Dreams Into Nightmares | Dreamcatcher

Chapter 2

The corridor was empty.

She resumed her searching of each room until she saw at the end of the corridor was another corridor leading left. From there came the sound of clattering chairs.

"Gotcha." She whispered to herself and tip-toed hurriedly to the corner, dropping the book and flower. She'd pick them back up after.

Dami appeared to have stacked up all the spare wooden chairs from a storeroom and JiU saw her place one final chair in front of the stack, then she sat down to open the book in her hand.

"Hey!" JiU called to her, noting she'd taken off her mask.

Dami glanced up and carefully marked her page before she chucked the book into the pile of chairs.

"What?" She returned with a smile and crossed her legs.

"Why are you messing with Yoohyeon's dream?" She demanded.

"Dream? I'd say it's more like a nightmare now." Dami grinned and stood, gripping the back of the chair with one hand.

"I order you all the stop what you're doing. Doing this much...You'll corrupt her in real life!"

"That's our intention. And you have no right to interfere."

"Yoohyeon has been through enough without you three trying to hurt her too." JiU snapped.

"She's the reason our lives have been messed up in the first place., JiU. You can't pretend you weren't mad at her when she killed that spider of yours."

"This has nothing to do with the spider." JiU said adamantly. "What're you doing with the chairs?"

"I predicted you might turn up alone and try and stop us. So I planned to do this." Dami clicked her fingers and the chairs all rushed through the air towards JiU, who only had enough time to throw up her arms and protect her face before the multitude of chairs collided forcefully with her body.

***

Walking down the forward corridor alone, Gahyeon felt helplessly alone without JiU. She tried to convince herself that she could do it, that she could stop the three girls.

Gahyeon peeked into the main dining area of the restaurant by crouching under the caution tape across the doorway to enter.

The sight that greeted her was terrifying - The whole restaurant was a mess. Caution tape crisscrossed the room in a crude imitation of a spider's web which made Gahyeon's stomach turn sickeningly.

Black and red confetti smothered the few pieces of colourful confetti on the floor and the lights flashed sporadically.

And in the corner of the room, her dear friend Yoohyeon shivered uncontrollably and cowered back as if she faced unseen demons.

Gahyeon ran to her and put her hand on Yoohyeon's shoulder. The girl shied away from her touch, but she kept her her warm hand on her cold shoulder.

"Look at me." Gahyeon begged.

When Yoohyeon didn't answer, she gently put her hand under Yoohyeon's chin and lifted her head, staring into her eyes.

Not good.

Yoohyeon's eyes had always been brown, but now multiple flecks of darker colour had started to break through and her skin was sweating profusely and worryingly pale.

A huge clatter of something wooden close-by a made Gahyeon jerk away from her.

"What...?" Was that the sound of falling chairs?

She needed to find the girls. Now.

Backing reluctantly away from Yoohyeon, Gahyeon turned and ran back through the room, ducking under the threads of tape and out of the room.

She continued to speed up walking down the corridor. The door to the staff-only area was open and covered with more caution tape.

Hearing rattling sounds up the stairs in the area behind the door, Gahyeon walked up the stairs, avoiding a princess doll in the middle.

Up the stairs, the corridor flashed dark pink and white and was also strewn with confetti as well as ripped books.

At the end of the corridor by the row of stairs affordable lockers, she saw three figures, all wearing black rabbit masks. They were spray-painting across the lockers without a care.

Gahyeon approached them slowly, trying not to let them see her, but all their attention was focused on spray-painting.

Unwittingly, Gahyeon tripped on a rocking toy she didn't realise was there and stopped in her tracks only a few metres away from the girls.

SuA stopped spray-painting and turned, her eyes falling on Gahyeon.

"Heya." She greeted with a wave and grinned, dropping her spray can casually.

Handong and Dami stopped spray-painting as well.

"Why're you doing this to Yoohyeon?" Gahyeon asked with a tremble.

"Man, I've already been through this with JiU. Didn't realise there were two of you trying to help Yoohyeon." Dami crossed her arms and rolled her actions, the action looking odd with the rabbit mask.

"J-JiU? Where is she?" Gahyeon felt sick. Something must've happened to her.

Dami shrugged casually. "No idea. Why don't you leave us alone and look for her?"

"If I do that, Yoohyeon will be corrupted! A-and who knows what'll happen?" She stammered nervously. The three girls were creeping her out and with her heart wanted to abandon Yoohyeon as a lost cause and escape the dream.

"Don't you think she deserves this?" Handong asked. "We've all suffered because of her foolish choices."

"If anything, Yoohyeon's suffered the most! Horrible things have happened to her, yet you all act like this. What happened so suddenly?"

SuA stepped forward threateningly and shot her hand out, grabbing Gahyeon's throat but not squeezing it.

She gasped and froze, watching SuA's face with wide eyes and parted lips.

"You...should be careful." SuA warned, deathly serious.

Gahyeon's eyes found SuA's, whose pupils gleamed black like a spider's. It couldn't be...

"Leave now. Leave your friend. You understand? Interfere and we'll enter your dreams."

She nodded with a terrified jerk. SuA let go of her neck and Gahyeon stumbled backwards over the fallen toy.

"Bye!" Dami mockingly called with a cheeky wave.

With shame burning her cheeks, Gahyeon pelted back along the corridor and down the stairs, returning all the way back to the front doors. She opened them and sprinted off without a look back, running off into the darkness and out of the dream.

A/N:
Heya, hope everyone's having a nice day!
Lol I'm not really 😂- College is stressing me out, and it's not just the work.