As the first rays of morning sunlight spilled across Graville, the city should have returned to normal.Yet when the light reached the outskirts, it seemed blocked by an invisible curtain, unable to penetrate.
Ethan looked up at the veil and quipped,"Huh… looks like the director forgot to pull the lighting curtain for this sunrise."
Karl's face remained stern, ignoring the comment. The agents around them exchanged uneasy glances.The city before them hadn't vanished—but it had grown even stranger.
Half of the streets were clear, the other half blurred.Tables and chairs in the cafés glittered in the sunlight, only to be engulfed by black mist the next moment, twisting into jagged stone.Residents appeared and disappeared: some sitting quietly on benches, others repeating the same movements like puppets.
Most bizarrely, they could hear the church bells ringing in the air, yet when they looked up, the church was only a faint, blurred silhouette.
Ethan walked along the street. The paving stones beneath his feet alternated between solid and soft as if walking on water.At one point, he nearly sank entirely and had to grab Karl's arm to scramble back out, panting.
"Looks like today, creek-walking shoes were the smart choice," he joked, brushing dust from his clothes.
Karl frowned."Don't move recklessly. This city has merged with the nightmare."
"I'm not moving recklessly," Ethan replied."I'm just giving the city a little… quality inspection."
They pressed on.Around the corner, an elderly woman slowly pushed a shopping cart. Inside were vegetables and bread—but on closer inspection, the bread wriggled slightly, as if alive.
Her eyes were tightly shut, and she murmured repeatedly,"Hurry home… hurry home…"
The next second, her shadow stretched violently, twisting into a claw-like form that lunged at them from the ground.
Agents raised their weapons immediately. The shadow dissolved under gunfire.Yet the woman continued pushing her cart, as if nothing had happened.
Ethan watched the scene, murmuring,"Looks like the residents here are living in two worlds at once."
By the city center, the overlap of illusion and reality reached its peak.On one side of the street were normal shops; on the other, twisted Nightmare structures: black mist flowed through doorframes, and cracks like eyes crawled across the windows.
Children played in the square, but their shadows became monstrous, clawing and tearing at one another.Laughter and screams intertwined, blurring the line between what was real and what was not.
Ethan squinted and took a deep breath."Alright… this has to be the worst double exposure I've ever seen."
Karl muttered,"The spatial stability of this city is collapsing."
Then Ethan heard a strange voice—not with his ears, but inside his mind, a low whisper:
—"The key… is here…"
He abruptly stopped and scanned his surroundings.The streets around them flickered; buildings twisted as if kneaded by a giant hand.
"Ethan, what's wrong?" Karl asked, tense.
Ethan forced a smile."Someone's holding a meeting in my brain… and I didn't get an invite."
The whisper grew louder, carrying both urgency and temptation.It was as if the entire city itself was calling him, demanding he delve deeper.
Suddenly, the bells tolled again.The entire city shook violently with each chime; half the streets collapsed, revealing an endless black chasm below.
Countless eyes opened from the cracks, staring at them.Residents continued their daily motions, yet like marionettes, their strings manipulated by an unseen force.
Ethan stared at the chasm and muttered,"Welcome to Graville's newest attraction—The Nightmare-Reality Overlap Exhibit."