The city hospital had been closed for years.
Ever since the Delirium Outbreak.
People entered in pain and never woke up again.
Not dead. Not alive. Just... suspended. Like puppets with their strings cut.
Now, it thrummed with red light.
Ishigami: "Second Lantern confirmed. Room 403. But something's wrong."
Airi: "What is it?"
Ishigami: "The hospital records say that room doesn't exist."
Hiragi pushed open the rusted doors.
The halls were too clean.
No dust. No decay.
Just a long corridor lined with beds full of sleeping bodies, eyes twitching beneath closed lids.
"They're not patients," Airi whispered. "They're hosts."
Each sleeper was tethered to the ceiling by a red thread, pulsing faintly like veins.
A distant lullaby echoed over the intercom.
A child's voice.
"Sleep, sleep... dream of skin...
Sleep, sleep... trade your sin..."
They reached the elevator shaft.
It was sealed—not by steel, but by layers of fingernail-thin mirrors, reflecting twisted images of themselves:
Airi crying beside a bloodied school desk. Ishigami, younger, staring at an open grave. Hiragi, strangling himself with a void-touched chain.
Hiragi: "This place is showing regrets."
Ishigami: "No. It's feeding on them."
They climbed the emergency ladder, each rung colder than the last.
On the 4th floor, the hallway was replaced by a child's nursery, painted red and black.
Dozens of dolls lined the walls.
All had eyes gouged out—except one.
The child sat in the center, cross-legged, lantern flickering beside her.
Girl: "My name is Nemu."
Hiragi: "You're the second."
She smiled.
"I'm the one who catches dreams.
But I lost mine.
Would you give me yours?"
Suddenly, the dolls turned.
Their mouths opened.
Smoke. Screaming. A hospital on fire.
Hiragi was back in a burning hallway, choking on ash.
He heard Airi screaming from a distant room.
"No! I didn't leave her! I didn't—"
Ishigami: "It's fake! Don't give in!"
But the flames felt real.
The pain. The fear. The guilt.
It all felt too real.
Hiragi clenched his fists.
Void energy surged through him, black tendrils carving the dream.
"This isn't mine. This is your fear."
He grabbed the doll beside the girl—and crushed it.
The flames vanished.
The nursery cracked.
The girl's face began to unravel like cloth.
Nemu: "You didn't dream of me... but I dreamed of you."
And then she smiled—
And shattered.
The second lantern went dark.
Hiragi fell to his knees.
In his hand— stay tuned with Void Slayer enjoy you read thanks