Zheng fell asleep in the second floor bedroom that same day. He slept peacefully, sweeping away the pain and fatigue accumulated over all these days. Zheng did not wake up until LiuYu came to know on the door morning of the second day. He walked out of the room refreshed.
LiuYu asked in a cautious tone, “Did you sleep well last night? Was there…”
Zheng laughed. “Yes. It was very quiet and I slept well. You here to call me down for breakfast?”
LiuYu nodded. He glanced at the sides then said, “Did you… did you see anything paranormal last night? I heard ChengXiao said that ghosts have no forms. They can appear as anything. Their forms are given by our minds. Ghosts can be scary, exotic, or beautiful. They are the materialization of a person’s desires. He said…”
Zheng didn’t know whether to laugh or not as he interrupted LiuYu. “Did he say the reason I came up here is because I haven’t tapped in over ten days and couldn’t hold it anymore? So I used my lust to conjure a female ghost?”
LiuYu instantly nodded. “Yes. He was moving his hands furiously as he spoke. So did you see the ghosts?”
Zheng rubbed LiuYu’s head and said, “Don’t listen to that pervert’s nonsense. Ghosts come from your desire, but they come from your violent and evil desires. When your mind is filled with the fear of ghosts, how could they come in the forms of women? They will be the most popular existence if that can be true. Pretend you never heard him said anything. Speaking of which… that is probably what he is lusting to try.”
Zheng saved LiuYu from the corrupted training of ChengXiao. They headed down stairs to the living room. Zheng continued to give LiuYu advices. “You have to be extra careful of that being. Stay as far away from him as possible. If that isn’t physically possible, stay firm within your heart. I really fear that he taints you.”
“Taint?” LiuYu’s face turned pale. He instinctively reaches for his butt and then laughed awkwardly.
By the time Zheng enlightened LiuYu to stay aware of ChengXiao, they had come into the living room. There were five people already inside. Counting LiuYu and him, that made it seven people. The team split up last night but no one disappeared. He had won half of this bet!
Zheng let out a sigh of relief. He sat down by the dining table. Everyone had been eating convenient food from the supermarket these days. Nearly twenty continuous days of canned food made them want to throw up at the sight of another can. However, the situation did not allow them any other choices. Furthermore, their minds were tied to figuring a way to leave this world, so the food wasn’t as important.
Zheng meditated on the sofa after breakfast. He seemed to be ignoring the rest of the team. The others also did their own things. Xuan was reading. Kampa, TengYi, ChengXiao and LiuYu were chatting. YinKong was resting with her eyes closed. Time slowly passed by. Kampa exited the four men group at 3pm.
“I am going to the toilet.” Kampa gave Zheng a heads up and headed to the toilet.
Zheng’s hands trembled. He wanted to open his mouth but in the end, he simply nodded and continued meditating.
(No use trying to stop it. Believe in the team. Believe that they will never give up when confronted with their weaknesses. We have all been through the edge of hell many times. We have our weaknesses but our hearts also grew tougher… Stay strong, everyone!)
Kampa did not know the fighting Zheng was going through in his mind. He walked toward the toilet as he hummed a song. He pushed the half broken door open, his hand reached for his pants, then suddenly he heard the same tune he was humming. The two voices overlapped.
kampa’s mind paused for an instant. Without thinking, he gathered his strength. Black hair grew from his body. His muscles expanded. He didn’t turn into a complete werewolf but he was much bigger than a normal person. He struck his fist to the side.
Just then, an arm passed over a bottle of cheap vodka. Kampa’s claw halted 10 centimeters before the bottle.
“Mate… We promised to finish this vodka the next time we meet. How have you been?”
The arm and voice came from the cubicle to his side. The man didn’t come out from the cubicle.
Kampa’s fist was shaking. He was hesitating whether he should punch ahead. As the vodka reached closer and closer to him, he finally opened his palm and grabbed the bottle.
Battlefield, fire, comrades… Kampa’s life was spent in a complex yet pure world. He came from a place of wars. His country abandoned him but he never left the battlefield. The journey he walked was difficult. Two things accompanied him through his journey, weapons and comrades.
“O bella, ciao! Bella, ciao! Bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
E se io muoio da partigiano, tu mi devi seppellir.”
The song started again from the cubicle. The deep and coarse voice gave the song a hint of melancholy and boldness.
Kampa’s heart tightened. He popped open the vodka and binged it in one go. Then he howled and punched the cubicle’s wall. His fist struck a hole on the wall. Through the hole, he saw a man dressed in a black and white striped shirt, wearing a black hat and a pair of scissor like gloves. The man’s face was burned.
The people in the living room heard the sound of impact on the wall. YinKong was the first to rush toward the source of the sound. ChengXiao followed right behind her. Then TengYi and LiuYu. Zheng got up the moment he heard the sound but he hesitated. By the time he got himself together, there were only Xuan and him left in the room. Xuan seemed to be slow. He just put down the book by this time.
Zheng gave a good look at Xuan before he ran toward the toilet. YinKong was running so fast that she had passed through the hallway and made a turn when the others just arrived at the hallway. She disappeared from everyone’s sights.
ChengXiao, Tengyi and LiuYu came to the door of the toilet. ChengXiao gave it a hard push. The already broken door collapsed and exposed the room behind it. There was nothing.
Zheng arrived at the scene right after the other three people. They looked at each other baffled. ChengXiao said, “You did hear sound coming from this way right? Like something smashed a wall or a rock. But the toilet looks perfectly intact, aside from this door.”
“Yes… Kampa is no longer in my dream.” Zheng sighed then muttered.
The three people looked at him confused. ChengXiao asked, “Who’s Kampa? And what does it mean by no longer in your dream?”
Zheng didn’t reply. He looked over the three of them then to the sides as though he was searching for something. After being unable to find it, he sighed again. “YinKong has also… left my dream.”
YinKong followed the sound into the hallway. She ran ahead of everyone since she was the fastest and Zheng hesitated before he moved. As she left everyone’s sight after making a turn, an unnatural feeling struck her. She drew out Excalibur and held it in front of her throat.
Clank!
The invisible sword clashed with something. Sparks flew in every direction. YinKong was pushed back from the force of impact.
“Hoho. You blocked it. You added protection to your throat after dying to the string last time. An assassin shouldn’t have any fear, my little cousin. You can’t be an assassin anymore once fear sprouts in you.”
A man with long hair walked out of the darkness from the other end of the hall. He lightly flicked the string with his finger then looked over to YinKong with a smile. He was the person YinKong had been chasing after for so long, the ZhuiKong from team Devil.
YinKong did not charge up like she did the previous times. The gap of their strengths was wide. It wasn’t possible for her to take him head on. She was also cautious as she had noticed the strangeness of this place. No one caught up to her after the few seconds she stopped. She knew Freddy might have targeted her. This wasn’t the same dimension as the others were in. Lastly, she was wavering. Her hatred toward ZhuiKong wavered.
Seeing that YinKong was staring at him with a pair of cold eyes, ZhuiKong laughed. He slowly walked to her. “Do you really not plan to fight me? Do you think I am merely an illusion created by Freddy? Oh, my little cousin.”
YinKong did not move until ZhuiKong said these words. She leaped backward because a wave of killing intent exploded from ZhuiKong. The killing intent forced her to react with her instinct. She leaped out of the hand reaching forward.
“See? I am not just an illusion… I am the materialization of the one in your heart. Or should I say the materialization of your fear. Do you like such a real me?” He continued walking toward YinKong.
The materialization of fear? It struck YinKong when she realized the hole in her heart had grown so big. A feeling different from hate had manifested from her. It was hope or a sense of expectation she had for ZhuiKong. She was hoping that ZhuiKong only killed their friends and comrades due to a concealed reason. This hope contradicted with the hatred she had. That was why she wasn’t as impulsive.
Wavering was fatal to an assassin compared to intense emotions such as anger, affection, fear. Conflicts in the heart would halt her blade, because weapons waver between hitting its target or not like its user.
YinKong took a deep breath and calmed herself. “Yes. I shouldn’t waver. No matter if there’s a reason behind what you have done, their deaths have become a fact. The end result is I can only seek revenge from you. Is that it? This is the result you wish for.” Her eyes looked a little watery.
ZhuiKong laughed. “You are basically right except the result is a little different. You aren’t seeking revenge. You became my toy. I can’t wait to slice the person that I loved so dearly into pieces. Do you know how I killed your stupid friends? I sliced them like this, one slice at a time.”
ZhuiKong suddenly pulled out a head from behind. His dagger carved on the head. Blood and flesh was falling to the ground. Worse yet, the head was crying miserably as if it was alive.
YinKong clenched her teeth and tightened her grip on the sword. She stared at ZhuiKong coldly. That head belonged to one of her friends. She was a girl quite close to her. Despite knowing this was probably an illusion, anger boiled within her from sight of the brutal treatment.
The extensive assassin training since YinKong was a child held her back from attacking. She wouldn’t even have felt such anger if it weren’t ZhuiKong. She gripped Excalibur tightly and watched the illusion show.
ZhuiKong was entertaining himself without regard of what YinKong was thinking or doing. He tortured this human head until all the flesh and blood were shaved clean, leaving behind a white skull. Yet, the skull continued to cried in pain on his palm.
“Don’t you feel ecstatic, my little cousin? Watching someone you know so well die in my hands, and then dismembered, tortured, or perhaps even worse, destroy them mentally before their death, make them into a maniac and retard. Isn’t this feeling ecstatic? Haha.” He threw the skull to the ground and pulled out another head from behind. He carved the lead in the same manner.
The skull rolled toward YinKong. The illusion was so real that she couldn’t notice any flaw despite knowing everything was fake. As she intended to step away from the skull, it stopped. A girl’s voice came out.
“It hurts, sis. It hurts. My whole body hurts. I can’t see. I can’t hear. Sis, kill me. It hurts so much… kill me. Sis…”
The voice weeped as if a pitiful girl was talking to her sister. Yet, the scene of a skull talking and a man carving a crying human head was appalling and disgusting. It was enough to stop a normal man’s heart from fright.
YinKong could no longer contain her tears. Her mental defense collapsed when she saw those who she had known, heard the voices of her friends, and witnessed what ZuiKong was doing. She swung Excalibur as tears rained down her face. The sword crushed the skull. YinKong charged at ZuiKong in madness.
She disappeared into the hallway.
Zheng couldn’t help but bring the rest of the team back to the living room. Everyone followed the same script. No one remembered Kampa nor YinKong after their disappearances. Their names also vanished from the paper. If he didn’t still remember them, it would appear that the two never existed.
(Five people left. Xuan, ChengXiao, TengYi, LiuYu, and me. If my analysis is correct, things are coming to an end. The only question is what HongLu last said. What other method is there to wake a person than physically waking him? And how do you make the nightmare disappear?)
Zheng pondered quietly in the living room. He thought about the ordeal the team was going through and whether or not they could persevere through the mental battle. All he could do was wait… wait until the thing he was clinging on broke apart.
(If the dream is really constructed with my mind as the foundation, then breaking apart my desire to live on will allow Freddy to drag me into the despair dream. The result will be decided at that instant. However, I still don’t get the last step. I have found the origin. I have found the key. I know my the desire I cling onto. But how do I stop the nightmare? How do I accomplish the last step HongLu said?)
Zheng looked at the people around him again. He sighed then pinched his hair.
(I don’t have much time left. I need to figure it out before they all get dragged into the despair dream! What other way can you stop the nightmare?)
Showing posts with label Vol 18. A Nightmare on Elm Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vol 18. A Nightmare on Elm Street. Show all posts
Chapter 9
Lan felt as though her soul had frozen. She couldn’t find the courage to turn around. It was not due to fear but the person whom this voice came from.
“Is that… you?” Lan’s voice was shaking. She couldn’t move a finger as the warmth approached her from behind. She didn’t even use Psyche Scan. This voice alone nearly crippled her.
“It’s me and not me. Freddy’s power allows me to appear for a short moment. The only thing I can do… is hold you again.”
A figure embraced Lan from behind and the warmth enclosed her tears. It was a warmth that had nearly faded her memories but deep down in her soul, she never forgot this feeling.
Lan basked in this feeling quietly. Tears continued rolling down her cheeks. She knew he had died long ago. She knew he couldn’t be here even if he were still alive. This was an illusion, an illusion created by Freddy. But this feeling was so real. She wanted to relive this experience again, even if this was merely an illusion.
The words that came from the figure was nothing gentle like the embrace. “You betrayed me, didn’t you? You fell in love with someone else, didn’t you? You are not the woman waiting to marry me anymore… you betrayed me!”
Lan cried. She felt her heart cracking. It was as though something very important within her shattered. She clenched her teeth then said. “Please no… Freddy. Please. Kill me… don’t toy with my heart!”
The figure’s words remained ugly. “You… are not a virgin anymore, aren’t you? You have been soiled. Hahaha.”
The figure spread out and enclosed Lan in her entirety. The two disappeared, like Lan had never been here.
The rest of the team were running toward the toilet. They heard a loud bang similar to the sound of a wall breaking from an impact. They looked at each other then hurried their steps. YinKong jumped out the window to take the shortcut. The others followed her.
