Chapter 0 : My dream , Your dream
Episode 2 : Your Fault
The room fell into a heavy silence, broken only by his own ragged breathing. Slowly, he lifted his head to face the mirror across the room.
In the reflection... someone was standing in the darkness behind him.
It was not his own image, but the figure of a man in a heavy jacket—the same jacket he now wore. The man's eyes were vacant, like a corpse that refused to decay.
"Welcome back... Viper."
A cold whisper hissed right next to his ear. He instantly crumbled to the floor, crashing against piles of trash, his face contorted in sheer terror.
The entity in the mirror was now stepping out, phasing right through the glass. The air in the room grew instantly heavy. The light bulb burst, plunging the room into absolute darkness. Fear completely paralyzed him; he couldn't command his own feet to take a single step.
The thing lumbered closer. In its hand, it held a massive axe, poised to strike him down.
CRASH!
A loud collision between the door and the wall shattered the moment. In the direction of the sound stood a middle-aged woman, her face a mask of irritation. She surveyed the chaotic room—the strewn garbage, the shattered mirror, the broken bulb—all of which she knew she would have to clean herself.
"Arm! I know you have mental health issues, but if you cause this kind of destruction, I'll have to seriously reconsider fostering you!" his mother snapped, her voice thick with annoyance.
"M-No... No, Mom. I can explain! There was a strange man with an axe trying to hit me..."
Arm stammered, still reeling from the fear. He turned back to where the figure had stood, but it was gone. It must have vanished the moment his mother opened the door.
"Sigh... Don't try to find excuses, dear." His mother sighed wearily, clutching her forehead.
"B-But I'm telling the truth!" he insisted. What he saw was real.
"Go take a shower." His mother said curtly, clearly exasperated, before walking into the kitchen. She left Arm alone to contemplate what he had just done.
[15 Minutes Later]
After taking a shower and calming his nerves from the recent ordeal, Arm sat down to have breakfast with his mother.
The atmosphere in the dining area was filled with an oppressive silence. They ate quietly, without exchanging a single word. It was so still that he could hear his own heartbeat, making this morning's breakfast more uncomfortable than usual. Until one of them broke the tension.
"Sweetheart... Is something bothering you? You can tell me." she said, her voice tinged with sadness. She ate a bite of rice, then looked up, her face etched with a look of guilt. She waited for his reply.
Seeing her expression, Arm lowered his gaze to his own plate. The spoon he was raising to his mouth paused. "If I told you... would you believe me?" he asked, his voice flat but carrying a deep, suppressed emotion ready to burst forth.
"Of course, I would believe you," she replied, hoping her son would finally talk about his troubles so she could address them.
"Is that so..." Arm's voice remained even.
"What if I told you... my dreams felt incredibly real, like I was physically there? And when I woke up, objects from the dream appeared here?" he continued. His voice was still subdued, though the emotion in his tone was becoming harder to mask. He glanced at his mother, seeing her confusion. The atmosphere grew thick again as the conversation hung in the air.
Seeing that she still didn't respond, Arm continued, "I know, I understand it's difficult to believe. But the evidence is right in front of your eyes." His voice now carried an undercurrent of emotion. Yet, she remained silent. He decided to get up and clear his plate. As he rose from his seat and walked to the sink, his mother finally replied, her voice soft and barely audible, but he heard it.
"Is that so... Then what should I do to help you?" she asked, her tone utterly flat and devoid of emotion.
Arm looked over at his mother, who was still staring down at her plate. "Don't worry, Mom. I can handle this problem myself." he said, trying to infuse some confidence into his voice. It seemed unsuccessful.
"Is that right... That's good then." She replied, her voice sounding utterly exhausted.
'You should rest too, Mom,' he thought. After washing his dish, he went to change and prepared for school. "I'm leaving now, Mom." he said, but she didn't acknowledge him, which irritated him. 'Damn it. What happened to her? Did seeing my hallucination earlier upset her this much? It shouldn't be that serious,' he thought, frustrated, as he checked his phone before leaving the house.
[7:09 AM. September 4th, 2020]
"Ah, right. I still need to wear a mask," Arm mumbled. Being in Europe, precautionary measures against the virus were still in place, though such mandates were now common worldwide.
He put on his mask and left the old house, heading towards his destination. The damp air from the drizzle and the thin fog made the already cold environment even chillier. Having lived here for a while, however, this weather was a daily routine.
Arm walked along the sidewalk, past a few convenience stores. Since this was the outskirts of a European town, there were hardly any people around. It was as if he were the only one living in the area. He observed the usual quiet atmosphere—nothing out of the ordinary. He continued walking down the deserted street.
[30 Minutes Later]
It took Arm half an hour to reach the school, even though he took some time to look around along the way. He walked straight to his classroom and entered quietly. The atmosphere inside was suffocating. He knew everyone kept their distance, a direct result of his past actions.
Arm placed his bag next to his desk and sat down. The truth was, he was avoided because once, he had seen a hallucination—believing his teacher was a demon—and assaulted him. Although the teacher managed to defend himself, having trained in self-defense, that incident had instantly made Arm a pariah. While no one bullied or teased him, society had collectively chosen to keep him at arm's length.
