Fantasy Clock～Dream Ruler～

early morning. The gloomy night gradually brightened, but it was still dark because of the cloudy sky. The light that slipped into the room through the gaps in the curtains was just on my eyes. Although the light was not too harsh, it was just enough to not be ignored.

I raised my arms irritably to cover my eyes, and the next second the mobile phone next to my pillow woke up my half-dream and half-awake consciousness with the alarm I was tired of listening to. I groped to find the phone and held it in front of me, immediately turned off the alarm and threw it aside.

"Yesterday, I didn't dream again..."

I forgot to bring an umbrella when I went out. I couldn't help but took out the key to open the door again, and took out an umbrella close to me.

Just as I was about to close the door, my father's low voice inside the room interrupted my closing action.

"Are you going to see your sister today?"

"Yes, I will."

"Okay, then I won't go. Remember to call me if there is any situation."

"Um."

Tiny raindrops fell from the leaden sky, shining in a crystalline light, hitting the open umbrellas and raining flowers.

Neither too much nor too little rain. If you don't listen carefully when you open the umbrella, you won't hear the sound of rain, and you want to close the umbrella too much trouble. Putting up the umbrella will clearly sense the fact that it is raining, so I have to open the umbrella again.

The black cloud suppressed in the sky seemed to turn the drizzle into a heavy rain at any time, but it was afraid that the heavy rain would drive away passers-by on the street, so it firmly suppressed this impulse.

Little did they know that this burst of rain that was about to fall but never fell brought even more upset and dullness to passers-by.

Students passing by nearby laughed or commented as if there was no one else, joining this shoddy symphony.

I watched them get farther and farther away from me, unable to exert energy to quicken my pace. But even the weight of the umbrella made me feel sore. I switched from my right hand to my left and took up the handle of the umbrella, walking towards the school as always.

"As usual...is it?"

I repeated the word that came to mind, sarcastically. The sarcasm that pricked his chest blocked his throat, making it difficult to even swallow. I couldn't help but the corners of my mouth passed a bitter arc that made my chest twitch.

half year ago. At the beginning of my third year of high school, I was forced to get involved in a "domination war" that took place in a dream at the invitation of my childhood sweetheart Xia Yinci, where I met all kinds of people from parallel realities.

Four months ago, the war quietly ended.

Everything seems to have never happened, but at the same time it is completely different from before.

What is different and what is the same as before?

Only the scenery seen on the way to school every day is the same as before, right?

Everything else is completely different.

Unable to relax the strength of my tensed shoulders, I grabbed the straps on my shoulders with a wry smile, and stepped into the school gate with the flow of people.

Even if the rain wets the fragrance of flowers, the lingering youthful atmosphere in the campus is still raging, making me sink my head at a loss.

After entering the classroom, I was forced to stare at my feet, silently counting the number of times I changed my steps from left to right, and walked to my seat—the seat that was in the first row, but I was the only one. .

In the eyes of other students, will I be envied or sympathized for occupying two seats?

Although I want to believe that the girl at the same table will come back one day, she did not leave any message when she left. She disappeared as if she had never been in my world.

After the end of the domination war, I never saw Xia Yinci again, and I knew nothing about her.

I don't know where she is now, whether the weather over there is as cloudy or cloudy as it is here, or whether she's guessing about me the way I'm guessing what she's doing.

I don't know the answer, let alone confirm it. I tiredly raised my hand and pressed it against the pile of books in the upper left corner of the desk, my forehead unconsciously resting on my soft arm.

I thought about things that I couldn't find the answer to, and I almost fell asleep in a daze.

Suddenly, someone called my name outside the classroom, I lost all sleepiness and looked outside in a daze.

The girl standing in front of the classroom turned her clear eyes, as if trying to find someone through the window. After her eyes wandered for a while, she landed on me with those eyes that seemed to be shining brightly.

The moment she found me, there was a refreshing smile in her eyes. The girl pursed her lips, stroking her rain-wet blue hair that naturally fell on her shoulders, and walked towards me with a smile.