WangXia was running at the front so he didn’t see the others taking the shortcut. By the time he looked around, he had already arrived at the toilet. He placed his hand on the doorknob, pushed the door open, and rushed in. The door closed behind him.
Behind the door was not the toilet. It was an old and slightly weathered house. WangXia stared around the house with a bit of uncertainty. Then he spread his arms and activated this demon energy.
“Freddy! So you’ve come for me!” WangXia shouted. “Come! I will not fear you! I don’t know how you replicated my old home but did you think a simple house could break apart my will? Did you think my heart will waver? Come! Come and face me if you dare!”
WangXia channeled his demon energy onto the plasma grenades by his waist. He would attack at the instant Freddy appeared close. No one, not even Zheng could escape from this attack without damage at such close distance.
An old man’s voice came through the door. “Is it my nephew, WangXia? Have you returned?”
WangXia became silent. He recognized this voice very well. The man was a distant relative in the village who looked after his family since he was a child. Before he replied, an old man carrying a walking stick walked into the house. Tears began to roll down the old man’s face as he hit WangXia with the walking stick.
WangXia hesitated even though knew he couldn’t let down his guard once Freddy caught him. The gap in his heart was the thinnest compared to the rest of the team. He entered the world through hypnosis so he was confident on taking Freddy. However, when a senior he knew appeared, he didn’t know how to react. The beating from the walking stick wasn’t anything painful fortunately so he just let it go on.
The old man spoke as he wept. “You unfilial child! Your mother raised you and watched you off with silver hair. Yet, no one was there when she died. How could she give birth to such an unfilial child. I am going to beat you on behalf of your mother…”
WangXia grabbed onto the walking stick and shouted. “Mother… Wasn’t she healthy when I left? The army said they would look after her. How in such a short period of time? How did she pass away? That’s impossible. Right. You’re Freddy! This is all just a dream!”
WangXia was going to throw the grenade at the weeping old man. Yet, he couldn’t do it despite knowing this was merely a dream. He was wrong. His mother was the weakness that he had in his heart. The woman with silver hair.
The old man pointed the stick to the ancestor altars behind WangXia. That was when he noticed his mother’s name. He was the only person left in this family.
Redness overtook WangXia’s eyes. He dropped to his knees and knocked his head against the floor repeatedly. Blood stained the floor. WangXia finally broke down and cried. He couldn’t contain the tears of a man.
Something approached him from behind. Not the old man’s walking stick but a scissor like glove. It grasped WangXia by the neck…
Zheng leaped up abruptly and looked around. The scene was peaceful. He didn’t notice anything abnormal. Several members were standing next to him, looking worried.
“You alright? You fell asleep last night. Fortunately, Xuan found out and took over the night watch. We would have been in danger otherwise.” ChengXiao asked him.
Zheng was stunned for a moment before he yelled. “Shit. I fell into a dream again? How? Why did I fall asleep as soon as I went near Freddy? Fuck it! How are we supposed to kill him?”
The rest of the team looked confused. Kampa patted Zheng on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry. It was safe last night. The seven of us have been in the house the whole night.”
“Seven?”
There was no time to feel angry. Zheng quickly searched around. He had confirmed the death of the two newbies. But Zero, Lan, and WangXia were also missing. They disappeared as though they never existed. The team had forgotten about them.
Zheng pushed Kampa to the side and ran over to the table. He picked up the piece of paper that recorded their names. All he could feel was ice cold. There were only seven names. He wrote down fourteen names but there were only seven names. Seven disappeared. Even the words that he wrote down disappeared!
The rest of the team heard Zheng mumbling, “Zero, Lan, WangXia, Heng, HongLu. We can forget about the newbies but the five of them fought alongside us! How can I ever forget them? How can I? Freddy… I am going to kill you!”
A wave of killing intent surged from Zheng. He almost couldn’t contain himself from picking up Tiger’s Soul and kill stuff. He could take on anything in a direct fight. All these movies he had been to didn’t take him down. However, the helplessness, the disappearances one by one, and the possibility of forgetting his comrades struck him. How could he forget those who had fought with him, who had traveled to hell and made it back together?
“There’s definitely a solution to this movie. There must be!” Zheng clenched his teeth and roared. “God wouldn’t give a movie without solution! There has to be a solution to this movie! Xuan… help me!”
Team China dropped to only seven members all of a sudden. The rest of the members vanished, including the memories of them. Zheng was the only person to still remember their names.
Despair clouded Zheng. He never once felt so close to the border of despair. The situation had no relation to his combat strength at all. The despair came from his inability to see anything, to touch anything. All he could do was witness his team disappearing one by one while he didn’t even come to touch Freddy. He was defeated by helplessness.
Xuan was Zheng’s biggest support. He didn’t know why Xuan had been quiet throughout the movie, which differed from his person in the previous movies. In this case, Xuan must be preparing for something. He would not do anything without a value… However, that relied on a premise…
The other five members turned to Xuan after Zheng spoke. They had equal amount of faith in him. LiuYu though seemed curious at what someone who rarely spoke could do to bring the team back. So he asked ChengXiao.
Xuan was as calm as always, as though nothing mattered to him. He shook his head and said, “There is no solution to this movie… at least for the moment. There’s nothing I can help you.”
“Lies!” Zheng lifted him by the collar and shouted. “You are lying. This movie could be too difficult for us but it’s not the same to you! No! You shouldn’t even feel the difficulty! How could you have admitted defeat?”
Xuan patted his collar, picked up a book and began to read. He replied, “We can only wait… Quietly wait.”
Wait? Just keep waiting quietly?
Zheng’s hand moved but he suppressed what he was going to do. He sat down on the floor and pinched the hair in front of his forehead. The other five members didn’t know what happened between the two of them. After a while of thinking and coming up with no idea, they all sat down. The room fell into silence.
(No. I still can’t be certain. The possibility is higher than 60% but if I am wrong, his life… His personality and actions are also similar to how he has always been. Am I just too paranoid?)
(The second point is, judging by all the information, Freddy has only appeared in front of me. I am the only person who have seen him. Perhaps some other members saw him but they all disappeared. I am the only one who have seen him and am still here. He had to put me to sleep in order to avoid meeting me directly. But why?)
Zheng had entered the third stage. His simulation had reached a fairly high degree compared to before. He couldn’t perfectly simulate HongLu’s thinking process but it was enough for him to solve a lot of questions. HongLu was way above them after all.
(If Freddy’s main attacks aren’t physical and rely on breaking through a person’s mental defense, then dragging him into the despair dream, does that mean everything that has happened so far is for the purpose of breaking my defense?)
Zheng frowned. This was the first time he came up with this possibility. He might reach something by following this train of thoughts.
(If that is the case, could it be possible… this is all my dream? Everyone aside from me is fake. Then it can explain their disappearances and vanishing memories. The fake members are the origin of my nightmare. All I have to do to stop the origin is to eliminate them and then wake up. But this is too risky. What if they aren’t fake? My mental defense will collapse at the instant I attack them. I will hesitate and feel unease from attacking even if they are fake. These feelings will open up a gap in my heart. Furthermore, my mental state has been unstable. Pressing myself to kill my team will break my defense either way.)
“Damn it! I can’t get rid of the origin even knowing what it is. Then there is the question of how to wake up after getting rid of the origin.”
Zheng pulled a few hair from irritation. His mind was in a mess. The situation was more muddled than his mind. He was pushed up against a wall.
Just then, LiuYu carefully came up to him and said, “Hey, Zheng. Are we really in a dream?”
Zheng looked at him with surprise and nodded. “Yes. We are indeed in a dream. I can’t be 100% sure but judging from what has been happening, it should be the case.”
LiuYu followed, “If this is a dream, then we should be able to imagine our strength. A disabled boy could stand up in his dream in the third movie. He could even become a wizard. Why can’t our imaginations come true in this dream? Maybe we are still in the real world.”
(No! I get it!) Zheng was thrilled. He Patted LiuYu on the shoulder then twirled his hair.
(It’s our belief. Or perhaps the habit of our consciousness. This dream world is too real. So real that it’s like the Matrix. We can’t break through the confinement of our imagination despite being in a dream. That’s due to the habit of our consciousness. If my analysis is correct, my mind is the foundation of this dream. Then there’s one thing unique in this world!)
Zheng scanned over the people in the room then moved his eyes away.
(Which means the three newbies did die in front of me. The rest of the members disappeared. The newbies are complete strangers to me. I know nothing of their past, of the gaps in their hearts. That’s the reason Freddy selected me. I have the biggest gaps in my mental defense. I lust for everyone to return to the real world, which becomes a weak spot at this point. And I know of the past of the members. I get what HongLu was trying to say. We have to wait for the key to solve the puzzle. And then once it’s confirmed, the last step is to eliminate the nightmare.)
Zheng took a deep breath then stood up. He walked toward the stairs and said, “There’s no point staying in the living room since people are still disappearing. I will go sleep in a bedroom. Call me if something happens. You can also find a room to sleep or continue to stay in the living room.”
Xuan headed up the stairs after Zheng was gone. Five people were left in the living room. LiuYu asked, “What happened to Zheng? Is it something that I said?”
Everyone looked to the stairs clueless. No one answered his question. A few seconds later, YinKong also got up and walked up stair. The four people left got goosebumps as they continued to stare.
ChengXiao forced an awkward laugher and said, “We… should continue to stay here. Those three are psychopaths. I don’t want to be in the second floor with them. How about we stay here?”
The rest nodded, especially LiuYu. He was scared of being alone the most. He was the weakest person here since he was a newbie.
Zheng pulled a string of hair as he walked up the stairs. “If my deduction holds, I will save you all! That is our only chance of surviving.”
“Is that… you?” Lan’s voice was shaking. She couldn’t move a finger as the warmth approached her from behind. She didn’t even use Psyche Scan. This voice alone nearly crippled her.
“It’s me and not me. Freddy’s power allows me to appear for a short moment. The only thing I can do… is hold you again.”
A figure embraced Lan from behind and the warmth enclosed her tears. It was a warmth that had nearly faded her memories but deep down in her soul, she never forgot this feeling.
Lan basked in this feeling quietly. Tears continued rolling down her cheeks. She knew he had died long ago. She knew he couldn’t be here even if he were still alive. This was an illusion, an illusion created by Freddy. But this feeling was so real. She wanted to relive this experience again, even if this was merely an illusion.
The words that came from the figure was nothing gentle like the embrace. “You betrayed me, didn’t you? You fell in love with someone else, didn’t you? You are not the woman waiting to marry me anymore… you betrayed me!”
Lan cried. She felt her heart cracking. It was as though something very important within her shattered. She clenched her teeth then said. “Please no… Freddy. Please. Kill me… don’t toy with my heart!”
The figure’s words remained ugly. “You… are not a virgin anymore, aren’t you? You have been soiled. Hahaha.”
The figure spread out and enclosed Lan in her entirety. The two disappeared, like Lan had never been here.
The rest of the team were running toward the toilet. They heard a loud bang similar to the sound of a wall breaking from an impact. They looked at each other then hurried their steps. YinKong jumped out the window to take the shortcut. The others followed her.
WangXia was running at the front so he didn’t see the others taking the shortcut. By the time he looked around, he had already arrived at the toilet. He placed his hand on the doorknob, pushed the door open, and rushed in. The door closed behind him.
Behind the door was not the toilet. It was an old and slightly weathered house. WangXia stared around the house with a bit of uncertainty. Then he spread his arms and activated this demon energy.
“Freddy! So you’ve come for me!” WangXia shouted. “Come! I will not fear you! I don’t know how you replicated my old home but did you think a simple house could break apart my will? Did you think my heart will waver? Come! Come and face me if you dare!”
WangXia channeled his demon energy onto the plasma grenades by his waist. He would attack at the instant Freddy appeared close. No one, not even Zheng could escape from this attack without damage at such close distance.
An old man’s voice came through the door. “Is it my nephew, WangXia? Have you returned?”
WangXia became silent. He recognized this voice very well. The man was a distant relative in the village who looked after his family since he was a child. Before he replied, an old man carrying a walking stick walked into the house. Tears began to roll down the old man’s face as he hit WangXia with the walking stick.
WangXia hesitated even though knew he couldn’t let down his guard once Freddy caught him. The gap in his heart was the thinnest compared to the rest of the team. He entered the world through hypnosis so he was confident on taking Freddy. However, when a senior he knew appeared, he didn’t know how to react. The beating from the walking stick wasn’t anything painful fortunately so he just let it go on.
The old man spoke as he wept. “You unfilial child! Your mother raised you and watched you off with silver hair. Yet, no one was there when she died. How could she give birth to such an unfilial child. I am going to beat you on behalf of your mother…”
WangXia grabbed onto the walking stick and shouted. “Mother… Wasn’t she healthy when I left? The army said they would look after her. How in such a short period of time? How did she pass away? That’s impossible. Right. You’re Freddy! This is all just a dream!”
WangXia was going to throw the grenade at the weeping old man. Yet, he couldn’t do it despite knowing this was merely a dream. He was wrong. His mother was the weakness that he had in his heart. The woman with silver hair.
