Chapter 4

The computer expertise of Xuan and YinKong in addition to their experience inside the U.S. for a few previous movies had given them great knowledge of the loopholes in this country’s network. Only several hours later, all fifteen members obtained citizenship within the system. They also transferred over ten million dollars, enough to sustain their expenditures for the next thirty days.
The team decided to leave the town they were in after a discussion. Firstly, if the original plot happened in this town, would leaving it escape getting killed by Freddy? In the least, they could go to a busier city if God did not allow them to run away. Hotels in the city were much more comfortable than those in a town. A presidential suite would also accommodate the whole team.

Once the issues of identity and money were settled, everyone took a taxi to the nearest city. The driver informed them the ride would take only a few hours and arrive before six. So they would have time for a dinner before heading to the hotel. Everyone felt relieved seeing things were proceeding smoothly.

“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3… This series is pretty much the same no matter which episode it is. They all portray a demon named Freddy who has the ability to sneak into another person’s dream and kill people. Freddy isn’t a normal living human. He is a demon that came back from hell. Also a psychopath that favors torturing children. He attacks young men and women frequently in the movies.”

The four newbies sat in the same taxi. The other eleven members were split among three taxis. No one felt sleepy as it was still day time. So they felt at ease leaving the newbies alone. The newbies got along well since they all suddenly entered a strange environment.

The only men in the group was pretty outspoken. He told jokes to the girl along the ride. His family restricted him from going out due to overprotectiveness. His free time after school was spent on the computer, which was how he became an expert in movies, novels, manga, jokes, and music. There was no one to chat with him on a usual basis. So once he started talking to the girls, he couldn’t get himself to stop. He finally smiled with satisfaction after getting the girls to laugh.

“It sounds like A Nightmare on Elm Street isn’t that scary. We just have to not sleep. And if we have to, just keep someone awake on the side. When you see the person sleeping experiences a nightmare and struggles, immediately wake the person up. Everyone take turns to sleep. Won’t we be able to get through the movie like this?” MoLi looked at the watch and said. There was a time to this mission. They didn’t have to stay in this situation for their whole lives. Her idea was possible to make it through thirty days.

LiuYu shook his head. “It’s not so simple. A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of my favorite series. Its story is bizarre. There are no patterns to a dream. In on of the movies, the protagonist drags Freddy out from a dream and burns him to death. However, the ending of the movie says that is an omen of Freddy coming back from hell.

“In another movie, the protagonist is chased by Freddy and in the end realizes everything is a dream. She only has to believe she is not in a dream and that Freddy is an illusion to prevent anything from happening. Just like she thought, Freddy disappears but when the ending comes, she is still in the dream. Freddy disappeared to toy with her.”

The girls were scared from hearing LiuYu’s words. They looked at each other, noticing their pale faces. LiuYu laughed out loud as if he wasn’t worried about the Freddy he just depicted.

“The demon Freddy… does he look like me?” A creepy voice sounded next to LiuYu’s ear. That was when he realized the girls were staring at his side, where the driver was supposed to be at. An untold terror filled their eyes. Goosebumps spread from LiuYu’s heart. His head inched around and witnessed a scary, burned face. A hat was worn over his head. He was wearing a black and white checkered shirt. His hands wore scissor like gloves. The man laughed in a high pitch as he scratched the window with those blades.

“Ah!”

“Wake up! LiuYu! Wake up!”

A voice pulled LiuYu back from his nightmare. His body shot up instantly and saw Zheng standing next to him with an incense in hand. Zheng put out the incense as he saw LiuYu woke up. The remaining fraction disappeared in his hand. It seemed like he valued this incense a lot.

“It fine now…” Zheng let out a sigh of relief.

LiuYu noticed he was lying on a road. A bus was stopped next to him. The other members of team China were either standing or sitting around.

LiuYu asked, “What happened? Wasn’t I in a taxi? How did I get attacked? I swear that was his face… it couldn’t be mistaken.”

Zheng shook his head. “We don’t know what happened either. The only thing we know is we returned to the town where we started.”

LiuYu looked out and it was indeed the town that he was familiar with. Evening had came. Twilight painted the streets in gold.