"Good morning~"

The girl greeted me briefly, then lowered her head and looked me up and down.

"You're still as lifeless as ever~"

Although she made critical comments, the effect was actually mild. Because these two sentences have become her regular opening remarks. Even when she played a prank in my ear last week, she said the same two sentences.

Deadness is one of the few "business as usual" things I've done since then?

In fact, I don't want to put on such a decadent expression. Previously, I wanted to smile at the classmate who cared about me, but the smile might be too forced, and the other party raised his eyebrows at a loss when he saw it.

So, I stopped forcing myself to raise the corners of my mouth.

I raised my eyes and landed on the girl, her two long braids hanging on her chest playfully swayed with the movement of her head. Even this simple movement is very dynamic, and I am a person of two worlds.

The line of sight gradually moved downwards, and the combination of the red plaid skirt and white stockings on her lower body was particularly eye-catching in the all-blue skirt. What's more, the White Sox tightly outlines the attractive curves of the legs.

"Why are you staring at me like that?"

"No."

As I spoke, I glanced aimlessly at the desk.

"Oh~"

The girl dragged her voice meaningfully, and I didn't want to figure out what her intentions were, so I ignored her.

Unexpectedly, facing my ignorance, the girl raised her legs and sat on my desk without any hesitation. From my point of view, I can see the white and tender skin at the base of my thighs impartially.

Noticing strange sights coming from behind, seeming to be watching her legs, I had no choice but to move to the right of the desk where she was sitting, and use my body instead of her skirt to block those malicious sights.

"Is that the same reason why you came here today?"

I raised my eyes without thinking, and accidentally met the girl's eyes. Then, her eyes told me unabashedly that the purpose of her visit today was the same as in the past.

"Stop this thought as soon as possible. Xue Xueer, I can't accompany you back to the dreamland."

——That day, the end of the 14th Domination War. Lin Yu and I agreed to have the final decisive battle between the dreams, but when I got there as promised, he didn't come for a long time.

Afterwards, I searched for him in the vicinity, and found many traps he had set up for this decisive battle. Lin Yu's meticulous preparation made me realize that his determination to win is definitely not weaker than mine, and it is impossible to run away.

However, the fact is that Lin Yu did not keep the appointment. Not only Lin Yu, but even the observers of the domination war all disappeared, as if this domination war was my one-man show from the very beginning.

After returning to reality, Xia Yinci also quietly disappeared into my world.

After that, I visited her house countless times, but it seemed like an empty house, and the only response to me was the knock on the door and the empty echo in the corridor. The bewildered silence made my heart in my throat unable to find the bottom.

What quit my life together with Xia Yinci was my ability to control dreams.

Since then, I can no longer control my dreams, and I have become the ordinary dreamer. At the same time, the dreamless phenomenon replaced the sleep paralysis that often came half a year ago.

By the way, today is my 13th day in a row without dreams.

In addition, due to the loss of the ability to control dreams, what happened in the lucid dream, including the memory of dominating the war, has become quite hazy, and I can't even remember some things at all.

Looking through the text messages with Xia Yinci or Su Huilin during that time, I will find that I have no impression of many things. I don't remember who the Dream Stealer is, why do I have to hide from Su Huilin about the number of people...

Suddenly one day I realized that I gradually forgot those rulers who spent countless eternal nights with me.

I clearly know that some people must never forget, but I still can't prevent "forgetting" from happening.

This feeling of emptiness when searching for memories often makes my heart ache.

As for the girl who is sitting on my desk in an indecent manner now.

Maybe it's because I don't have much impression of her, so I lost very little memory about her. I remember that she is the eye-catching beautiful boy Xue Xue'er in the cracks of dreams.

Xue Xueer's gender is completely opposite in reality and dream, so it took me a lot of time to adapt.

Three months ago, Xue Xueer stopped me on my way to the convenience store without warning. She said that she was looking for the missing Lin Yu and the tea cat. She heard that Lin Yu and I stayed until the end, so she came to me on purpose.