The old man pointed the stick to the ancestor altars behind WangXia. That was when he noticed his mother’s name. He was the only person left in this family.
Redness overtook WangXia’s eyes. He dropped to his knees and knocked his head against the floor repeatedly. Blood stained the floor. WangXia finally broke down and cried. He couldn’t contain the tears of a man.
Something approached him from behind. Not the old man’s walking stick but a scissor like glove. It grasped WangXia by the neck…
Zheng leaped up abruptly and looked around. The scene was peaceful. He didn’t notice anything abnormal. Several members were standing next to him, looking worried.
“You alright? You fell asleep last night. Fortunately, Xuan found out and took over the night watch. We would have been in danger otherwise.” ChengXiao asked him.
Zheng was stunned for a moment before he yelled. “Shit. I fell into a dream again? How? Why did I fall asleep as soon as I went near Freddy? Fuck it! How are we supposed to kill him?”
The rest of the team looked confused. Kampa patted Zheng on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry. It was safe last night. The seven of us have been in the house the whole night.”
“Seven?”
There was no time to feel angry. Zheng quickly searched around. He had confirmed the death of the two newbies. But Zero, Lan, and WangXia were also missing. They disappeared as though they never existed. The team had forgotten about them.
Zheng pushed Kampa to the side and ran over to the table. He picked up the piece of paper that recorded their names. All he could feel was ice cold. There were only seven names. He wrote down fourteen names but there were only seven names. Seven disappeared. Even the words that he wrote down disappeared!
The rest of the team heard Zheng mumbling, “Zero, Lan, WangXia, Heng, HongLu. We can forget about the newbies but the five of them fought alongside us! How can I ever forget them? How can I? Freddy… I am going to kill you!”
A wave of killing intent surged from Zheng. He almost couldn’t contain himself from picking up Tiger’s Soul and kill stuff. He could take on anything in a direct fight. All these movies he had been to didn’t take him down. However, the helplessness, the disappearances one by one, and the possibility of forgetting his comrades struck him. How could he forget those who had fought with him, who had traveled to hell and made it back together?
“There’s definitely a solution to this movie. There must be!” Zheng clenched his teeth and roared. “God wouldn’t give a movie without solution! There has to be a solution to this movie! Xuan… help me!”
Team China dropped to only seven members all of a sudden. The rest of the members vanished, including the memories of them. Zheng was the only person to still remember their names.
Despair clouded Zheng. He never once felt so close to the border of despair. The situation had no relation to his combat strength at all. The despair came from his inability to see anything, to touch anything. All he could do was witness his team disappearing one by one while he didn’t even come to touch Freddy. He was defeated by helplessness.
Xuan was Zheng’s biggest support. He didn’t know why Xuan had been quiet throughout the movie, which differed from his person in the previous movies. In this case, Xuan must be preparing for something. He would not do anything without a value… However, that relied on a premise…
The other five members turned to Xuan after Zheng spoke. They had equal amount of faith in him. LiuYu though seemed curious at what someone who rarely spoke could do to bring the team back. So he asked ChengXiao.
Xuan was as calm as always, as though nothing mattered to him. He shook his head and said, “There is no solution to this movie… at least for the moment. There’s nothing I can help you.”
“Lies!” Zheng lifted him by the collar and shouted. “You are lying. This movie could be too difficult for us but it’s not the same to you! No! You shouldn’t even feel the difficulty! How could you have admitted defeat?”
Xuan patted his collar, picked up a book and began to read. He replied, “We can only wait… Quietly wait.”
Wait? Just keep waiting quietly?
Zheng’s hand moved but he suppressed what he was going to do. He sat down on the floor and pinched the hair in front of his forehead. The other five members didn’t know what happened between the two of them. After a while of thinking and coming up with no idea, they all sat down. The room fell into silence.
(No. I still can’t be certain. The possibility is higher than 60% but if I am wrong, his life… His personality and actions are also similar to how he has always been. Am I just too paranoid?)
(The second point is, judging by all the information, Freddy has only appeared in front of me. I am the only person who have seen him. Perhaps some other members saw him but they all disappeared. I am the only one who have seen him and am still here. He had to put me to sleep in order to avoid meeting me directly. But why?)
Zheng had entered the third stage. His simulation had reached a fairly high degree compared to before. He couldn’t perfectly simulate HongLu’s thinking process but it was enough for him to solve a lot of questions. HongLu was way above them after all.
(If Freddy’s main attacks aren’t physical and rely on breaking through a person’s mental defense, then dragging him into the despair dream, does that mean everything that has happened so far is for the purpose of breaking my defense?)
Zheng frowned. This was the first time he came up with this possibility. He might reach something by following this train of thoughts.
(If that is the case, could it be possible… this is all my dream? Everyone aside from me is fake. Then it can explain their disappearances and vanishing memories. The fake members are the origin of my nightmare. All I have to do to stop the origin is to eliminate them and then wake up. But this is too risky. What if they aren’t fake? My mental defense will collapse at the instant I attack them. I will hesitate and feel unease from attacking even if they are fake. These feelings will open up a gap in my heart. Furthermore, my mental state has been unstable. Pressing myself to kill my team will break my defense either way.)
“Damn it! I can’t get rid of the origin even knowing what it is. Then there is the question of how to wake up after getting rid of the origin.”
Zheng pulled a few hair from irritation. His mind was in a mess. The situation was more muddled than his mind. He was pushed up against a wall.
Just then, LiuYu carefully came up to him and said, “Hey, Zheng. Are we really in a dream?”
Zheng looked at him with surprise and nodded. “Yes. We are indeed in a dream. I can’t be 100% sure but judging from what has been happening, it should be the case.”
LiuYu followed, “If this is a dream, then we should be able to imagine our strength. A disabled boy could stand up in his dream in the third movie. He could even become a wizard. Why can’t our imaginations come true in this dream? Maybe we are still in the real world.”
(No! I get it!) Zheng was thrilled. He Patted LiuYu on the shoulder then twirled his hair.
(It’s our belief. Or perhaps the habit of our consciousness. This dream world is too real. So real that it’s like the Matrix. We can’t break through the confinement of our imagination despite being in a dream. That’s due to the habit of our consciousness. If my analysis is correct, my mind is the foundation of this dream. Then there’s one thing unique in this world!)
Zheng scanned over the people in the room then moved his eyes away.
(Which means the three newbies did die in front of me. The rest of the members disappeared. The newbies are complete strangers to me. I know nothing of their past, of the gaps in their hearts. That’s the reason Freddy selected me. I have the biggest gaps in my mental defense. I lust for everyone to return to the real world, which becomes a weak spot at this point. And I know of the past of the members. I get what HongLu was trying to say. We have to wait for the key to solve the puzzle. And then once it’s confirmed, the last step is to eliminate the nightmare.)
Zheng took a deep breath then stood up. He walked toward the stairs and said, “There’s no point staying in the living room since people are still disappearing. I will go sleep in a bedroom. Call me if something happens. You can also find a room to sleep or continue to stay in the living room.”
Xuan headed up the stairs after Zheng was gone. Five people were left in the living room. LiuYu asked, “What happened to Zheng? Is it something that I said?”
Everyone looked to the stairs clueless. No one answered his question. A few seconds later, YinKong also got up and walked up stair. The four people left got goosebumps as they continued to stare.
ChengXiao forced an awkward laugher and said, “We… should continue to stay here. Those three are psychopaths. I don’t want to be in the second floor with them. How about we stay here?”
The rest nodded, especially LiuYu. He was scared of being alone the most. He was the weakest person here since he was a newbie.
Zheng pulled a string of hair as he walked up the stairs. “If my deduction holds, I will save you all! That is our only chance of surviving.”
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?”
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?”
Chapter 7
The team had been living in this house for ten days. Nothing happened during this time. Everyone spent their days as they normally would. The girls occasionally headed to the second floor together for naps. Most of the time, the team stayed in the living room per Zheng’s order but people began to get impatient.
Evening of the tenth night came. Zheng said to the others, “I know. I know. We all stink from not showering for ten days. No wonder the girls covered their noses when they saw us.”
Kampa casually replied, “Not a big deal. It’s only ten days without a shower. I have gone through half a month without washing my face during the most important times of battles. Ten peaceful days are more valuable than anything else.”
“You are not wrong.” Zheng shook his head and said, “It just feels sticky and uncomfortable. Ok. Enough with the useless talks. The bathroom in the third floor can fit the nine of us. Let’s take a bath after dinner. Any objections?”
Kampa didn’t care much. Zero and the others nodded. Xuan was quietly reading a book while holding a piece of chocolate. It seemed as though he didn’t pay attention to what the rest of the team were talking about.
Zheng sighed. Xuan had no given him any advice or stated his plan since entering the movie. However, he couldn’t be sure if this was another one of Xuan’s plan. Perhaps Xuan’s plan was already in progress. What Zheng needed to do was go along with it until the movie reached its end.
“Sigh.. Is there an end to these kind of days?” Zheng shook his head. He stared out the window to the dark street.
Everyone was indeed quite happy for a bath after ten days. HongLu acted like a kid as he swam in the bathtub and played with water. The bathroom was nearly four bedrooms big. It was obviously chosen by the previous owner of the house. The bathroom included showers, a steam bath, and a massage tub.
“Stay strong. It’s been eleven days already. Nineteen more days until we reach our goal.” Zheng said while people were cheerful. He washed his hair and seemed rather content with the bath.
HongLu swam near him. “Have you found anything out of the ordinary during these days?”
Zheng sprayed his hair with water then asked, “Why did you ask? Did you notice something wrong?”
HongLu shook his head. “No. That’s why I have to ask you. I only know we have thirteen members. Did we lose anyone during this time? How many people did we have? You are the only one who knows. Who else am I going to ask?”
Zheng also shook his head. “Nope. These ten days have been really peaceful. No one disappeared after MoLi and Heng. It would be good if this peace continues. Although Heng… but we still have to live on. Just continue with this peace.”
HongLu gave him a bitter smile. “How can it be so easy? I don’t know why but my special ability somehow still works in this dream.”
Zheng asked in confusion, “Your special ability? What kind of ability?”
HongLu pointed to his head. “Do you still remember that I can see the air of death from people who are about to die? The reason I haven’t mentioned it is because I am a logical thinker. My thinking process will contradict itself if I include such vague information. I excluded this ability as much as I could all this time. But the air of death is clouding most of our bodies. It’s on you, on me, on everyone. I feel like we are going to die at any time.”
That could be really terrible. Zheng replied with a bitter smile. He didn’t know how to respond other than just sigh. He walked to the bathtub and submerged himself under water.
(What should I do? My deduction only has a 30% chance of being right. But it’s the only one I can come up with. I can’t think of another possibility. Yet, the price to testing it might be too high. Furthermore, if it turns out wrong, we will surely get wiped. It’s up to you now, Zheng.)
HongLu swung his head. He pinched a string of hair in front of his forehead. His hair felt oily so he went over to the showers to wash his hair. There were only adult shampoos near the shower. The children one he bought was nowhere to be found.
“Did I left it in the changing room?” HongLu ranted. He walked out naked. While searching for the shampoo in the changing room, he heard a faint cry that belonged to a woman. Along with it was the crackling noise of something burning.
HongLu’s body trembled. He recalled he did bring the shampoo into the bathroom. Yet, it wasn’t inside and he mindlessly walked out. This wouldn’t have been possible with how careful he usually was. The only possibility was his mind got clouded. Which meant Freddy had targeted him.
“So the next target is me. I am curious. Is it because the hole in my soul is big or is it because I found the correct ‘key’? As long as I complete this key, I will break your magic… No. That will probably kill you.” HongLu smiled coldly.
He pushed the door to the bathroom open. Behind the door wasn’t the room in his memory just like he expected. It was a set of stairs leading up. A wave of heat was coming from above.
“The hole in my soul…” HongLu pinched his hair. “I haven’t found the hole in my soul. So am I still in the safe dream? I can imagine what tricks you are going to use on me… Disgusting. To be honest, I don’t ever want to walk these stairs again. I was planning to take down this type of houses after I return to the real world.”
HongLu weaved a sign with his hands and chanted a spell. A hound appeared in front of him. He sat on the hound then pointed at the stairs. The hound ran up.
“The soul, or our consciousness is relative.” HongLu said with a cold smile. “You can’t simply watch the side like this is a movie. You can see us and we can see you. If I don’t break apart from this scene that you set up, you will. Nothing is absolutely perfect in this world, including power.”
(Zheng. This is the final thing I can help you. A hole appeared in my soul and it is the same to him. Remember what I told you… Our lives are in your hands. Don’t forget us. There are… no more revives if we die again.)
Despite HongLu approached the situation without turning back, but he was trembling within. Tears filled his eyes as though they would burst out any second. He continued talking to the air and controlled the hound to run up. Fire soon consumed the floor in front of him and spread to the floor behind him.
(For real. If Zheng is a bit smarter, I wouldn’t have to say the correct thing at the wrong time and wrong place. Zheng! If you fail, I won’t let you off even if I become a ghost!)
