Lucid Dreams of Late: Luckless Trinity

CHAPTER 20: 彼らは悪化します [They Get Worse]

Happy Birthday to JIMIN-SSII!!!! [his birthday has passed in Korea tho...]

On with the story!

Tsukiko soon fell into a deep slumber. Her mind was constantly occupied with a lot of thoughts. Some good, some bad, regardless she could never stop those little voices in her head. Though she really never tried to in the first place. Even as she sleeps, she thinks.

She was getting along just fine with those intrusive worrisome thoughts when all of a sudden, she felt a huge constricting force on her chest. She opened her eyes abruptly, only to find out that she was no longer in her room, but in a sort of room.

There was no light around her and every step she took felt like the heaviest of weights were bound to her feet.

"Hello? Is anyone out there", she asked yelling into the foreboding darkness. Suddenly, she felt a force pull her back roughly as she hit her head against a solid wall.

Slowly, she got up with the help of said wall.

"Ouch...", she said as she rubbed the area her head had hit. She took a good look at the wall as it was the only solid thing that existed in this space she'd found herself in. Tsukiko had her two palms against the surface of the wall. She found that it was very smooth to touch and seemed to go on for miles and miles.

She tried breaking the wall with her magic, but if she was able to use it in this situation, that'd be too much of an easy way out.

When magic didn't work, she tried ramming herself against the wall, but apart from a sore arm, nothing more was achieved.

She could feel her spirit dwindle as it had so many times in her past dreams. A feeling of hopelessness would soon consume her.

Her dreams never made any sense, but they always managed to make her feel empty and hurt and most of all; useless.

She curled herself up into a ball and lay against the side of the wall. She wanted to cry so badly, but it was almost as if her eyes refused to produce any form of moisture. They were completely dry.

"Now I can't even cry?", she thought to herself.

She stayed still for a few moments before abruptly getting up.

"Since I can't cry anymore, I'll just look for a way out instead"

Now she felt less hopeless and afraid as she turned away from the wall and walked in the opposite direction. Though her steps faltered for a moment

"I can do this, right?", she asked herself.

Tsukiko inhaled deeply as she shook out those thoughts from her head and bravely continued on.

Though she'd talked herself into being brave and whatnot, the voices in her head weren't getting any quieter. In fact, they were the exact opposite. They had now grown so loud, that she wasn't even sure they were only speaking in her subconscious. They seemed to reverberate round the area, with her current position being where they were the loudest.

And then, she heard it.

Though it wasn't a very loud sound nor was it for a very long time, Tsukiko had heard the sound of a single footstep against the floor. It echoed against her eardrums as multiple possibilities began to reveal themselves from the inner folds of her mind.

She slowly turned in the direction of the noise. Usually, in your average horror film, if the main character happened to hear a noise, especially a quiet one, they'd turn around and see nothing. This time however was not the same.