Xue Xueer asked me what happened at the end of the domination war, and I have already answered her truthfully.

However, she didn't believe what I was telling the truth.

When you think about it carefully, how could you believe it?

From the start of the battle for domination, it turned out to be a mess in the end, the game didn't end, and the observers disappeared collectively. If I were told this truth, I would never believe it.

Therefore, Xue Xueer, who used to belong to the news department, of course felt that I had concealed the truth.

But, unfortunately, this is the truth of the matter.

"I won't believe it."

Xue Xueer's light words pulled me back from my thoughts to reality, and when I met her eyes, she smiled faintly. She grabbed the edge of the desk, let out a "hey" in her mouth, and behaved strangely like a child, and went down to the ground.

"Class is about to start. Don't disturb your study (lazy)~ I'll see you at noon."

noon. The melody of the bell announcing the lunch break is not brisk, but the meaning of the bell itself relaxes the atmosphere in the classroom. As usual, I picked up my lunch bag and headed to the rooftop of the complex.

Pushing open the rusty door on the roof, the sky is filled with gloomy clouds. Facing the hustle and bustle of the campus, I walked to the green-painted railing on the edge of the roof, leaned my elbows on the railing, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Not long after, Xue Xueer walked up to the roof and walked towards me with light steps. Immediately after the greeting of "good noon", I asked about the situation at that time, and I repeated it again as usual.

"Su Luoyang, even if it's true as you said—the domination war is just a scam from the beginning to the end, and there is no reward for winning at all, then what is their motivation for doing this? There must be a reason, right?"

"This kind of thing..." I pulled out an ugly smile bitterly, and asked back, "How would I know."

I suppressed the accumulated negative emotions and lowered my gaze. The students of the football club on the playground are still rain or shine.

"Xue Xueer, it's time for you to give up too?"

This kind of meaningless dialogue has happened countless times, and I have almost run out of patience.

"There are no shocking secrets that you, a big reporter, want to discover here. Domination of the war may just be a well-designed prank by some boring god."

The smile on Xue Xueer's face froze for a few seconds, but it didn't take long for her to regain her smile.

"I will come again."

I really don't know when she will lose interest in me.

Or, will she stay here until Lin Yu is found?

"No matter how much time you spend on me, it will be futile. Let's get rid of such unnecessary thoughts as soon as possible."

＊＊＊

As if copying yesterday, today quietly entered the dusk. The continuous rain in the morning has stopped, and the black cloud covering the sky left without saying goodbye, so dusk became the only time to see the sun today.

Walking one after another with Xue Xueer on the way back from school, she hummed a little tune and didn't speak, and I didn't bother to open her chat box. When I had to turn the corner to go home, I stopped suddenly.

"You go first today...I'm going to the hospital to see my sister."

If you want to go to the hospital where your sister is currently staying, you have to go straight along this road.

"Ah...then today's 'interview' is over?" Xue Xueer's eyes flashed with disappointment, she bit her lower lip lightly, showing a pitiful look, "I still have a lot of questions that I haven't asked..."

"Aren't you asking the same old questions every day?"

"Well, fine. See you tomorrow then."

I don't know if she listened to my words. In short, she waved to me with an unwilling expression, and left in the direction of the station. I looked at her back and sighed softly.

Walking into the lobby of the hospital, I deposited my schoolbag and umbrella at the front desk and took the elevator to the third floor. Say hello to the doctor in charge and walk down the corridor connecting the emergency department to the inpatient department. The third floor of the inpatient department is full of special wards specially prepared for patients with "extreme sleep disorders". And I went to the first ward near the stairs.

Speaking of "extreme insomnia", in fact, when people talk about it, they prefer to use another name for it.

——"Sleeping Beauty Disease".

The color tone of the room is mainly white, and there is a bottle with orchids in the corner of the cabinet next to the hospital bed, and there is a faint fragrance of flowers. Looking to the right, the girl was lying on the hospital bed with her eyes closed, her blonde hair messily scattered on the bed.