Tears ran down HongLu’s cheeks. He came down from the hound. He cleared a path using Ray of Frost and came to a burned door. HongLu slowly weeped as he pushed the door open. He saw a skeleton that had been completely burned. The skeleton moaned in pain in a woman’s voice as though it was a human being burned alive.
HongLu cried out. A hand wearing scissor like glove reached out from the room and dragged HongLu inside. Pah! The burned door closed.
Zheng was greatly enjoying the refreshing bath. His never rested for a moment in the past ten days. For one, he had to be aware of the surrounding at all times in case something out of the ordinary happened. And two, he continued training his Qi, Blood Energy and refining Qi. He arranged the eight flags on eight directions in the living room. So he was tired from the lack of sleep. This bath was an opportunity to relax his mind and body.
(Need to think through our next actions. If everyone is in a dream, how can we wake up? Xuan is planning something by himself without telling me. Hope he pulls another miracle as he always did and bring the team out of this dangerous world… What was HongLu trying to say? The origin of the nightmare. What other way is there to wake up from a dream aside from physically waking the person?)
Zheng was never an intelligent type. He was at best on the same level as Kampa and Zero. Maybe a little higher in the third stage but still far, far away from Xuan and HongLu. The circumstance enclosing them was strange. Xuan kept his silence. HongLu’s words were as good as silence. Zheng had to force himself to think. Yet, he still wasn’t able to think of the answer. On a last resort, he entered the third stage and simulated HongLu’s mode of thinking. The situation became clearer in his head. He could see fractions of what might be happening but there were still parts he couldn’t figure out.
(Haven’t figure out what HongLu was trying to tell me but following his perspective that we are currently in a dream, the power levels in this world is established around a standard. What is this standard? Another key question is… with regard to time.)
Zheng pinched his hair then continued thinking.
(Time does not flow in accordance with the real world. Twenty days might have passed in reality already or maybe it is only several minutes. If the world is split into three, time in the safe dream and despair dream might not share the same rate. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have lost the girl when she fell off the window since I immediately chased after her.)
(Wait. That girl. What was her name?)
Cold sweat drenched Zheng. He jumped up from the bathtub then walked back and forth in the room. He was perturbed as though a fire was burning his body.
(How is this possible? How could I have forgotten the girl’s name? I am also forgetting how she looked like.)
A sense of fear fell upon Zheng. The situation was unsettling to begin with and now he discovered blank spaces in his memory. This inconceivable development was scarier than any enemy he could see with his eyes. He still remember what HongLu told him. The moment everyone in the team forgot about a person, that person would die. Because she no longer existed.
Zheng took several deep breaths then turned to Zero who was washing his hair. “Zero! Do you still remember the girl that vanished? What is her name? How does she look like?”
Zero hurriedly washed off the shampoo then opened his eyes, looking confused. “What vanished girl? Who?”
Zheng calmed himself and said, “The one that I kept saying had disappeared. Everyone said no one disappeared but I firmly insisted someone disappeared. I mentioned that girl. What is her name?”
Zero thought for a while before he shook his head. “Nope. You never mentioned about anyone disappearing. So I don’t know who you are talking about. We have twelve people in the team. Nine veterans and three newbies. None of us are gone.”
“We have twelve people?” Zheng immediately searched the room and yelled, “We have thirteen people! No, we have fifteen people! How did it become twelve? Xuan, Kampa, WangXia… Where is HongLu?”
Zero gave Zheng a weird gaze and said, “You are too tired. You haven’t slept for so many days. Get a good rest after the shower. I will keep watch over the night. We don’t have anyone named HongLu in our team.”
“We don’t? It’s impossible!” Zheng panicked and couldn’t the words to express himself. It was clear that every person who vanished became forgotten by the rest of the members. He was the only one who could remember these people but his memory of them faded as time passed. The terror of helplessness was spreading toward his heart.
(Calm! Calm! It seems like I have completely forgotten about that girl. I can still remember Heng and HongLu. We had fifteen people and now only twelve… I have to write down Heng and HongLu on paper. Never forget their names and existence! If what HongLu said is true, they will die once the whole team forget about them. I can’t let them die!)
Zheng entered the changing room, still in the third stage. As he dried himself with a towel, he smelled a very faint odor of burned plastic. He sniffed it a little more then followed the trail of this odor. It was coming from bathroom he just came out of. Zheng pushed the door open. The same room came into view again. Xuan, and the rest of the men were still there. The room looked perfectly normal.
(Was it an illusion? The odor appeared all out of a sudden… was it from Freddy?)
In the original movie, Freddy was killed by a fire. The odor might signify that Freddy had came into the safe dream.
“Is that so? The next target is me. What a good plan. Just kill me and the rest of the team won’t ever remember Heng, HongLu, the girl, and me. We will all be forgotten… Come! Come kill me! I dare you come in front of me!” Zheng roared with rage.
Fighting Freddy face to face was nothing compared to the helplessness as he witnessed his teammates disappearing one by one. The unknown and unseeable enemies were the deadliest!
There was no escaping what was destined to come. Zheng stopped pondering over it. He got dressed them ran down to the first floor. The girls looked at him puzzled. Zheng grabbed a pen and a few pieces of paper to the table. He wrote down Heng and HongLu’s names. Then he thought for a moment and wrote down the names of all twelve people remaining, including his own.
The girls came up to him. Lan asked, “What is this? And who are Heng and HongLu?”
“A member of team China.” Zheng replied. “They are all members of team China. These two people have disappeared. No matter what happens, don’t forget the remaining twelve people. Don’t forget those who has disappeared. Please.”
The girls didn’t know what happened. They had lost the memories of Heng and HongLu. Yet, Zheng spoke in such a serious manner, so they nodded in response.
Everyone came down from the third floor. Zheng made the team signed their names on the paper. After all was done, he said, “This is everyone in team China. Remember them. Even if only one person makes it back alive, remember every name here!”
Seeing the sincere expression from Zheng, the team began to doubt themselves. Did these people really existed and they had forgotten their own team?
“We have nineteen more days to go. We have twelve people. I don’t know how many of us will make it back to God’s dimension.”
Evening of the tenth night came. Zheng said to the others, “I know. I know. We all stink from not showering for ten days. No wonder the girls covered their noses when they saw us.”
Kampa casually replied, “Not a big deal. It’s only ten days without a shower. I have gone through half a month without washing my face during the most important times of battles. Ten peaceful days are more valuable than anything else.”
“You are not wrong.” Zheng shook his head and said, “It just feels sticky and uncomfortable. Ok. Enough with the useless talks. The bathroom in the third floor can fit the nine of us. Let’s take a bath after dinner. Any objections?”
Kampa didn’t care much. Zero and the others nodded. Xuan was quietly reading a book while holding a piece of chocolate. It seemed as though he didn’t pay attention to what the rest of the team were talking about.
Zheng sighed. Xuan had no given him any advice or stated his plan since entering the movie. However, he couldn’t be sure if this was another one of Xuan’s plan. Perhaps Xuan’s plan was already in progress. What Zheng needed to do was go along with it until the movie reached its end.
“Sigh.. Is there an end to these kind of days?” Zheng shook his head. He stared out the window to the dark street.
Everyone was indeed quite happy for a bath after ten days. HongLu acted like a kid as he swam in the bathtub and played with water. The bathroom was nearly four bedrooms big. It was obviously chosen by the previous owner of the house. The bathroom included showers, a steam bath, and a massage tub.
“Stay strong. It’s been eleven days already. Nineteen more days until we reach our goal.” Zheng said while people were cheerful. He washed his hair and seemed rather content with the bath.
HongLu swam near him. “Have you found anything out of the ordinary during these days?”
Zheng sprayed his hair with water then asked, “Why did you ask? Did you notice something wrong?”
HongLu shook his head. “No. That’s why I have to ask you. I only know we have thirteen members. Did we lose anyone during this time? How many people did we have? You are the only one who knows. Who else am I going to ask?”
Zheng also shook his head. “Nope. These ten days have been really peaceful. No one disappeared after MoLi and Heng. It would be good if this peace continues. Although Heng… but we still have to live on. Just continue with this peace.”
HongLu gave him a bitter smile. “How can it be so easy? I don’t know why but my special ability somehow still works in this dream.”
Zheng asked in confusion, “Your special ability? What kind of ability?”
HongLu pointed to his head. “Do you still remember that I can see the air of death from people who are about to die? The reason I haven’t mentioned it is because I am a logical thinker. My thinking process will contradict itself if I include such vague information. I excluded this ability as much as I could all this time. But the air of death is clouding most of our bodies. It’s on you, on me, on everyone. I feel like we are going to die at any time.”
That could be really terrible. Zheng replied with a bitter smile. He didn’t know how to respond other than just sigh. He walked to the bathtub and submerged himself under water.
(What should I do? My deduction only has a 30% chance of being right. But it’s the only one I can come up with. I can’t think of another possibility. Yet, the price to testing it might be too high. Furthermore, if it turns out wrong, we will surely get wiped. It’s up to you now, Zheng.)
HongLu swung his head. He pinched a string of hair in front of his forehead. His hair felt oily so he went over to the showers to wash his hair. There were only adult shampoos near the shower. The children one he bought was nowhere to be found.
“Did I left it in the changing room?” HongLu ranted. He walked out naked. While searching for the shampoo in the changing room, he heard a faint cry that belonged to a woman. Along with it was the crackling noise of something burning.
HongLu’s body trembled. He recalled he did bring the shampoo into the bathroom. Yet, it wasn’t inside and he mindlessly walked out. This wouldn’t have been possible with how careful he usually was. The only possibility was his mind got clouded. Which meant Freddy had targeted him.
“So the next target is me. I am curious. Is it because the hole in my soul is big or is it because I found the correct ‘key’? As long as I complete this key, I will break your magic… No. That will probably kill you.” HongLu smiled coldly.
He pushed the door to the bathroom open. Behind the door wasn’t the room in his memory just like he expected. It was a set of stairs leading up. A wave of heat was coming from above.
“The hole in my soul…” HongLu pinched his hair. “I haven’t found the hole in my soul. So am I still in the safe dream? I can imagine what tricks you are going to use on me… Disgusting. To be honest, I don’t ever want to walk these stairs again. I was planning to take down this type of houses after I return to the real world.”
HongLu weaved a sign with his hands and chanted a spell. A hound appeared in front of him. He sat on the hound then pointed at the stairs. The hound ran up.
“The soul, or our consciousness is relative.” HongLu said with a cold smile. “You can’t simply watch the side like this is a movie. You can see us and we can see you. If I don’t break apart from this scene that you set up, you will. Nothing is absolutely perfect in this world, including power.”
(Zheng. This is the final thing I can help you. A hole appeared in my soul and it is the same to him. Remember what I told you… Our lives are in your hands. Don’t forget us. There are… no more revives if we die again.)
Despite HongLu approached the situation without turning back, but he was trembling within. Tears filled his eyes as though they would burst out any second. He continued talking to the air and controlled the hound to run up. Fire soon consumed the floor in front of him and spread to the floor behind him.
(For real. If Zheng is a bit smarter, I wouldn’t have to say the correct thing at the wrong time and wrong place. Zheng! If you fail, I won’t let you off even if I become a ghost!)
Tears ran down HongLu’s cheeks. He came down from the hound. He cleared a path using Ray of Frost and came to a burned door. HongLu slowly weeped as he pushed the door open. He saw a skeleton that had been completely burned. The skeleton moaned in pain in a woman’s voice as though it was a human being burned alive.
HongLu cried out. A hand wearing scissor like glove reached out from the room and dragged HongLu inside. Pah! The burned door closed.
Zheng was greatly enjoying the refreshing bath. His never rested for a moment in the past ten days. For one, he had to be aware of the surrounding at all times in case something out of the ordinary happened. And two, he continued training his Qi, Blood Energy and refining Qi. He arranged the eight flags on eight directions in the living room. So he was tired from the lack of sleep. This bath was an opportunity to relax his mind and body.
(Need to think through our next actions. If everyone is in a dream, how can we wake up? Xuan is planning something by himself without telling me. Hope he pulls another miracle as he always did and bring the team out of this dangerous world… What was HongLu trying to say? The origin of the nightmare. What other way is there to wake up from a dream aside from physically waking the person?)
Zheng was never an intelligent type. He was at best on the same level as Kampa and Zero. Maybe a little higher in the third stage but still far, far away from Xuan and HongLu. The circumstance enclosing them was strange. Xuan kept his silence. HongLu’s words were as good as silence. Zheng had to force himself to think. Yet, he still wasn’t able to think of the answer. On a last resort, he entered the third stage and simulated HongLu’s mode of thinking. The situation became clearer in his head. He could see fractions of what might be happening but there were still parts he couldn’t figure out.
(Haven’t figure out what HongLu was trying to tell me but following his perspective that we are currently in a dream, the power levels in this world is established around a standard. What is this standard? Another key question is… with regard to time.)
Zheng pinched his hair then continued thinking.
(Time does not flow in accordance with the real world. Twenty days might have passed in reality already or maybe it is only several minutes. If the world is split into three, time in the safe dream and despair dream might not share the same rate. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have lost the girl when she fell off the window since I immediately chased after her.)
