights that had lost their light and were silent.

And beyond that, the buildings with broken windows and no lights.

“What is this…”

Everything I saw was ruined.

I couldn’t feel any signs of people.

The whole neighborhood was still as if it had stopped breathing.

I was the only one in this abandoned world.

“…”

I walked forward unconsciously in a space where I felt no signs of life.

Thud. Thud.

Every time I stepped on the dark crosswalk, I saw a convenience store with broken windows.

I slowly scanned the approaching convenience store.

“Why does it look like a war broke out…”

Behind the shattered windows of the convenience store, I saw shelves that had fallen to the floor.

Snacks and ramen were all gone, and maggots were writhing on rotten sandwiches.

It looked like it had been left alone for a long time.

I felt like I would vomit if I looked closely.

I felt hollow in my empty stomach.

I tried to ignore the scenery of the convenience store and changed my direction to check other places.

“Ah…”

As I wandered around the dead street, I felt something caught on my shoe.

Screech.

A newspaper that had been stepped on was torn in half.

My eyes naturally moved to the newspaper on the ground.

The ragged newspaper looked like it had been abandoned for a long time.

The headline was written in large letters on the faded newspaper.

“Explosive spread… City lockdown order…”

As I looked at the headline of the newspaper, I lifted my head and looked around.

The ruined city was clearly visible.

It was a city that had been neglected for a long time, where I felt no human presence.

City lockdown order.

And a city that was deserted with no one left.

The only thing that moved in the silence was myself, muttering to myself.

“Did I get abandoned…?”

My eyes that stared at the ash-covered landscape looked at the direction where my house was.

It was unbelievable.

The last time I checked, my room looked the same as always.

The autumn scenery that shone through the window.

The children’s voices that came in from the open window.

Everything was as usual, just staying there.

“Let’s go home.”

I had to check.

I had to go back to the house I just left and see what happened to my home.

I felt like I could accept this situation if I did that.

I hurried my slow steps and started to go back to my house.

It was a day full of impossible things.

I hoped this was all a dream, that’s how much.

“Please…”

My quickened steps crossed the crosswalk and returned to the narrow alley I always passed by.

As I passed the familiar street and took a shortcut, I saw the building where I lived.

My face hardened as I faced the shabby building.

The exterior of the building with broken windows had a very ominous atmosphere.

It didn’t look like a place where people could live.

“Ah, ah…”

Everything was strange.

It wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t a nightmare.

That the character in the game was real, that the world had turned into ruins overnight.

They were all terribly realistic nightmares that couldn’t be possible otherwise.

“A dream, right?”

As I stared blankly at the unreal scene, I moved my trembling legs and went up to find my room.

I passed the dusty stairs and went up to the floor where my room was and looked for the locked door of my room.

Ignoring the dirty stairs and reaching the door, I saw the front door that wasn’t closed properly.

It looked like I didn’t close the door properly when I left the house.

Clang.

I grabbed the doorknob and pulled it open, then took a step inside.

“…”

As I entered the room, I looked around first.

The faded lottery paper.

The black feathers piled up on the torn chicken box.

The ramen box covered with dust that I didn’t know when I brought it.

The green soju bottle that was empty and rolling on the floor.

And among all those things, Estelle was standing there.

“Estelle?”

“I’m glad you’re safe.”

Estelle greeted me as always as she faced me.

Estelle was standing among the unreal scenes.

I sighed with relief as I faced Estelle.

There was only one thing that Estelle being here meant.

This was a nightmare.

It wasn’t the reality that changed without me knowing, but one of the common nightmares that I met Estelle irregularly.

“I’m glad… It was all a dream.”

I entered the room with relief as Estelle proved it was a dream.

It was a terrible nightmare.

One that I didn’t want to have again.

That I was left alone in a broken world in an instant.

It was a worse nightmare than the ones with weird monsters because it felt more real.

“It can’t be anything but a dream, right?”

“What?”

But Estelle’s words that followed stopped my thoughts.

What did Estelle just say to me?

My blank eyes recalled her words and looked at her.

The black girl who faced me in black looked very serious.

I couldn’t help but ask Estelle who denied my words.

“Estelle, what are you talking about…?”

Estelle smiled at me.

She still stood proudly in the ruined world.

Estelle’s arrogant eyes reflected my pitiful appearance.

I looked like the one I saw in the mirror, strangely similar.

She looked at me slowly as I crumbled and said in a calm but clear voice:

“The dream is already over.”