The girl seemed to be experiencing a peaceful dream without waves, so quiet that it seemed that nothing would change even at the end of the world.

The constant sound of an unknown machine was heard next to my ears, and my heart was tightly screwed together.

I gently closed the door, and silently mustered up the courage in my heart, so I took a step, approached the round chair beside the hospital bed and sat down. As a result, not long after sitting down, the door of the ward was opened again.

"Wow Aniki! You are finally here, good evening!"

I turned around and glanced at the door, and simply nodded in response to her greeting.

Holding a stack of heavy files in her hands, the nurse had a lollipop in her mouth, and her eyes were shining brightly. When I wasn't paying attention, he ran to my side stepping on the pace, and quietly brushed the messy hair that was tied into a fluffy ball.

"Chen Xue! I asked you to bring over the materials, why did you sneak here again to be lazy!"

The deep male voice outside the ward made her tremble immediately, and she let out an inexplicable "嘿".

"But ANIKI needs me to accompany him—"

She hugged me hastily, using me as a shield. But the middle-aged man in the white coat outside the door didn't eat this set, and walked into the ward with his hands in his pockets. He raised his stubble-covered chin and showed a sharp look in his eyes.

"ANIKI save me!!"

The middle-aged man dragged her by the collar and roughly dragged her out of the ward with his back turned to him. Before leaving, he nodded to me in apology. As a result, Chen Xue's cry for help disappeared in the corridor after the door of the ward slammed shut.

After Chen Xue left, the noisy ward finally became quiet again. The sound of mechanical operation once again occupied the ward. I sighed softly and turned around, holding Su Huilin's cold hand.

There was a slight warmth from Su Huilin's palm, as if the possibility of her waking up was as slim. The blue veins on the arm are exceptionally clear, and the complexion looks too weak. My chest was occupied by bursts of soreness.

"Little Rin... I think I said it? Domination war is not a game, it's a very dangerous thing. You don't need to get into this muddy water. Why are you so stubborn... you just won't listen to me? ?”

The only thing that responds to me is the falling drip and the electronic sound of the electrocardiogram.

She didn't hear me, and seemed to be deliberately ignoring me. There was still no sign of opening his eyes.

I gently rubbed her little white hand, bowed my head and kissed the back of her hand lightly, but what I returned was still icy cold.

Su Huilin is immersed in her own world, I don't know how much the black cat's lie has come true. I don't know whether she is now controlled by the subconscious of the dream, or freely dominates her world.

In any case, now that I have lost the ability to control dreams, I can't see Su Huilin even in dreams.

【Nah! Su Ruoyang, just go back with me! 】

For some reason, I suddenly remembered Xue Xueer's invitation. This time I hesitated for a while. Once upon a time, Xia Yinci seemed to have said the same thing, and I agreed to her, but it ended like this.

[Su Huohuo, please believe me... Only this way is the way out. 】

I really don't understand, Xia Yinci.

So far things have only gotten worse, how do you want me to believe that?

"Hey, Su Erin, what should I do?"

"Should I agree to Xue Xueer's invitation and go back to that red world with her?"

＊＊＊

"Hey, what you don't remember is something that never happened?"

A vaguely familiar voice sounded in my ears again——

His vision swayed hazily; his body was as stiff as if he had been placed in ice water.

Once again, I fell into the abyss of consciousness.

"I say. Will you atone for your forgotten mistakes?"

In front of my eyes was a familiar scene - the wooden chair that would be crumbling at any moment, the ropes tightly restraining my body, and the naked man sitting at the opposite table.

A barrier like ground glass lay between us, and I still couldn't see his face clearly.

Even so, I felt an inexplicable affinity for him.

"You don't always need to start with these two sentences, do you?"

Responses slipped from my lips. Not from my waking consciousness, but an instinctive answer from my subconscious.

I heard myself chuckle, as if lamenting the reunion after a year.