(Wait. That girl. What was her name?)
Cold sweat drenched Zheng. He jumped up from the bathtub then walked back and forth in the room. He was perturbed as though a fire was burning his body.
(How is this possible? How could I have forgotten the girl’s name? I am also forgetting how she looked like.)
A sense of fear fell upon Zheng. The situation was unsettling to begin with and now he discovered blank spaces in his memory. This inconceivable development was scarier than any enemy he could see with his eyes. He still remember what HongLu told him. The moment everyone in the team forgot about a person, that person would die. Because she no longer existed.
Zheng took several deep breaths then turned to Zero who was washing his hair. “Zero! Do you still remember the girl that vanished? What is her name? How does she look like?”
Zero hurriedly washed off the shampoo then opened his eyes, looking confused. “What vanished girl? Who?”
Zheng calmed himself and said, “The one that I kept saying had disappeared. Everyone said no one disappeared but I firmly insisted someone disappeared. I mentioned that girl. What is her name?”
Zero thought for a while before he shook his head. “Nope. You never mentioned about anyone disappearing. So I don’t know who you are talking about. We have twelve people in the team. Nine veterans and three newbies. None of us are gone.”
“We have twelve people?” Zheng immediately searched the room and yelled, “We have thirteen people! No, we have fifteen people! How did it become twelve? Xuan, Kampa, WangXia… Where is HongLu?”
Zero gave Zheng a weird gaze and said, “You are too tired. You haven’t slept for so many days. Get a good rest after the shower. I will keep watch over the night. We don’t have anyone named HongLu in our team.”
“We don’t? It’s impossible!” Zheng panicked and couldn’t the words to express himself. It was clear that every person who vanished became forgotten by the rest of the members. He was the only one who could remember these people but his memory of them faded as time passed. The terror of helplessness was spreading toward his heart.
(Calm! Calm! It seems like I have completely forgotten about that girl. I can still remember Heng and HongLu. We had fifteen people and now only twelve… I have to write down Heng and HongLu on paper. Never forget their names and existence! If what HongLu said is true, they will die once the whole team forget about them. I can’t let them die!)
Zheng entered the changing room, still in the third stage. As he dried himself with a towel, he smelled a very faint odor of burned plastic. He sniffed it a little more then followed the trail of this odor. It was coming from bathroom he just came out of. Zheng pushed the door open. The same room came into view again. Xuan, and the rest of the men were still there. The room looked perfectly normal.
(Was it an illusion? The odor appeared all out of a sudden… was it from Freddy?)
In the original movie, Freddy was killed by a fire. The odor might signify that Freddy had came into the safe dream.
“Is that so? The next target is me. What a good plan. Just kill me and the rest of the team won’t ever remember Heng, HongLu, the girl, and me. We will all be forgotten… Come! Come kill me! I dare you come in front of me!” Zheng roared with rage.
Fighting Freddy face to face was nothing compared to the helplessness as he witnessed his teammates disappearing one by one. The unknown and unseeable enemies were the deadliest!
There was no escaping what was destined to come. Zheng stopped pondering over it. He got dressed them ran down to the first floor. The girls looked at him puzzled. Zheng grabbed a pen and a few pieces of paper to the table. He wrote down Heng and HongLu’s names. Then he thought for a moment and wrote down the names of all twelve people remaining, including his own.
The girls came up to him. Lan asked, “What is this? And who are Heng and HongLu?”
“A member of team China.” Zheng replied. “They are all members of team China. These two people have disappeared. No matter what happens, don’t forget the remaining twelve people. Don’t forget those who has disappeared. Please.”
The girls didn’t know what happened. They had lost the memories of Heng and HongLu. Yet, Zheng spoke in such a serious manner, so they nodded in response.
Everyone came down from the third floor. Zheng made the team signed their names on the paper. After all was done, he said, “This is everyone in team China. Remember them. Even if only one person makes it back alive, remember every name here!”
Seeing the sincere expression from Zheng, the team began to doubt themselves. Did these people really existed and they had forgotten their own team?
“We have nineteen more days to go. We have twelve people. I don’t know how many of us will make it back to God’s dimension.”
Chapter 6
Every member in team China aside from Xuan, Heng and YinKong basically was assigned to stay on guard in the hotel. They gathered in a room. Zheng brought out the charms that would self-ignite as supernatural beings approached. Though whether these charms were effective in this world was another question.
Heng and YinKong’s role was to be Xuan’s bodyguard. They headed to the dealers in town to seek housing that were on sale or for rent. They had no lack of money. The millions they hacked could easily buy any house without an issue.
The sky outside the hotel was shining with sunlight. The crowded streets seemed more like the city than it was a town. The terrorizing atmosphere disappeared as they saw so many people walking along the street.
Heng let out a long breath and said, “Feels so much better in crowded place. The hotel felt extremely ghastly. It was like there’s a hand waiting behind me for a chance to attack. YinKong, did you have this feeling?”
YinKong didn’t turn to look at him while she replied, “I am always prepared for an attack coming from behind. Sneak attacks are an assassin’s specialty, also the thing we feared most.”
Heng gave her a bitter smile, “Pretend I never asked. What about you, Xuan?”
Xuan responded, “Oh.” Then walked to the crowd without another word.
YinKong frowned and followed after him.
(Well, I did ask too much. One’s a cold assassin. The other doesn’t even have a personality of his own. It’s better to just keep my mouth shut.) Heng smiled bitterly. He originally wanted to alleviate the dense atmosphere between them. He would not want to bring that ghastly pressure from the hotel when they finally came to a crowded area. The movie was scary enough and HongLu’s words tightened their nerves. It felt as though they could get killed any moment. Heng was scared. His body wasn’t strong. His strength came from his bow and arrows. If this was really a dream, his bow might not even work.
(But what should we do? This is A Nightmare on Elm Street. If I enter the despair dream, Freddy’s going to torture me. The scissor like gloves will cut open my body. Blood will flow out.) Heng could not stop his body from trembling as he was imagining. However, the piece of fortitude he possessed allowed him to follow Xuan with firm steps. His soul became tougher after he passed the illusion in the Lord of the Rings. He still couldn’t overcome the memory left from his childhood but he had taken a leap forward.
“Why are there so many people?” Heng scratched his head.
As he had expected, neither person in the front answered him. As he looked ahead more carefully, he suddenly discovered he had lost sight of them. He didn’t catch up to Xuan and YinKong in this crowded street, which was ridiculous. How could he have lost track given his senses and speed?
Heng didn’t know whether to feel mad or laugh it off. He rushed forward a few steps. Xuan and YinKong were still nowhere to be seen. Panic began to seeped into his mind. He jumped up two meters high in an attempt to look for them from above.
“Xuan, YinKong, you two…” Heng yelled as he jumped. Before he could finish the sentence, he saw a familiar figure walked into an alley. He froze as though something struck his mind. Somehow, he seemed to have forgotten HongLu’s warning. He ran toward the alley without thinking. In that instant, he felt he saw the woman dearest to him. He saw Min Yanwei entered the alley!
A chilling sensation swept across Heng’s head the moment he rushed into the alley. He suddenly remembered what HongLu had told him. Then he realized he wasn’t standing in an alley. This was in the middle of a road. A dark sky replaced the bright sunlight during noon. Heng turned his head around. The entrance to the alley was gone. All he saw was an extension of the road.
(Damn it. Did I get deceived? Freddy has targeted me? Is this… the despair dream?) Heng was panicking and scared but his experiences in the battlefield allowed him to bring out the silver bow and arrow. He placed a +4 enhanced arrow on the bow. Even Zheng had to be cautious of him in this state.
While Heng was ready for a fight, a light was shone on him from behind. He immediately turned around and fired the arrow at the light source. Clank! He saw a sedan stopped not far away. The arrow pierced through the headlight of the car.
A few seconds later, a beautiful woman in a suit walked out of the car. She looked at Heng in a surprise and said, “Heng? Is that you? Why are you here? And why did you break my headlight?”
Heng squinted the eyes that were irritated by the car’s headlight. The sight of this woman halted every word he had in his throat. She was his lover, Min Yanwei. The person who he abandoned and ran away from due to being scared. Heng never imagined he would meet her again in this place.
“The demon? Freddy?” Anger rushed up Heng’s head. His eyes turned red and he shouted, “Fuck! Who gives you the right to turn into her? Do you think I won’t shoot you like this?”
Yanwei expressed confusion and worry. She ran a few steps toward Heng but he stopped her. The enchanted arrow in his hand began to glow. The arrow was ready to fire. Yet, as his fingers turned pale, he just couldn’t let the arrow go. He and Yanwei stood there, facing each other.
Yanwei said in a worried tone, “Heng, let me come near you. I will drive you to the hospital. Are you not feeling well?”
“Shut… Shut up! Freddy! Don’t fucking talk in her tone! Don’t fucking look into my heart! I will shoot you right here!” Heng yelled with a hint of insanity. However, his fingers were trembling. His heart was struggling. He knew this was an illusion. He knew this woman was the demon. But he couldn’t let the arrow off.
Yanwei clenched her teeth then walked toward Heng. Just then, five men came out from behind the trees to the side. They approached Heng and Yanwei with a laughter.
Heng’s heart beat violently. He instantly yelled, “Run! Why are you still here? Get on your car and run!”
Yanwei looked behind as though she was confused. She saw two men ran over to her. The first man grabbed her and the second man charged at Heng.
“Go to hell!” Heng couldn’t contain himself anymore as he released the arrow. A light flashed across. The man’s head exploded. The headless corpse rolled next to Heng then stopped motionless.
Heng grabbed several arrows. He shouted as he charged toward Yanwei and the other men. He knew this scene too well. Taking the man that he just killed away, this was the turning point of his life. There was no more Freddy in his mind. There was no more a Nightmare on Elm Street. All that was left was to kill these men, to save Yanwei. He only had this one thought.
Heng drew an arrow, ready to shoot. Yet, he suddenly realized the silver bow vanished, the arrow vanished. He had nothing in hand. The men’s fists struck toward him. The first strike hit his nose and crushed his nasal bone. The rest of the men surrounded him and began beating him.
(Don’t… Don’t let it happen again. Don’t!)
In the scene in his memory, he would run away. Heng wasn’t thinking about running at this moment. Yet, after the beating, he was growing further and further away from Yanwei and the men.
By the time he heard Yanwei’s heartbroken cries, tears had drenched his face.
“I hate you! Heng! You destroyed me! It was all your fault! You weak and despicable being! I hate you forever!”
Heng felt something inside his heart shattered. He stood there motionless, tears still rolling down his face. The corpse next to him stood up while laughing. He was wearing a black hat and a black and white striped shirt. He simply stood next to Heng and laughed hideously.
The remaining members of team China waited in the hotel. They crammed into a room due to the lack of larger suites. The season was fortunately refreshing. A cool breeze circulated through the room once they opened the windows. It would have been disastrous if the season were summer. The air would smell stale from closing the windows in order to turn on the air conditioner.
The two new girls didn’t want to stay alongside so many men. However, they also feared Freddy’s attack. They grabbed Lan and headed to the window side. The girls chatted among themselves while they bathed in the cool breeze. The men also converse topics they were interested in a low volume. Kampa and Zero talked about improving their weapons. LiuYu, WangXia, and TengYi talked about the possibilities of abilities from novels. The scene looked peaceful and no one was particularly worried.
HongLu suddenly said to Zheng, “Hey, I want to ask you something.”
Zheng was meditating at the time. He opened his eyes as he heard HongLu’s voice and saw HongLu staring at him with a frown. Zheng asked, “Sure, go ahead.”
HongLu breathed out then said, “Everything I am about to say assumes that Freddy is listening. So some things, I can’t speak in direct words. You have to think to get the meaning. The first point is there are two criteria for any person to have a nightmare. One, the origin of the nightmare. In reality, this origin comes from deep within a person’s inner conscious. It might be a physical stimulation, such as an urge to use the restroom could provoke a dream where you are being flooded. Or a prickle on your finger could provoke a dream where your hand gets eaten by a monster.”
Zheng said, “I know this but what does it have to do with our situation?”
HongLu seemed stuck. He thought for quite some time before continuing. “That is the origin for a nightmare in reality. However, we are already in a dream, which also means we are inside the movie world. I speculate there is also an origin for this dream. It is the center of this series of nightmares.”
Zheng said with enthusiasm, “Does that mean we can leave this nightmare once we find out its origin?”
HongLu shook his head and said, “No. The origin is the origin. Leaving is leaving. Our thoughts flow in momentum. The nightmare won’t simply vanish when the pain on your finger stops. Your brain will continue on with the nightmare by itself. Such as you lose sensation of your hand and then a pack of monsters chase after you. We have to make the nightmare vanish along with finding out its origin.”
Zheng muttered, “By waking people up?”
“There’s another method to make the dream vanish aside from waking people up.” HongLu sighed.
