Chapter 8

Team China had nine veterans and three newbies remaining, although Zheng was the only one to remember the three people who disappeared. He had to bear this weight all by himself. His mental state tensed more and more, nearing the edge of snapping.
The team noticed the abnormality happening to Zheng. He had obviously fell into anxiety. Freddy wouldn’t even need to come out at this rate before he snapped by himself. Furthermore, no one knew where the next attack was coming. The invisible looming danger also weighted on the rest of the team. Anxiety spread onto them.

(We can’t let this go on. The anxiety will break open gaps in everyone’s mind. Freddy won’t even need to attack at this rate.)

Eighteen days had passed. Heng, HongLu and the forgotten girl were still the only three to have disappeared. After dinner, Zheng said to the team, “Don’t worry too much. We only have twelve days left. We will return as long as we make it through these twelve days.”

Clearly merely comforting words. Not even Zheng believed what he just said. Did this count as self-comforting or self-hypnosis? Since he did let out a sigh of relief. The rest of the team nodded along. Anyway, the time was nearing the thirty-day limit and the team still had twelve members left. Just be more cautious and it couldn’t end in a wipe at least.

(Yet, can we really leave this dream world? Time in a dream does not flow on the same rate as time in the real world. Maybe these eighteen days are only eighteen seconds. HongLu, what were you trying to tell me? What is that origin of the nightmare? What other method is there to make the nightmare go away? What is it?)

The team returned to the living room on the first floor after dinner. They either sat in groups and chatted or rested. Zheng and Xuan were the only ones to stay by themselves quietly. Xuan was reading a novel while sipping a cup of coffee. This was just his personality.

Zheng’s mind was spinning as he maintained the third stage. He looked over the team while he recalled every thing that had happened since entering the movie. He could basically remember everything aside from the girl whose name was forgotten. The memories of Heng and HongLu never faded. It could be because they had fought together for so long.

(If we entered this world in the dream, then the barrier can’t be explained. Being inside the barrier is equivalent to being in God’s dimension. Which means we were awake during the preparation phase. The missions and the four newbies have to be real!)

(A second point is we couldn’t have fallen into a dream so abruptly. In order to throw the whole team into the same dream, it must have happened… on the ride to the city. God altered the difficulty at the time. That was how we all fell asleep in the cars. I remember Jie said when he and his team experienced A Nightmare on Elm Street, they tried to run away from the town but the driver turned into Freddy and wiped the former team China. The question is, how did he obtained acknowledgement at that point to become the leader?)

Zheng shook his head. He pulled off a string of hair, put it on the table, and restarted his thoughts.

(My train of thoughts is tangled. Let me reconstruct the hypothesis. Jie did something to obtain acknowledgement from God. However, this something only obtained the acknowledgement. He didn’t complete the movie nor killed Freddy. I assume he completed half the mission.)

(Using this information, then I can explain what HongLu had said. First, there exists something that is the origin of the nightmare. This thing allowed the nightmare to occur. Second, in order for us to wake up, we must eliminate the origin. However, the nightmare will still continue at this point in another form due to momentum. How would we wake up? What other way than physically waking the person?)

Zheng gave his head a heavy shake. He was feeling a little dizzy and headache from maintaining the third stage for so long. He endured this headache and pulled off another string of hair. He put the hair on the table.

(These two points are directly connected to whether we can return to reality. Then there is the question of time. If time does not flow at the same rate as reality, waiting thirty days here would be a waste of effort. Why is Freddy making us wait? To drive us into anxiety and open a gap in our minds?)

(The final question is… if something that is unusual is the culprit, he’s acting too out of the ordinary.)

Zheng couldn’t suppress the need to pull another string of hair. But the clock suddenly struck. A medical style grandfather clock in the living room rang. The time had reached twelve midnight. The members of team China was going to sleep since it was late at this time.

The two newbie girls got up and spoke to Lan in a low volume. Lan nodded then went toward the hallway with them.

Zheng glanced at where they were going. It was the direction to the toilet. He then closed his eyes and continued pondered over his questions. He was too anxious to pay more attention to other people. With Lan there, the girls shouldn’t encounter any problems.

(If that is the origin of the nightmare, would doing this be too extreme? Furthermore… something’s off. Did something happened? This feeling of unease…)

Zheng’s heart skipped a beat when he reached the critical point in his thoughts. It was as though a thing flashed across his feelings. An awful feeling rose from within. He rushed to the direction of the toilet instantly. He experienced this same feeling before, when the first girl disappeared. Something must be happening!

The rest of the team saw Zheng jumped up and began to run toward the toilet. Zheng yelled, “Prepare for battle! Xuan, take Zero and Kampa to the second floor and get ready to intercept! Everyone else follow me!” He disappeared around the corner.

The way leading to the toilet wasn’t long. Zheng reached there almost instantly. He kicked open the door without a second thought. Lan was just pulling up her pants. She screamed as she crouched. Her face turned red.

