The darkness in the abandoned room was absolute and complete.
It wasn't just the absence of light; it had weight, a presence pressing in on Ethan from all sides.
He sat on the cold floor, his back against the decaying wall, and forced his breathing to become steady.
There was no "key" this time. No lock of hair, no ink pen.
There was no specific target to focus on.
This was the first time he would be jumping... blind.
He closed his eyes, but he didn't focus on an image or a person.
Instead, he did the opposite.
He loosened his grip on his own consciousness, allowing himself to drift, to dissolve into the ocean of silence around him.
The sensation was entirely different from any time before.
It wasn't an orderly descent into someone's dream.
It was a disintegration.
He felt his "self" stretch and thin out, its edges blurring into something far vaster and more chaotic.
He had entered the "Sea of Silence," the raw psychic space that connects all sleeping minds.
It wasn't a black void.
It was an endless gray fog, battered by currents of stray thoughts and feelings.
Echoes from the consciousness of thousands of strangers washed over him.
For a moment, he felt the warm contentment of someone holding their newborn child.
Then, the sharp anxiety of a student about to take a difficult exam.
He tasted a slice of pizza from a hungry person's dream and smelled the rain on asphalt from someone else's memory.
It was a symphony of leftover thoughts and emotions, a psychic white noise that threatened to swallow any individual consciousness that wasn't strong enough.
Ethan felt dizzy, his own identity beginning to erode under the flood.
He recognized the danger immediately.
If he stayed here too long without focus, he would forget who he was, becoming just another echo in this eternal sea.
With a monumental effort, he pulled his focus back together, forming a shield of will around the core of his consciousness.
He became a small island of order in an ocean of chaos.
Now, the real mission began.
The hunt.
He sent a "pulse" of his consciousness outward, not as an attack, but as a silent question, a psychic sonar.
"Is anyone nearby?"
Countless echoes returned to him, most of them faint and distant.
They were the dreams of the suburban residents surrounding the hospital, each one a small, self-aware bubble floating in the fog.
They were too far, too weak.
He ignored them, focusing his search, narrowing his "sonar" to look only for strong, very close signals—within the range of a few hundred physical meters.
He scanned the gray fog for what felt like hours. It was utterly exhausting, like trying to hear a whisper in the middle of a loud party.
Then, he found it.
A single signal.
Clear, stable, and close.
It shone in the Sea of Silence like a lighthouse in the fog.
It wasn't a complex or powerful dream, but simple and calm.
But it was here. Inside this building.
Ethan locked his consciousness onto that signal and began to "pull" himself toward it.
He felt the gray fog recede around him.
He started to hear clearer sounds: the gurgle of water, the chirp of summer insects.
Colors began to form.
He opened his eyes to a completely different scene.
He was standing on the bank of a peaceful river under a warm afternoon sun.
The trees were green, the water clear.
A few yards away, a middle-aged man sat on a folding chair, wearing a straw hat and holding a fishing rod.
The man, who looked to be in his late forties, was smiling contentedly as he stared at the bobber floating on the water's surface.
This was a security guard's dream.
A simple dream of escaping a boring night shift.
It was perfect.
Ethan knew that any sudden or strange appearance would trigger the guard's subconscious defenses.
So, he didn't manifest in his usual form.
Instead, he willed himself to be there.
He appeared on the riverbank, wearing clothes similar to the guard's, holding a fishing rod of his own.
He looked like just another fisherman enjoying the day.
He walked over slowly and sat a short distance from the man.
"Nice day for fishing, isn't it?" Ethan said in a friendly, quiet voice.
Frank, looked at him and smiled. "Beats sitting and watching monitors all night, that's for sure."
"I hear you. Last night's shift was a long one," Ethan said, casting his line into the water.
He was building rapport, common ground.
"You're telling me," Frank sighed. "Don't know why we need so much security for a dead place like this. But the pay's good."
"The pay's good, that's true," Ethan agreed.
The two of them sat in comfortable silence for a minute, listening to the sounds of the dream's nature.
Then, Ethan cast his bait.
"Man," he said, scratching his head theatrically. "My brain is fried. Can you believe I forgot the new code for the west wing door? I know they changed it last week. Something with a 9... then a 2?"
He posed the question like casual chatter between colleagues, guessing part of the answer to make it seem natural.
Frank laughed. "Ha! Almost happened to me. Nah, buddy, you got it mixed up. It's 9-5-2-7, then you hit the green enter button. Don't forget the green button."
9-5-2-7.
Ethan felt a flash of cold triumph.
He had it.
He was about to make an excuse and disappear from the dream.
But in that moment, something unexpected happened.
For a fraction of a second, the entire dream world shuddered.
The warm sun turned cold, the blue sky darkened, and Ethan heard a faint, deep electronic hum, a sound that did not belong here.
He felt it before he saw it.
A cold, inorganic, and analytical presence.
It was a terrifyingly familiar sensation, the same one he'd felt in Dr. Thorne's dream.
The feeling of being... *scanned*.
Ethan froze. He knew instantly what was happening.
Somnus Corp didn't leave its employees unwatched.
This was a psychic security patrol.
An artificial watchdog entity roaming the dreams of low-level employees, searching for anomalies, for intruders.
He had no time to think, no time to plan a clean exit.
He had to get out. Now.
The moment he made his decision, the dream-Frank shouted, pointing at the water.
"Look! I got a big one!"
Ethan looked and saw the bobber had vanished underwater, the line pulled taut.
But what emerged from the water wasn't a fish.
It was a giant eye.
A single, mechanical red eye, staring directly at him.
He had been detected.
He didn't wait to see what happened next.
With brutal force, Ethan severed his connection to the dream.
The process was painful and jagged, like a piece of his skin being torn away.
He felt himself thrown violently backward, through the gray Sea of Silence, and slammed back into his body.
He shot his eyes open, gasping, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged bird.
He was still in the dark room in the abandoned hospital.
Cold sweat covered his forehead.
He had escaped. Barely.
But he had succeeded. He had the code. 9-5-2-7.
But he also had a new, more dangerous piece of information: his enemy wasn't just watching their targets. They were watching their own people.
They were everywhere.
He got to his feet, a dull ache in his head from the violent withdrawal.
He looked through the darkness toward the hallway that led to the steel door.
The danger was now far greater than he had imagined.
But turning back was no longer an option.
He had paid a price for this code.
And now, it was time to use it.