The last time I saw him, the domination war was not over yet. I am still the one who has forgotten the past. I don't remember the past, and I don't know what to do in the future. I am a blank sheet of paper full of confusion.

And now, I have pieced together those lost fragments into a complete memory.

The blade stabbed into the girl's arms.

Bright red covered the entire palm.

A dark ward at night.

The girl's hand tightly grabbed the clothes on my shoulders.

The red palms looked pale.

She whispered words I couldn't hear.

When the tinnitus continued, I heard myself screaming heart-piercingly.

"Hmm. Rather than saying that I have to be responsible, it's better to say——I want to atone for my forgotten mistakes."

The young man in front of me drooped his head as if he was tired, but his eyes did not move away from me for a moment.

"I see. You are determined to take responsibility for this matter, and it has nothing to do with empty words like 'social responsibility'. Well, your answer this time is indeed from your will."

The boy rubbed his chin and nodded his head in satisfaction.

Seeing his smile, my body temperature seems to have improved a lot because of it.

"But, I'm too late. Even though I've already thought of the answer, there's no way I can see Xia Yinci again now."

Memories that were deeply engraved in my heart quickly passed before my eyes.

At the edge of the dream world, the girl and I walked among the shining stars, one after the other.

Under the blue hair fluttering in the wind, her lonely figure stabbed my chest sharply.

So I stopped involuntarily, and the girl turned her head when she noticed the sound of footsteps disappearing suddenly.

I made a promise to her—

[This time, I absolutely want you to win the domination war. From now on, I will atone for my sins in my own way. 】

The girl's slender shoulders trembled as if they could be easily crushed, and warm tears ran across her cheeks——

Suddenly, there was a loud "bang" in front of him. Consciousness was immediately torn out of memory by the sound that could not be ignored. The boy sitting opposite suddenly stretched out his palm and grabbed the edge of the table.

"No...it's not too late yet!"

His tone was full of anxious heat, sweeping from in front of me.

I looked into his trembling eyes, his inexplicable strong aura drove me to look into his eyes. But his body couldn't move, his back was pressed against the back of the chair behind him, and he was locked in place by the feeling of restraint.

"Only now. You still have time..."

The sound was abruptly interrupted, replaced by the screeching sound of the chair being pulled violently.

I raised my head instinctively, only to see his fingers clinging firmly to the old table top with wooden thorns emerging from it, he was dragged to the back, his nails were snapped off, and the two rows of obvious scratches on the table were dyed bright red.

It seemed as if someone was pulling him from behind the boy, and he was struggling to escape from "that palm", and he stretched out his hand towards me as hard as possible.

Facing his struggling and ferocious expression of pain, I grabbed his hand slowly, and was torn away by an invincible force in an instant.

Even as I slammed my feet on the ground desperately to stay on my feet, I couldn't resist moving closer to him.

In the next second, there was a burst of nothingness under my feet, and my body slammed into the "ground glass" barrier, and then I crossed the barrier from the broken part caused by the impact, and the boy's face instantly became clear .

Dry hair that is too long for a boy, and a chin covered with a beard.

The eyes were colorless and dull.

Everything around suddenly swayed and blurred as if immersed in water, and the scene squeezed into the eye sockets was only the youth's figure that was extremely clear. But this did not surprise me, because I suddenly realized that the boy in front of me was too similar to me.

It was as if I was standing in front of a mirror that spanned time. The boy in front of me is different from me even in subtle individual characteristics. But he was definitely myself, worn and weather-beaten over time.

"Hey! I said, Su Ruoyang!!!"

The young man choked up for a while, as if he was trying his best.

"It's not too late! Please believe what you think you should believe at the end of the day."

The boy's figure instantly began to fall apart from his fingertips, but his tear-filled eyes revealed a faint smile. As the pulling force intensified, he pulled a few meters away from me in an instant.

I stretched out my hands forward desperately, but he pushed out his hands suddenly, pushing me far behind me, and my back completely smashed the barrier behind me—the side that reflected me and the boy. mirror.