He looked at Zheng with a peculiar gaze. After a while, he moved his eyes away and sighed deeply again. “I have told you, our conversation assumes that Freddy is listening. I can’t tell you the details. What should be said has been said. I have fulfilled my responsibility. Lastly… our lives are placed on your hands, Zheng. Thanks to you, our team made it through so many movies. So let fate decide our lives. Save us if you can. Otherwise… we will leave everything to fate.”
Zheng was more confused than before. He stared at HongLu for a while then said, “Your words are too strange. It’s on the same tone as Xuan. I really can’t get what you people are thinking… Speaking of which, I wonder if their mission is going well.”
“That’s the situation. The two of us rented a house on the east of the town. The house is fully furnished. The first floor is large enough to fit all thirteen of us.” Xuan spoke while holding a piece of document.
Zheng laughed. “Great. I was worried since it took you so long. Since the house can fit all thirty of us… thirteen… Eh? Thirteen?”
The rest of the team looked to Zheng in confusion. Zheng counted them one by one then yelled, “Heng? Xuan! YinKong! Where’s Heng? Where did you lose him?”
Xuan and YinKong were puzzled. YinKong said, “Who’s Heng? Have you seen someone not from our team again?”
Zheng took a deep breath and looked over the people around him. These people were here with him the whole day. There was no demon that manipulated them. They should remember Heng.
“Heng? No. We don’t have this person in our team. Team China had ten people then we get three newbies. So we should have thirteen people.” Zero, Kampa and WangXia all verified.
Zheng was speechless. He asked the rest of the team but the answers were the same. There was no such person in team China. Either he had gone insane and caused false memory or the whole team had gone insane.
“Heng vanished. Do magical weapons not work on Freddy? What should we do? How did Freddy make Heng disappear? Is Heng still alive? Why have everyone forgotten him?”
Zheng was feeling worse and worse in this world. If there was one person that he feared, it could only be his clone. He would not back off from fighting anyone else. He had the strength to not lose in such a baffling manner. Yet, it was the unknown that struck the most terror into people, because you never knew what would happen. You would feel baffled.
This was the unknown Zheng was facing. Teammates disappearing one by one and the remaining members lost their memories of those who disappeared. The stress weighing on him grew with each disappearance. He felt as though he would vanish in the next second. All his teammates had died once. They couldn’t be revived again. Disappearnce equted to eternal death. Those who once fought alongside him so suddenly disappeared. Worse yet, forgotten by their comrades.
It was dusk when Zheng led the team out of the hotel. Everyone stayed close to each other because Zheng affirmed there was a person named Heng. He disappeared when he went out with Xuan and YinKong. Zheng required everyone to stay close and yell if anything out of the ordinary happened. This was how they would prevent another disapperance. He didn’t want to see another one… That feeling was terrible.
“This is the house?” Zheng asked as he looked at the ordinary house in front.
YinKong nodded, “Yes. Xuan and I checked it out before going back. That was why we took so long. The first floor has a big living room, enough to fit all thirteen of us. It has three floors. The upper floors can also accommodate all of us.”
Zheng nodded and went in. Twelve people followed behind him. He was slightly relieved since nothing happened on their way here. Night was gradually coming. Even though death could come at any time in this world, bright daylight still felt safer to them. Everyone rushed into the lighted house as darkness began to overtake the sky. This was perhaps human nature.
“Wah!” The two new girls exclaimed. The house looked ordinary from the outside but was gorgeously decorated on the inside. It rivaled the rooms of the wealthy portrayed in movies. The girls obviously loved the house. They asked YinKong the cost of renting this house.
But Zheng stopped them. “You are a member of the teams in God’s realm. Money is useless to you from this point. If you want gold, platinum, diamond, just exchange it in God’s dimension with a minute amount of points. You can even travel back to the real world and be a super human or even God in that world. Why bother with money?”
Zheng then assigned the team members’ tasks. He brought out the charms, incenses, and weapons. He told everyone they must stay in the living room. If they had to go somewhere, someone else must accompany them. He also brought out the eight little flags.
“Come! Freddy! If you dare to come out I will destroy you!”
Heng and YinKong’s role was to be Xuan’s bodyguard. They headed to the dealers in town to seek housing that were on sale or for rent. They had no lack of money. The millions they hacked could easily buy any house without an issue.
The sky outside the hotel was shining with sunlight. The crowded streets seemed more like the city than it was a town. The terrorizing atmosphere disappeared as they saw so many people walking along the street.
Heng let out a long breath and said, “Feels so much better in crowded place. The hotel felt extremely ghastly. It was like there’s a hand waiting behind me for a chance to attack. YinKong, did you have this feeling?”
YinKong didn’t turn to look at him while she replied, “I am always prepared for an attack coming from behind. Sneak attacks are an assassin’s specialty, also the thing we feared most.”
Heng gave her a bitter smile, “Pretend I never asked. What about you, Xuan?”
Xuan responded, “Oh.” Then walked to the crowd without another word.
YinKong frowned and followed after him.
(Well, I did ask too much. One’s a cold assassin. The other doesn’t even have a personality of his own. It’s better to just keep my mouth shut.) Heng smiled bitterly. He originally wanted to alleviate the dense atmosphere between them. He would not want to bring that ghastly pressure from the hotel when they finally came to a crowded area. The movie was scary enough and HongLu’s words tightened their nerves. It felt as though they could get killed any moment. Heng was scared. His body wasn’t strong. His strength came from his bow and arrows. If this was really a dream, his bow might not even work.
(But what should we do? This is A Nightmare on Elm Street. If I enter the despair dream, Freddy’s going to torture me. The scissor like gloves will cut open my body. Blood will flow out.) Heng could not stop his body from trembling as he was imagining. However, the piece of fortitude he possessed allowed him to follow Xuan with firm steps. His soul became tougher after he passed the illusion in the Lord of the Rings. He still couldn’t overcome the memory left from his childhood but he had taken a leap forward.
“Why are there so many people?” Heng scratched his head.
As he had expected, neither person in the front answered him. As he looked ahead more carefully, he suddenly discovered he had lost sight of them. He didn’t catch up to Xuan and YinKong in this crowded street, which was ridiculous. How could he have lost track given his senses and speed?
Heng didn’t know whether to feel mad or laugh it off. He rushed forward a few steps. Xuan and YinKong were still nowhere to be seen. Panic began to seeped into his mind. He jumped up two meters high in an attempt to look for them from above.
“Xuan, YinKong, you two…” Heng yelled as he jumped. Before he could finish the sentence, he saw a familiar figure walked into an alley. He froze as though something struck his mind. Somehow, he seemed to have forgotten HongLu’s warning. He ran toward the alley without thinking. In that instant, he felt he saw the woman dearest to him. He saw Min Yanwei entered the alley!
A chilling sensation swept across Heng’s head the moment he rushed into the alley. He suddenly remembered what HongLu had told him. Then he realized he wasn’t standing in an alley. This was in the middle of a road. A dark sky replaced the bright sunlight during noon. Heng turned his head around. The entrance to the alley was gone. All he saw was an extension of the road.
(Damn it. Did I get deceived? Freddy has targeted me? Is this… the despair dream?) Heng was panicking and scared but his experiences in the battlefield allowed him to bring out the silver bow and arrow. He placed a +4 enhanced arrow on the bow. Even Zheng had to be cautious of him in this state.
While Heng was ready for a fight, a light was shone on him from behind. He immediately turned around and fired the arrow at the light source. Clank! He saw a sedan stopped not far away. The arrow pierced through the headlight of the car.
A few seconds later, a beautiful woman in a suit walked out of the car. She looked at Heng in a surprise and said, “Heng? Is that you? Why are you here? And why did you break my headlight?”
Heng squinted the eyes that were irritated by the car’s headlight. The sight of this woman halted every word he had in his throat. She was his lover, Min Yanwei. The person who he abandoned and ran away from due to being scared. Heng never imagined he would meet her again in this place.
“The demon? Freddy?” Anger rushed up Heng’s head. His eyes turned red and he shouted, “Fuck! Who gives you the right to turn into her? Do you think I won’t shoot you like this?”
Yanwei expressed confusion and worry. She ran a few steps toward Heng but he stopped her. The enchanted arrow in his hand began to glow. The arrow was ready to fire. Yet, as his fingers turned pale, he just couldn’t let the arrow go. He and Yanwei stood there, facing each other.
Yanwei said in a worried tone, “Heng, let me come near you. I will drive you to the hospital. Are you not feeling well?”
“Shut… Shut up! Freddy! Don’t fucking talk in her tone! Don’t fucking look into my heart! I will shoot you right here!” Heng yelled with a hint of insanity. However, his fingers were trembling. His heart was struggling. He knew this was an illusion. He knew this woman was the demon. But he couldn’t let the arrow off.
Yanwei clenched her teeth then walked toward Heng. Just then, five men came out from behind the trees to the side. They approached Heng and Yanwei with a laughter.
Heng’s heart beat violently. He instantly yelled, “Run! Why are you still here? Get on your car and run!”
Yanwei looked behind as though she was confused. She saw two men ran over to her. The first man grabbed her and the second man charged at Heng.
“Go to hell!” Heng couldn’t contain himself anymore as he released the arrow. A light flashed across. The man’s head exploded. The headless corpse rolled next to Heng then stopped motionless.
Heng grabbed several arrows. He shouted as he charged toward Yanwei and the other men. He knew this scene too well. Taking the man that he just killed away, this was the turning point of his life. There was no more Freddy in his mind. There was no more a Nightmare on Elm Street. All that was left was to kill these men, to save Yanwei. He only had this one thought.
Heng drew an arrow, ready to shoot. Yet, he suddenly realized the silver bow vanished, the arrow vanished. He had nothing in hand. The men’s fists struck toward him. The first strike hit his nose and crushed his nasal bone. The rest of the men surrounded him and began beating him.
(Don’t… Don’t let it happen again. Don’t!)
In the scene in his memory, he would run away. Heng wasn’t thinking about running at this moment. Yet, after the beating, he was growing further and further away from Yanwei and the men.
By the time he heard Yanwei’s heartbroken cries, tears had drenched his face.
“I hate you! Heng! You destroyed me! It was all your fault! You weak and despicable being! I hate you forever!”
Heng felt something inside his heart shattered. He stood there motionless, tears still rolling down his face. The corpse next to him stood up while laughing. He was wearing a black hat and a black and white striped shirt. He simply stood next to Heng and laughed hideously.
The remaining members of team China waited in the hotel. They crammed into a room due to the lack of larger suites. The season was fortunately refreshing. A cool breeze circulated through the room once they opened the windows. It would have been disastrous if the season were summer. The air would smell stale from closing the windows in order to turn on the air conditioner.
The two new girls didn’t want to stay alongside so many men. However, they also feared Freddy’s attack. They grabbed Lan and headed to the window side. The girls chatted among themselves while they bathed in the cool breeze. The men also converse topics they were interested in a low volume. Kampa and Zero talked about improving their weapons. LiuYu, WangXia, and TengYi talked about the possibilities of abilities from novels. The scene looked peaceful and no one was particularly worried.
HongLu suddenly said to Zheng, “Hey, I want to ask you something.”
Zheng was meditating at the time. He opened his eyes as he heard HongLu’s voice and saw HongLu staring at him with a frown. Zheng asked, “Sure, go ahead.”
HongLu breathed out then said, “Everything I am about to say assumes that Freddy is listening. So some things, I can’t speak in direct words. You have to think to get the meaning. The first point is there are two criteria for any person to have a nightmare. One, the origin of the nightmare. In reality, this origin comes from deep within a person’s inner conscious. It might be a physical stimulation, such as an urge to use the restroom could provoke a dream where you are being flooded. Or a prickle on your finger could provoke a dream where your hand gets eaten by a monster.”
Zheng said, “I know this but what does it have to do with our situation?”
HongLu seemed stuck. He thought for quite some time before continuing. “That is the origin for a nightmare in reality. However, we are already in a dream, which also means we are inside the movie world. I speculate there is also an origin for this dream. It is the center of this series of nightmares.”
Zheng said with enthusiasm, “Does that mean we can leave this nightmare once we find out its origin?”
HongLu shook his head and said, “No. The origin is the origin. Leaving is leaving. Our thoughts flow in momentum. The nightmare won’t simply vanish when the pain on your finger stops. Your brain will continue on with the nightmare by itself. Such as you lose sensation of your hand and then a pack of monsters chase after you. We have to make the nightmare vanish along with finding out its origin.”
Zheng muttered, “By waking people up?”
“There’s another method to make the dream vanish aside from waking people up.” HongLu sighed.
He looked at Zheng with a peculiar gaze. After a while, he moved his eyes away and sighed deeply again. “I have told you, our conversation assumes that Freddy is listening. I can’t tell you the details. What should be said has been said. I have fulfilled my responsibility. Lastly… our lives are placed on your hands, Zheng. Thanks to you, our team made it through so many movies. So let fate decide our lives. Save us if you can. Otherwise… we will leave everything to fate.”
Zheng was more confused than before. He stared at HongLu for a while then said, “Your words are too strange. It’s on the same tone as Xuan. I really can’t get what you people are thinking… Speaking of which, I wonder if their mission is going well.”