“It couldn’t be? Weren’t we taking the taxis to the city? How did we return to the town? Impossible! That’s impossible!” LiuYu cried in a shock.

Zheng stood up and walked over to a taxi. “We did take the taxi to a city but we encountered Freddy on the way. He replaced our driver and attacked us… Fortunately, I kicked him away. Our taxi smashed into a guardrail. Then the shock woke me up. I saw everyone had fallen asleep and we were stopped inside this town.”

There were no drivers in the taxis. One of the taxis indeed had signs of a collision. LiuYu carefully looked over the one he took and found the scratches on the window. Was that really a dream? Or did they treated reality as a dream?

Zheng didn’t waste time on LiuYu after seeing he woke up. He walked over to Xuan and said, “Did you see that demon too?”

Xuan took the same taxi as HongLu and ChengXiao. Aside from Xuan, their faces were pale white. Xuan frowned and replied, “I did fall sleep, but I did not have a dream. My hypnotizing mechanism would have activated if I did. It would be interesting if he enters my dream.”

A shiver struck Zheng’s heart. He never expected Xuan to have no fear of the bizarre experience he just went through and instead, Xuan was looking forward to Freddy entering his dream. Zheng didn’t know what to say in response.

HongLu said, “Anyway, this might be God’s answer. We are not allowed to run away from this town or we will get attacked. This is only the first day so the attack wasn’t strong. Furthermore… This world isn’t what we thought it is.”

Zheng asked in confusion, “What do you mean that it isn’t what we thought it is?”

Xuan suddenly stopped HongLu from replying. “Wait. You can’t say it!”

HongLu felt a bulb light up and nodded. He didn’t say anything more.

Zheng was enraged and loudly said, “The heck? What are you scheming again? Why can’t you tell me? Just why won’t you tell us? And you even stopped HongLu from doing so!”

Xuan looked at him in a serious expression then shook his head. “It’s not I don’t want to. I can’t… The situation isn’t so easily explained. Let us go to a hotel first. The sky is getting dark. You surely don’t wish to stay on the streets through the night, do you?”

Zheng was pondering the meaning of “I can’t”. He had no choice but nodded then said to the others, “Let our questions for later. We will settle into a hotel first. Gather up and discussion this situation at night. We are not in a good situation!”

Zheng sighed and took the lead toward the hotel. The sun had set… the night was near.

The hotel in town wasn’t big. It would be more appropriate to call it an inn. The building had only five floors. It definitely had enough rooms for fifteen people but there was no single room spacious enough to fit all of them. This was the original reason the team first decided to head to the city. Unfortunately, they were stuck and had to settle into this hotel.
“Such terrible conditions. The biggest room in this hotel barely fits four people… If we force fifteen people in, I don’t think anyone’s going to fall asleep. There wouldn’t even be space for you to sit. Fine for a day or two but thirty days? I believe no one wants it right?” Zheng shrugged as he spoke to the people sitting in front.

The team climbed up to the roof of the hotel. They sat in a circle under the starry sky. Zheng had the responsibility to lay out the situation the team was in as the leader.

“We have witnessed the danger of this movie. To be honest, I couldn’t figure out when did I fall asleep. My body is strong enough to stay awake for ten to fifteen days and I can further strength it with Qi to stay awake up to a month. So I don’t believe I would fall into a dream so easily. The only possibility is God altered the movie to put anyone who attempts to leave this town into a dream.” Zheng said.

The rest of the members looked to each other. The day had been strange to them. Everyone came in knowing the kind of world that was A Nightmare on Elm Stret. The science they learned could not be used to explain this world. Still, what had happened today was inconceivable to them. Was there no solution to this movie? Were their deaths already set as they were in Final Destinations?

“Strangeness is inconceivable. We can label A Nightmare on Elm Stree as ghosts type or inconceviable type movies. The plot itself is simple. However, dreams themselves are among the strangest. Things which couldn’t happen in the real world could in a dream. Unless you never sleep, you will become fragile in your dreams. That’s why we group this movie with the unsolvable genre.” HongLu said.