In the torrent of time, everything around me was swallowed by the beast in the broken mirror in front of me, only I stood where I was, pushed away from the dangerous situation by the boy's hands.

The edge of the boy's eye sockets turned into a blood-red paste, and in just a few seconds, his appearance completely lost my traces and became a complete skeleton. Instant nausea to overwhelming nausea flooded my stomach.

So, I heard the words squeezed out of the teeth by the skeleton with all its strength——

"Promise me...absolutely!"

I don't even know if the boy finished speaking, the voice was swallowed up with himself. The pull of the torrent also disappeared around me. It was as if the boy had never appeared before.

I took a few steps forward in confusion, and touched the four walls of this room—this room has been imprisoning me since I was a child, every time ghosts press the bed. Then, the walls dissipated as fragile as dust.

The scenery beyond the four walls came into view. It was an endless desert.

this second. The feeling of being in someone else's body and watching what happened suddenly disappeared.

It was as if the mastery of my body seemed to be back in my hands. I stretched out my palm, and really felt that the nature of the dream had deviated.

This unbelievable feeling seemed to announce to me that I had re-entered the world of "Lucid Dreams" after four months. Both nostalgic and disgusting. Distorted emotions arise spontaneously.

However, the world did not wait for me to try to control the dream again, and suddenly there was an extremely violent chill behind me. The strange perception made me feel someone's sight. I looked around hastily, but no one saw it.

[Sight, whose sight is that? 】

Deadly grief ran through every part of my body until it finally gripped my heart.

[Why are you looking at me? 】

The sense of oppression came straight from the rear. Gradually, grief pulled me into some indescribable sense of dread.

【don't want--】

[Don't look at me! 】

What occupies the heart is the kind of fear that shatters the frequency of breathing.

I painfully swallowed the strange feeling stuck in my throat, stepped forward and ran forward hysterically, trying to get rid of the eyes behind me. But the body seems to be standing still.

【No, look at me...】

The ground gradually distorted, turning flat in spite of my strong fear, trampling on my desire to escape.

A pair of eyes that were red and purple due to excessive force came into view.

【Don't...don't look at me...】

It was staring at me intently. I was suddenly pierced somewhere in my heart by these eyes.

[Don't look at me! 】

In the next second, those dead pupils approached me instantly. cling to me.

【No, look at me! 】

There was a surge of fear to the exclusion of dying immediately. In a blink of an eye, countless eyes crawled on me. The dense eyes are like milky white maggots that appear in groups on the corpse.

[Don't look at me! 】

I cried and struggled, but pairs of empty eyes had wrapped me in them.

[Don't look at me. 】

Someone in the distance is still watching me closely.

I--

[Don't look at me, don't look at me, don't look at me, don't look at me, don't look at me, don't look at me, don't look at me...].

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Suddenly, the beating sound of my heart rang through my ears, catching up with the sound of the hands of the clock, I suddenly left the soft hospital bed and straightened my body, and the lingering fear immediately rushed through my heart.

Those eyes were no longer there. Only that strong sense of fear still haunts my whole body.

I looked around in a daze, and there was no abnormal ward in front of me. The soreness from the neck made me turn my neck involuntarily, shaking off the uncomfortable feeling of not wanting to let go.

The hands of the clock rotated by real minutes and seconds, "slapping" back and forth between the two ears. Compared with the intense twitching heartbeat, the elapsed time seemed extra lazy.

I don't know how long it has passed, but time and the rhythm of my heart have finally maintained a similar frequency.

There are no teenagers, no deserts, and nothing staring into my eyes.

After half a year, the "sleep paralysis" that once lingered in my sleep and refused to leave came to me again, but after only a brief reunion with me in a dream, I eagerly left without saying goodbye.

I scratched my hair indiscriminately, and fixedly stared at the mobile phone screen that was lit up by letters.

Su Huilin was still lying on the hospital bed safe and sound, and the uninspiring light hit me lazily.

——Hey, How can my future turn upside down in this way?