“That’s the situation. The two of us rented a house on the east of the town. The house is fully furnished. The first floor is large enough to fit all thirteen of us.” Xuan spoke while holding a piece of document.
Zheng laughed. “Great. I was worried since it took you so long. Since the house can fit all thirty of us… thirteen… Eh? Thirteen?”
The rest of the team looked to Zheng in confusion. Zheng counted them one by one then yelled, “Heng? Xuan! YinKong! Where’s Heng? Where did you lose him?”
Xuan and YinKong were puzzled. YinKong said, “Who’s Heng? Have you seen someone not from our team again?”
Zheng took a deep breath and looked over the people around him. These people were here with him the whole day. There was no demon that manipulated them. They should remember Heng.
“Heng? No. We don’t have this person in our team. Team China had ten people then we get three newbies. So we should have thirteen people.” Zero, Kampa and WangXia all verified.
Zheng was speechless. He asked the rest of the team but the answers were the same. There was no such person in team China. Either he had gone insane and caused false memory or the whole team had gone insane.
“Heng vanished. Do magical weapons not work on Freddy? What should we do? How did Freddy make Heng disappear? Is Heng still alive? Why have everyone forgotten him?”
Zheng was feeling worse and worse in this world. If there was one person that he feared, it could only be his clone. He would not back off from fighting anyone else. He had the strength to not lose in such a baffling manner. Yet, it was the unknown that struck the most terror into people, because you never knew what would happen. You would feel baffled.
This was the unknown Zheng was facing. Teammates disappearing one by one and the remaining members lost their memories of those who disappeared. The stress weighing on him grew with each disappearance. He felt as though he would vanish in the next second. All his teammates had died once. They couldn’t be revived again. Disappearnce equted to eternal death. Those who once fought alongside him so suddenly disappeared. Worse yet, forgotten by their comrades.
It was dusk when Zheng led the team out of the hotel. Everyone stayed close to each other because Zheng affirmed there was a person named Heng. He disappeared when he went out with Xuan and YinKong. Zheng required everyone to stay close and yell if anything out of the ordinary happened. This was how they would prevent another disapperance. He didn’t want to see another one… That feeling was terrible.
“This is the house?” Zheng asked as he looked at the ordinary house in front.
YinKong nodded, “Yes. Xuan and I checked it out before going back. That was why we took so long. The first floor has a big living room, enough to fit all thirteen of us. It has three floors. The upper floors can also accommodate all of us.”
Zheng nodded and went in. Twelve people followed behind him. He was slightly relieved since nothing happened on their way here. Night was gradually coming. Even though death could come at any time in this world, bright daylight still felt safer to them. Everyone rushed into the lighted house as darkness began to overtake the sky. This was perhaps human nature.
“Wah!” The two new girls exclaimed. The house looked ordinary from the outside but was gorgeously decorated on the inside. It rivaled the rooms of the wealthy portrayed in movies. The girls obviously loved the house. They asked YinKong the cost of renting this house.
But Zheng stopped them. “You are a member of the teams in God’s realm. Money is useless to you from this point. If you want gold, platinum, diamond, just exchange it in God’s dimension with a minute amount of points. You can even travel back to the real world and be a super human or even God in that world. Why bother with money?”
Zheng then assigned the team members’ tasks. He brought out the charms, incenses, and weapons. He told everyone they must stay in the living room. If they had to go somewhere, someone else must accompany them. He also brought out the eight little flags.
“Come! Freddy! If you dare to come out I will destroy you!”
Chapter 5
Zheng felt a layer of ice froze over his heart. He charged out the next instant without another thought. Yet, the human figure had already been dragged to the window. The girl cried miserably as she fell off the window. Zheng wasn’t able to grab her despite his speed. He did not stop right here. Zheng charged to the window and leaped off.
But there was nothing outside. The girl that was dragged away was no where to be seen. Everything that happened seemed as though it was his illusion. Zheng landed on the ground. There was not a single drop of blood. He stood on the street alone.
(How could that have been possible? I saw he fell off the window. It was less than a second between that and me reaching the window. How could she disappear in such a short amount of time? Impossible!)
A frightened expression overtook his face. He quickly turned his head around to look at the window. A shiver ran down his spine as he saw a man stood on where he was. The man had a burned face, wore a black hat, black and white striped clothes, and a pair of scissor like gloves, with five blades extended out from between th fingers. The man was holding a girl. Those blades were slicing away her skin and flesh. In his creepy laughter, the girl slowly thinned into a skeleton.
“Ah!” Zheng felt a wave of shock and anger. He did not fear the demon in reality. He could smash him into paste with Destruction if he had to. However, the moment he activated Explosion, bang!
He looked to the side and saw the people he was familiar with. He was lying on shattered pieces of a bed. The bed collapsed from the force exerted by Explosion. Zheng jumped up at once without exiting Explosion. Barely anyone there saw how he came near them.
“Where is this place? What time is it?” Zheng asked in a rush. His body was still tensed and in alert in case these people were disguised by Freddy.
The others looked to each other before Kampa said, “It’s eight in the morning already, in the hotel we stayed in.”
Zheng held his hand over his forehead and looked around. The environment superimposed with the memory of his room. It took several seconds for his mind to register. He was sweating by this time. “That was hard to imagine. I actually fell asleep last night. I couldn’t even know what time I fell asleep. Oh, the five of you…”
Zheng turned to the girls. Yet, he only saw four girls standing there. The one named MoLi was gone. He immediately realized what he experienced wasn’t a mere illusion. He witnessed a girl died after he fell asleep. That girl was MoLi.
“She died?”
The response from the rest of the team was out of his expectation. They looked at him weird. Xuan said after a while of silence. “We don’t have a person named MoLi. We have three newbies in this movie, ShuLan, Ouyan Wei, and LiuYu. Then there’s the eleven veterans.”
“Impossible!” Zheng stared at his team with his eyes wide open. His Qi and Blood Energy were ready to be activated the second anyone here reacted incorrectly. This must still be in the dream. How could the team forget the newbie? Or was it his memory that was altered?
Yet, no one did anything strange. Heng and YinKong looked at him weird as they sensed the movement of Qi and Blood Energy from him. YinKong entered a defensive stance. Zheng appeared the most suspicious among the team.
(No. If this is a dream, I wouldn’t be able to use Qi and Blood Energy. The energies prove this isn’t a dream. Then why did they say there’s no one named MoLi? Is my memories wrong? Was I in a dream the whole time before?)
Panic struck Zheng the more he pondered. Things that were unknown and mythical were the most terrifying. You wouldn’t be scared when you have a clear view of them.
The rest of the team recognized something wasn’t right with Zheng. HongLu walked over to him and asked, “What happened? You don’t seem right.”
Zheng returned with a bitter smile. He didn’t know how to reply. The light shining through the windows grew brighter. He said, “Let’s go have breakfast. I will tell you what happened last night.”
The team looked to each other again then followed Zheng to the dining hall. Once everyone sat down by the table, Zheng slowly narrated. He then compared the experience of the team and found out they remembered everything else that had happened, such as when they discussed their plans, went looking for the city, and returned to this town. The only memory that was lost was MoLi.
“Zheng.” LiuYu carefully said. “There really isn’t a person named MoLi. I get along well with the other two girls. No one knows this newcomer. Did Freddy deceived you in your dream?”
Zheng thought for a moment then shook his head. “I originally thought you were the ones that are deceived by Freddy and I am the only one with intact memory. However, since none of you remember her, it could be that I am deceived. We don’t have…”
“There’s a person named MoLi!” HongLu suddenly cried. His reaction shocked the rest of the team. They all turned to look at him.
HongLu twirled his hair. His glance moved through the team then stopped at Xuan and Zheng. He pulled off a string of hair and said, “Zheng, you still remember this girl right?”
Zheng nodded. Despite everyone denying MoLi’s existence, she did exist in his memory. His increased stats further allowed him to vividly remember her face and voice. He was more certain of it as he nodded.
HongLu said, “Then don’t forget her… I suspect we are currently in a dream.”Everyone except Xuan was shocked as they turned to look at him. YinKong pricked her finger with the dining knife. A drop of blood came out. She licked the blood and said, “I can feel pain.”
HongLu nodded, “I know we can feel pain… My question is, what is reality?”
The team looked confused. HongLu continued, “Reality is what our brain sees. If our brain doesn’t detect something, and if we couldn’t calculate its existence or detect it with instruments, we will not be able to determine whether it exists or not. Similarly, as long as our brain sends the pain signal, we will feel the pain even without any injury. Why can’t this be a dream?
“When God puts us into a movie world, does God pick a random location that’s related to the plot in some way? Why couldn’t God have directly put us into a dream? Perhaps we are in this dream the moment we left the barrier. If that’s the case, a lot of questions can be explained, such as why we returned to the town in a inconceivable way.”
Zheng quickly asked, “Then why do I have the memory of the newbie and you don’t?”
“Maybe because your mental state is special, maybe because you are strong, or maybe because you witnessed her death… There’ are too many possibilities. We forgot about her and you didn’t… I have one important thing I need to let you know. Don’t forget anyone here, no matter who that person is. If we are in a dream, how does this world exist? It exists upon our memories and our memories of each other. MoLi hasn’t been killed, only forgotten. When we all forget her, she would cease to exist. I think this is Freddy’s intention. Killed, forgotten, terror. Until we break apart mentally and no one remembers no one. Team China will be done!” HongLu said.
(Are we in a dream… or is this reality?)
Zheng asked himself in a murmur. He was lost, not knowing if this was a dream or reality. If this was reality, why did he fall asleep? Why did his team forget MoLi? If this was a dream, why could he use his Qi and Blood Energy? He didn’t even have trouble refining his Qi.
HongLu said, “I watched through A Nightmare in Elm Street multiple times. I noticed a phenomenon, which I call the three worlds. Which three worlds? First, the reality we are in. This world is lighted by sunlight. Nothing will happen. A world with only humans. This world is safe. You can have fun and laugh. The second world is the safe dreams. Freddy will enter the dream of his target. He plans events and people who the target had experienced and encountered. In the third movie, the protagonist is locked in a sanatorium. However, when she falls asleep, she suddenly finds herself back in her home at a time in the past. She is waiting for her mother to come home. The rock music from the radio is loud enough to disrupt the neighbors. In her past, the first thing her mother did after she returned was to turn off the radio. The same events occur in the dream. The protagonist thinks Freddy is the dream.”
HongLu paused. The team was drawn by his explanation. LiuYu quickly said, “I also saw this scene though I don’t remember the details.”
“The events that follows…” HongLu twirled his hair. “Her mother repeats her words but Freddy suddenly appears as her mother’s guest. He slices off the mother’s head. Yet, it is still talking. The protagonist screams at the horrifying scene.”
HongLu held out two fingers. “This is the second world, the safe dreams. Freddy enters your dream, manipulates your dream, up until he attacks you. From that point on, he becomes omnipotent in your dream; he can’t be killed. That’s the third world, the despair dreams.”
Silence fell upon the team as they pondered.
Some time passed before Zheng spoke, “What is the difference of the second and third world? Aren’t they both dreams manipulated by Freddy?”
“Yes and no.” HongLu glanced over the team, pausing for a moment on someone specific. “Why will there be a safe dream? If Freddy can manipulate a person’s dream at will, he can easily kill that person. Why didn’t he? Because of entertainment and madness? Because of the desire to torture? Or is it something bigger? I think he has no other choice.
“If we view a dream as an intact egg, the first thing you need to kill the person inside is to break through its shell. I think Freddy doesn’t have the ability to kill a person in his own dream. A dream is the domain of that person, where he is invincible. Much like how you are the god of your daydreams. This explains the origin of the safe world.
“Freddy uses various ways to break through this shell. Terror is his most used tool. There’s also sexual temptation which he used in the third movie. He will also lower your guard with pieces of your memory and then shatter this memory. He will kill the one most beloved to you. He will do everything to break open your heart. The moment he achieves it is the moment you enter the despair dream. In there, he manipulates the world, and you!”
Shivers ran down their spines from hearing HongLu’s analogy. Sleep wasn’t the issue anymore as long as they were in this world. Freddy might grasp the weaknesses within them at any moment then drag them into the despair dream. There was no use knowing his attacks. Everyone had their own weaknesses and their defense must be weak in this respect. An attack might meant death.
Zheng frowned then turned to Xuan. “What do you think? Just speak what’s in your mind. I hate it when you are silent. At least let us know if you have a plan.”
Xuan calmly shook his head. He continued eating spaghetti without a word. HongLu explained for him, “This is just a speculation. If we are all dreaming the same dream, this is the safe dream. Freddy can’t attack us. However, he can listen to what we are talking, see what we are doing. I suspect he can even reach into our heart to seek our weaknesses. That’s why Xuan can’t speak even if he has a plan. The reason I spoke is because I am taking a risk. I am betting Freddy can’t attack us in the current dream. He would have killed me for saying so much, so I won. Either we are currently not in a dream, or he can’t kill us in the safe dream. But he’s listening.”