The others nodded in agreement. All equipment became useless in a dream. No one could bring their weapons in. It was probably the same for their abilities. Dreams were imaginations of the person. One’s imagination determined everything of him. In some ways, it was exactly like what Xuan had said. Hypnosis and the Lambda Driver might allow him to slay the demon the moment it entered his dream.

Zheng let out a long breath. “I originally planned to find a hotel in a city today so we could stay in the same room and aid each other… Anyway, we will just settle in this town now that things turned out the way they are. I am going to assign you for the upcoming thirty days. We have five women and ten men. So the all five women say in a room. It’s going to be crowded but try your best to bear with it. The remaining people split into two groups of five. It will also be crowded for us but that’s what we have to overcome. One person must keep watch at night. The moment you see someone enters a nightmare, you have to light the incense and wake all four people. If the person still can’t wake up from the nightmare, call everyone over, or at least the two other people keeping watch.” Zheng gave his assignments, especially stressing them to the newbies. He was rather worried with reegard to the newbies. This wasn’t the same situation as The Grudge anymore. There wasn’t a scripturee for them to steal and Zheng wasn’t the same person. The problem he feared was if the newbies didn’t put effort on the night watch. Then those who fell into a nightmare wouldn’t be able to wake up.

Anyway, Zheng repeated the assignments a few times and the team split up. They stayed in three consecutive rooms on the second floor. These three person rooms could barely fit enough beds for five people. Yet, it was not the time to enjoy the stay. Everyone frowned then settled down.

The best choice to get through the night was actually staying on a busy open area as they did in The Grudge. The members would take turns sleeping. However, the drawback it possessed was the members might not be able to physically sustain through their time here. They had to survive for thirty days after all. Being constantly stressed for thirty days or sleep deprived could break a person down mentally.

The women’s team was actually not weak despite having three newbies. YinKong had a magical weapon and Lan was a psyche force user. Whether or not Freddy could take her on was a question.

Xuan led the team of Zero, Kampa, Heng, and ChengXiao. Xuan was the counter to Freddy. Heng and ChengXiao also had magical weapons to take him on. This group was safe whether in a dream or in reality.

The group of Zheng, WangXia, HongLu, TengYi, and LiuYu was weaker in comparison. Although those who believed in Zheng’s strength would think it was the strongest team. Yet, Zheng shivered from his heart.

(Freddy attacks people from their dreams… My mental state is filled with weaknesses. I might be the weakest one in this team at the moment. Physical strength does not equate to mental state.)

The ominous feeling was growing stronger. Zheng didn’t know what would happen but it was definitely related to this movie, and probably Freddy.

(I should just not sleep. I will meditate Qi throughout the night which also helps to refine Qi. Thirty days is going to be tough but it will get through. Too bad I won’t be able to kill Freddy. Life is more important.)

After Zheng made up his mind, he headed to the room and began meditating. LiuYu became curious and asked. He was excited when Zheng told him about Qi was among the enhancements. It took Zheng much convincing and letting him know of Cultivation enhancements to stop LiuYu from pestering him. LiuYu continued talking by himself for another hour on the bed before falling asleep. The other three had long fallen asleep.

The four people in this group didn’t have to worry since Zheng was going to stay up. Zheng’s strength in reality did not fear Freddy even after God altered the difficulty. He might even be able to one shot Freddy with Destruction.

Zheng did not notice anything out of the ordinary as he continued to meditate and refine Qi. The breathing of the others was rather calm. There was no traces of a nightmare. Yet, that ominous feeling just kept growing. He felt as though he had forgotten something.

(Is it from the women’s group? The first one to stay up is definitely YinKong. She would not have any issue. It’s midnight now. So it’s time for the third person. Is it one of the newbies?)

Zheng became more worried. He woke WangXia up to take his place while he headed for the door. The hallway was creepily silent but he walked without fear since he was in reality.

As he looked toward the women’s room, his heart skipped a beat. The door was painted in blood. The floor, the ceiling, the walls were all painted in blood. It was as though a manslaughter took place.

Zheng rushed toward the blood trail without a second thought. He made a turn and saw a girl walking with her trembling body. Her flesh was torn open. Her tendons were pulled all the way out to the floor, ceiling, and walls. These tendons were dragging her forward.