Zheng recognized the issue. The other men would be able to see her at this rate. He didn’t see anything too clearly due to his rush though. He immediately shut the door and asked, “Lan! Where are the other two? Where did they go?”

Lan was panicking. She lowered her head and said, “Hurry up and leave! Who are you talking about? I am the only one here.”

Zheng knew it had happened. The two girls disappeared. Yet, this sense of danger still lingered. He rushed to the window on the toilet and looked out. Three figures were walking away from the house. The one in the middle was the figure of a man.

Zheng shouted, “Put them on fast!”

He drew out Tiger’s Soul and slashed at the window. The wall and glass broke apart. Zheng activated Instant Destruction when suddenly a loud bang came from above. It was the Gauss Sniper Rifle.

“Nice shot!” Zheng shouted.
He blinked to the figures with the speed of Instant Destruction. His Qi, Blood Energy and refined Qi were all ready for an attack. He would shred Freddy into pieces the moment Freddy came into sight.

However, the scene that came before his eyes after he approached shocked him. Freddy’s corpse was nowhere to be found. Lying on the ground were the two girls’ bodies. The sniper bullet pierced both their bodies. They weren’t walking on a line. It shouldn’t have been possible that the shot went through both of them!

Zheng held up the two bodies then turned his head around in an impulse. He saw Zero staring at his direction with terror and agony. Zero was standing by a second floor window with the Gauss sniper rifle in hand. The previous shot indeed came from him but how was he able to shoot through the girls at once? Why was his expression… looked in such despair?

Zheng opened his mouth but before any sound came out, a hand wearing scissor like gloves reached out from behind Zero and dragged him into the house. The scene behind the window turned black. There was nothing left.

“Ah!” Zheng panicked and maddened. He activated Destruction instantaneously and entered the fourth stage. He rushed over to the second floor, smashed the wall with a kick then headed into the darkness.

Zero was planning to sleep when the clock struck twelve. He always remained alert, so when Zheng jumped up and rushed toward the toilet, he immediately got back up. Following Zheng’s order, he went into position on the second floor. He didn’t know what was happening. His experience led him to set up the rifle and waited.

Time slowly passed. The feeling that he experienced felt distorted. It was as though he had been waiting here for so long, yet at the same time, it felt like an instant. This feeling was similar to the teleportation that happened when leaving and entering God’s dimension, though weaker. Zero frowned. A sniper needed to be calm as a rock. He couldn’t let his mind waver.

The feeling dissipated and Zero finally saw something came into view. Two girls followed a man’s figure. He could make out the attire of the man despite not having a clear look of him. The black hat and striped shirt all pointed this man to a certain person. The Gauss sniper rifle was loaded with a spirit type bullet and Zero aimed it at the man.

His finger lightly pulled the trigger. Suddenly, image on the scope blurred for an instant. It was less than the blink of an eye when the image changed to that of a woman who pulled a girl to her front to block the shot. The shot pierced through both of them and sent the two bodies flying. Zero felt his soul began to freeze.

The woman was his mother… the mother who had died. The girl… was his brother!

The two bodies lay on the follow after being shot, waiting for death to take them away. The Gauss sniper rifle was powerful enough that even a graze on the chest would crush the heart. There was no way for the two to survive from a direct hit!

Zero looked down, seemingly defeated. He could see through the darkness outside with his eyes. The death of his mother and his… broke apart his inner defense, even though he knew it couldn’t be real.

Zero was trying to pull himself together. He recognized he had entered the despair dream, and that Freddy had targeted him. Any gap in his heart could lead to his disappearance from the team. No one would remember him anymore. Humans might not fear death, but nearly everyone feared to be forgotten by those close to them.

“Tell mother… Have you fallen in love with your little brother? Did you kill your little brother? Did you create a doll of him with the body of a girl? Have you fallen in love with your little brother? Did you kill your little brother? Did you create a doll of him with the body of a girl?”

A woman’s voice resonated by his ears. The woman’s body through the scope stood up. She picked up the girl’s body and manipulated it to various postures like a puppet. The girl felt soulless. The woman’s laughter sounded piercing to Zero’s ears. His mind was falling apart. And then a hand reached out from behind and dragged him into an eternal darkness.

Lan came out from the toilet at the time Zheng and Zero saw Freddy. Her face was red from the blush. She was embarrassed from what happened. It was normal when a man kicked open the door while the woman was doing her business. She wanted to dig a hole and hide herself. The worse part was, the man who saw her in this embarrassment was the one she secretly liked.

“Damn it. How could he just break in? Does he have no sense of respect for a woman? And it’s to chase after those two girls too… Eh? Who are the two girls?”

Lan clapped his face. She muttered while she walked toward the living room. Just two steps in and a familiar voice came from behind.

“Do you love him so much?”