'Seriously, don't they ever get tired of this repetitive routine every single day?' Arm thought, glancing around the room. A few eyes were watching him. He sat silently until—
"Chirp... Chirp..."
A notification sound from his phone caught his attention. Looking at it, he saw a message sent to his mother's email address. Though it was private, curiosity was hard to resist. As he began to read, the content instantly made him gasp in shock.
'Is this true?' he thought. The email read:
-----
"Good morning, everyone. The first period is about to begin. Please take your seats." A man's voice called out. Arm looked up and saw the Mathematics teacher... This wasn't his scheduled class at all! Strangely, no one in the room seemed to notice.
'Did I look at the schedule wrong?' he thought, anxiously.
"Alright, everyone. Take out your math homework." The teacher spoke in a formal but placid tone. Everyone in the room raised their homework and placed it on their desks. Arm frantically searched his own bag... and found nothing.
The teacher walked around, checking each student's homework. Arm watched a student whose work was being examined. What he saw was terrifying: the student smiled at him, the smile holding for several seconds before their face returned to normal. But that wasn't the main issue. The main issue was how to escape this situation. He racked his brain, searching his bag one more time, just in case. Then, it was his turn.
"Var är ditt arbete, Arm?" (Where is your work, Arm?) the teacher asked in a flat, cold voice. He never spoke Swedish, so why now? Strangely, Arm understood and processed the foreign words in a heartbeat, replying clumsily.
"Uh... I– I think it's at my house. I think so, sir." Arm replied. His English wasn't great, let alone the language the teacher had just used.
"You think so?" The teacher asked, his tone still unnervingly steady. 'Something is definitely wrong,' Arm thought, looking around. The sight terrified him even more. The students, both in the front and back rows, were writing, but their writing rhythm was perfectly identical. It was like... a clean copy and paste.
"What are you looking at?" The teacher's voice grew louder, but still carried that unnerving, non-human stillness. Arm quickly responded.
"S– Sorry, Sir. What is your question?" He was so rattled he couldn't recall the teacher's previous sentence.
"I asked you where your homework is." The teacher repeated. His voice should have shown irritation, yet it remained eerily calm.
'This is not good,' Arm realized. Convinced something was deeply wrong, his next goal was finding an escape. He needed the best possible excuse.
"I just forgot to bring it." He stated, watching the teacher's reaction. The teacher didn't reply, but his expression... it horribly distorted. 'Looks like he's actually angry,' Arm thought, before he decided to punch the teacher square in the face.
The teacher's body slammed to the floor. But the surrounding students continued writing in unison, ignoring the collapsed teacher completely.
Seizing the opportunity, Arm decided to get out of this school as fast as he possibly could.
CRASH!
The teacher hit the floor hard. Yet, the remaining students stayed put, writing in their notebooks as if nothing had happened. Arm, seeing this, ran out of the classroom in panic. He had just assaulted his teacher; he had to run, run home.
The walls around him began to distort, transforming into a thick, black void. A heavy fog started to creep in.
Suddenly, he felt something grabbing his leg. He looked down and saw a shadowy hand clutching him tightly. Then, thousands of hands began emerging from the air, reaching out to seize him.
"What is this?" Arm shouted, his voice laced with fear. Dread and confusion crashed over him like a giant tidal wave. There was no time to think. He quickly pulled a pen from his pants pocket and began stabbing at the hand clutching his leg. He stabbed repeatedly until the shadow hand finally released him.
Seeing his freedom, Arm ran as fast and far as he could. He had to keep running, even through the exhaustion.
'I'm no different from Viper in the dream,' he thought. And indeed, the situation he faced was identical to the one in his dream, only the snowy forest had been replaced by endless darkness. Then, he saw a light in the pitch-black void. He ran toward it with all his strength. The light grew nearer, and the shadowy hands disappeared, but a strong smell of ash stung his nose.
As he got close enough, the sight that greeted him made him gasp. The light was, in fact, blazing fire. The flames were consuming a house. But the detail that made his face go pale was the house itself. He knew its shape perfectly—the dilapidated condition, the sign on the front door etched with his family's former name. Yes, he recognized it now: the house being consumed by fire was his own.
While Arm stood transfixed, watching his house burn, he suddenly heard a woman's sobbing. He spun around toward the source of the sound, finding his mother crying behind him. The distance between them was short.
She looked frail and worn, her clothes torn, her long hair covering her eyes, as if she hadn't taken care of herself in ages.
Arm slowly walked toward his mother, but she continued to weep. Suddenly, the darkness around them shattered. The light of the real world flooded in, and the sun hit his skin. His mother, who had been right in front of him, vanished as if she had never been there, leaving behind only the black asphalt street.
'Wait, asphalt?' he thought for a brief moment. Before he could react, something slammed into his body with tremendous force, sending him flying and tumbling across the ground. He lay still, his eyelids growing heavy. All sounds began to fade slowly. The last images he saw were his house completely engulfed in flames and the large truck that had just hit him.
'Huh... So I'm dying in a truck accident. How pathetic of me,' he thought. 'Why did I have to die like some stupid Isekai trope?'