(Xuan is staying silent to prevent Freddy from knowing his plan… but there’s another possibility. If it turns out that way, I can only…)
HongLu looked over the group again. He pulled off two strings of hair, pointed one at Zheng and the other at Xuan. “Then I will make a conclusion.”
The team finished their breakfast. Everyone was feeling a weight oppressing their hearts. They did not have the mood to think much knowing that they were in a dream and Freddy didn’t have to wait for them to fall asleep. Kampa, Zero, and WangXia inspected their weapons right after eating. Given that they brought the weapons into the dream, they might be able to damage Freddy here.
HongLu said as he saw people began to leave, “We don’t know why we would forget the people near us. We don’t know why Zheng can remember MoLi. It might be because he witnessed her in the despair dream. From now on, carve the people around you into your heart. Don’t lose your memory of them. Secondly, don’t think of the things you desire, the things you fear, the things you worry, or even Freddy himself. They are the crevices of your soul… I have said everything that needed to be said. My responsibility is completed. What’s left falls on you, Zheng. How would you as the leader lead us through the thirty days in this dream?”
Zheng looked at Xuan then at HongLu. He gritted his teeth then said, “We can’t split up since we are going to get attacked at any time. The night watch tactic is useless. It’s ridiculous that you wake up at the next day after chasing Freddy. I think we should all stay in the same room. We can sleep but four people need to stay awake at a time. And Soul Link.”
Lan asked, “There’s a use to Soul Link?”
Zheng shook his head. “I don’t know yet. However, Soul Link allows you to sense unrest happening in someone’s mind. Alert everyone who’s awake as soon as you sense it. That person might be under attack. That’s it then. We don’t know if our weapons are effective against Freddy in the dream. The only thing we can do is stay alert. Xuan, Heng, and YinKong, go buy a house while it’s noon. It’s best if we can move in tonight. Rent one if you can’t buy one in such a short amount of time. We can’t afford to split up again. Freddy will take us out one by one. And lastly, live on!”
But there was nothing outside. The girl that was dragged away was no where to be seen. Everything that happened seemed as though it was his illusion. Zheng landed on the ground. There was not a single drop of blood. He stood on the street alone.
(How could that have been possible? I saw he fell off the window. It was less than a second between that and me reaching the window. How could she disappear in such a short amount of time? Impossible!)
A frightened expression overtook his face. He quickly turned his head around to look at the window. A shiver ran down his spine as he saw a man stood on where he was. The man had a burned face, wore a black hat, black and white striped clothes, and a pair of scissor like gloves, with five blades extended out from between th fingers. The man was holding a girl. Those blades were slicing away her skin and flesh. In his creepy laughter, the girl slowly thinned into a skeleton.
“Ah!” Zheng felt a wave of shock and anger. He did not fear the demon in reality. He could smash him into paste with Destruction if he had to. However, the moment he activated Explosion, bang!
He looked to the side and saw the people he was familiar with. He was lying on shattered pieces of a bed. The bed collapsed from the force exerted by Explosion. Zheng jumped up at once without exiting Explosion. Barely anyone there saw how he came near them.
“Where is this place? What time is it?” Zheng asked in a rush. His body was still tensed and in alert in case these people were disguised by Freddy.
The others looked to each other before Kampa said, “It’s eight in the morning already, in the hotel we stayed in.”
Zheng held his hand over his forehead and looked around. The environment superimposed with the memory of his room. It took several seconds for his mind to register. He was sweating by this time. “That was hard to imagine. I actually fell asleep last night. I couldn’t even know what time I fell asleep. Oh, the five of you…”
Zheng turned to the girls. Yet, he only saw four girls standing there. The one named MoLi was gone. He immediately realized what he experienced wasn’t a mere illusion. He witnessed a girl died after he fell asleep. That girl was MoLi.
“She died?”
The response from the rest of the team was out of his expectation. They looked at him weird. Xuan said after a while of silence. “We don’t have a person named MoLi. We have three newbies in this movie, ShuLan, Ouyan Wei, and LiuYu. Then there’s the eleven veterans.”
“Impossible!” Zheng stared at his team with his eyes wide open. His Qi and Blood Energy were ready to be activated the second anyone here reacted incorrectly. This must still be in the dream. How could the team forget the newbie? Or was it his memory that was altered?
Yet, no one did anything strange. Heng and YinKong looked at him weird as they sensed the movement of Qi and Blood Energy from him. YinKong entered a defensive stance. Zheng appeared the most suspicious among the team.
(No. If this is a dream, I wouldn’t be able to use Qi and Blood Energy. The energies prove this isn’t a dream. Then why did they say there’s no one named MoLi? Is my memories wrong? Was I in a dream the whole time before?)
Panic struck Zheng the more he pondered. Things that were unknown and mythical were the most terrifying. You wouldn’t be scared when you have a clear view of them.
The rest of the team recognized something wasn’t right with Zheng. HongLu walked over to him and asked, “What happened? You don’t seem right.”
Zheng returned with a bitter smile. He didn’t know how to reply. The light shining through the windows grew brighter. He said, “Let’s go have breakfast. I will tell you what happened last night.”
The team looked to each other again then followed Zheng to the dining hall. Once everyone sat down by the table, Zheng slowly narrated. He then compared the experience of the team and found out they remembered everything else that had happened, such as when they discussed their plans, went looking for the city, and returned to this town. The only memory that was lost was MoLi.
“Zheng.” LiuYu carefully said. “There really isn’t a person named MoLi. I get along well with the other two girls. No one knows this newcomer. Did Freddy deceived you in your dream?”
Zheng thought for a moment then shook his head. “I originally thought you were the ones that are deceived by Freddy and I am the only one with intact memory. However, since none of you remember her, it could be that I am deceived. We don’t have…”
“There’s a person named MoLi!” HongLu suddenly cried. His reaction shocked the rest of the team. They all turned to look at him.
HongLu twirled his hair. His glance moved through the team then stopped at Xuan and Zheng. He pulled off a string of hair and said, “Zheng, you still remember this girl right?”
Zheng nodded. Despite everyone denying MoLi’s existence, she did exist in his memory. His increased stats further allowed him to vividly remember her face and voice. He was more certain of it as he nodded.
HongLu said, “Then don’t forget her… I suspect we are currently in a dream.”Everyone except Xuan was shocked as they turned to look at him. YinKong pricked her finger with the dining knife. A drop of blood came out. She licked the blood and said, “I can feel pain.”
HongLu nodded, “I know we can feel pain… My question is, what is reality?”
The team looked confused. HongLu continued, “Reality is what our brain sees. If our brain doesn’t detect something, and if we couldn’t calculate its existence or detect it with instruments, we will not be able to determine whether it exists or not. Similarly, as long as our brain sends the pain signal, we will feel the pain even without any injury. Why can’t this be a dream?
“When God puts us into a movie world, does God pick a random location that’s related to the plot in some way? Why couldn’t God have directly put us into a dream? Perhaps we are in this dream the moment we left the barrier. If that’s the case, a lot of questions can be explained, such as why we returned to the town in a inconceivable way.”
Zheng quickly asked, “Then why do I have the memory of the newbie and you don’t?”
“Maybe because your mental state is special, maybe because you are strong, or maybe because you witnessed her death… There’ are too many possibilities. We forgot about her and you didn’t… I have one important thing I need to let you know. Don’t forget anyone here, no matter who that person is. If we are in a dream, how does this world exist? It exists upon our memories and our memories of each other. MoLi hasn’t been killed, only forgotten. When we all forget her, she would cease to exist. I think this is Freddy’s intention. Killed, forgotten, terror. Until we break apart mentally and no one remembers no one. Team China will be done!” HongLu said.
(Are we in a dream… or is this reality?)
Zheng asked himself in a murmur. He was lost, not knowing if this was a dream or reality. If this was reality, why did he fall asleep? Why did his team forget MoLi? If this was a dream, why could he use his Qi and Blood Energy? He didn’t even have trouble refining his Qi.
HongLu said, “I watched through A Nightmare in Elm Street multiple times. I noticed a phenomenon, which I call the three worlds. Which three worlds? First, the reality we are in. This world is lighted by sunlight. Nothing will happen. A world with only humans. This world is safe. You can have fun and laugh. The second world is the safe dreams. Freddy will enter the dream of his target. He plans events and people who the target had experienced and encountered. In the third movie, the protagonist is locked in a sanatorium. However, when she falls asleep, she suddenly finds herself back in her home at a time in the past. She is waiting for her mother to come home. The rock music from the radio is loud enough to disrupt the neighbors. In her past, the first thing her mother did after she returned was to turn off the radio. The same events occur in the dream. The protagonist thinks Freddy is the dream.”
HongLu paused. The team was drawn by his explanation. LiuYu quickly said, “I also saw this scene though I don’t remember the details.”
“The events that follows…” HongLu twirled his hair. “Her mother repeats her words but Freddy suddenly appears as her mother’s guest. He slices off the mother’s head. Yet, it is still talking. The protagonist screams at the horrifying scene.”
HongLu held out two fingers. “This is the second world, the safe dreams. Freddy enters your dream, manipulates your dream, up until he attacks you. From that point on, he becomes omnipotent in your dream; he can’t be killed. That’s the third world, the despair dreams.”
Silence fell upon the team as they pondered.
Some time passed before Zheng spoke, “What is the difference of the second and third world? Aren’t they both dreams manipulated by Freddy?”
“Yes and no.” HongLu glanced over the team, pausing for a moment on someone specific. “Why will there be a safe dream? If Freddy can manipulate a person’s dream at will, he can easily kill that person. Why didn’t he? Because of entertainment and madness? Because of the desire to torture? Or is it something bigger? I think he has no other choice.
“If we view a dream as an intact egg, the first thing you need to kill the person inside is to break through its shell. I think Freddy doesn’t have the ability to kill a person in his own dream. A dream is the domain of that person, where he is invincible. Much like how you are the god of your daydreams. This explains the origin of the safe world.
“Freddy uses various ways to break through this shell. Terror is his most used tool. There’s also sexual temptation which he used in the third movie. He will also lower your guard with pieces of your memory and then shatter this memory. He will kill the one most beloved to you. He will do everything to break open your heart. The moment he achieves it is the moment you enter the despair dream. In there, he manipulates the world, and you!”
Shivers ran down their spines from hearing HongLu’s analogy. Sleep wasn’t the issue anymore as long as they were in this world. Freddy might grasp the weaknesses within them at any moment then drag them into the despair dream. There was no use knowing his attacks. Everyone had their own weaknesses and their defense must be weak in this respect. An attack might meant death.
Zheng frowned then turned to Xuan. “What do you think? Just speak what’s in your mind. I hate it when you are silent. At least let us know if you have a plan.”
Xuan calmly shook his head. He continued eating spaghetti without a word. HongLu explained for him, “This is just a speculation. If we are all dreaming the same dream, this is the safe dream. Freddy can’t attack us. However, he can listen to what we are talking, see what we are doing. I suspect he can even reach into our heart to seek our weaknesses. That’s why Xuan can’t speak even if he has a plan. The reason I spoke is because I am taking a risk. I am betting Freddy can’t attack us in the current dream. He would have killed me for saying so much, so I won. Either we are currently not in a dream, or he can’t kill us in the safe dream. But he’s listening.”
(Xuan is staying silent to prevent Freddy from knowing his plan… but there’s another possibility. If it turns out that way, I can only…)
HongLu looked over the group again. He pulled off two strings of hair, pointed one at Zheng and the other at Xuan. “Then I will make a conclusion.”
The team finished their breakfast. Everyone was feeling a weight oppressing their hearts. They did not have the mood to think much knowing that they were in a dream and Freddy didn’t have to wait for them to fall asleep. Kampa, Zero, and WangXia inspected their weapons right after eating. Given that they brought the weapons into the dream, they might be able to damage Freddy here.
HongLu said as he saw people began to leave, “We don’t know why we would forget the people near us. We don’t know why Zheng can remember MoLi. It might be because he witnessed her in the despair dream. From now on, carve the people around you into your heart. Don’t lose your memory of them. Secondly, don’t think of the things you desire, the things you fear, the things you worry, or even Freddy himself. They are the crevices of your soul… I have said everything that needed to be said. My responsibility is completed. What’s left falls on you, Zheng. How would you as the leader lead us through the thirty days in this dream?”
Zheng looked at Xuan then at HongLu. He gritted his teeth then said, “We can’t split up since we are going to get attacked at any time. The night watch tactic is useless. It’s ridiculous that you wake up at the next day after chasing Freddy. I think we should all stay in the same room. We can sleep but four people need to stay awake at a time. And Soul Link.”
Lan asked, “There’s a use to Soul Link?”
Zheng shook his head. “I don’t know yet. However, Soul Link allows you to sense unrest happening in someone’s mind. Alert everyone who’s awake as soon as you sense it. That person might be under attack. That’s it then. We don’t know if our weapons are effective against Freddy in the dream. The only thing we can do is stay alert. Xuan, Heng, and YinKong, go buy a house while it’s noon. It’s best if we can move in tonight. Rent one if you can’t buy one in such a short amount of time. We can’t afford to split up again. Freddy will take us out one by one. And lastly, live on!”
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.
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.
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