The Crimson Night was not the last.
It was only the first time the world noticed.
At first, governments called it an isolated incident.
A gas explosion.
A mass hallucination.
A classified weapons test gone wrong.
Then it happened again.
A woman in Seoul dreamed of drowning—and the river rose overnight, swallowing three blocks.
A man in Cairo dreamed of fire—and the streets burned.
Different places.
Different fears.
Same result.
Nightmares were becoming real.
It took months—and thousands of deaths—before the pattern became undeniable.
Nightmares did not appear randomly.
They had a source.
Every incident ended the same way.
The moment the destruction stopped—
The moment the monster vanished—
Someone, somewhere nearby, had just woken up screaming.
A sleeper.
A dreamer.
Kill the Nightmare, and it returned.
Trap it, and it adapted.
But wake the dreamer—
And the nightmare ended.
Every time.
Humanity did what it always did when faced with extinction.
It adapted.
Scientists abandoned sleep studies and poured funding into terror research.
Military divisions collapsed and reformed around civilian protection.
Cities were redesigned with evacuation routes and reinforced zones.
And from the chaos, an organization emerged.
IDHA
The International Dream Hazard Agency.
Its mandate was simple.
Contain Nightmare manifestations.
Protect civilians.
Locate the dreamer.
Wake them up.
They learned quickly that normal weapons were useless.
Bullets passed through nightmares—or worse, made them stronger.
Explosives only spread the damage.
So IDHA built something new.
Weapons designed not to kill—but to disrupt.
AM Weapons
Anti-Manifestation weapons.
Tools that interfered with the energy connecting dream to reality.
They didn't destroy nightmares.
They weakened them.
Slowed them.
Bought time.
Time for evacuation.
Time to locate the dreamer.
Time to wake them.
Time was survival.
Twenty Years Later
Nightmareisation never stopped.
It just became routine.
Children learned evacuation drills before multiplication.
Night Alarms replaced fire alarms.
News broadcasts reported Nightmare rankings the way weather channels once reported storms.
Life went on.
People went to school.
Went to work.
Fell in love.
Slept.
And every night, somewhere in the world—
Someone dreamed too deeply.
Kurogane Akira hated nights.
He sat awake on the narrow bed of a countryside bus, forehead pressed against the cool window, watching darkness slide past.
Fields.
Mountains.
Empty roads.
The bus rattled like it might fall apart at any moment.
Akira's reflection stared back at him.
Dark eyes.
Permanent shadows beneath them.
He hadn't slept in days.
He didn't plan to.
On his lap rested an unopened envelope.
Thick paper.
Official seal.
International Dream Hazard Agency — Entrance Examination Notice
His fingers hovered over it.
If I pass…
The thought didn't finish.
He clenched his jaw and looked away from the window.
The countryside disappeared behind him, swallowed by distance.
He didn't look back.
Akira's hand tightened on the letter until the paper creased.
If I pass… I get to protect people from nightmares.
If I fail… I go back.
Back there…
The bus driver called out.
"Final stop! Tokyo Metropolitan Transport Hub!"
The city hit him all at once.
Noise.
Crowds.
Steel and glass stretching into the sky.
No one stared.
No one whispered.
No one looked afraid of him.
Akira breathed in deeply.
For the first time in years, the air didn't feel heavy.
The IDHA exam site rose in the distance—a repurposed stadium wrapped in reinforced plating and glowing circuitry.
Hundreds of candidates gathered outside.
Some laughed.
Some shook.
Some stared at the ground like prisoners waiting for judgment.
Akira stood among them, small but unyielding.
He looked at the entrance.
At the future waiting inside.
He clenched his fists.
"I'm not going back," he said quietly.
And stepped forward.
END OF CHAPTER 2