They called it The Bloom.
A phenomenon where the border between sleep and death weakened just enough for something to slip through. It always began the same: a child waking up screaming, a neighbor found sleepwalking off a roof, a mother forgetting the face of her newborn.
But this time, it spread.
And at the center of it—always, always—was the girl.
Yuna Shinohara.
Ishigami stood before a large monitor in the office, dozens of surveillance footages projected across the walls. In every frame, Yuna appeared. Grainy, distorted, sometimes nothing more than a glitch in the static. But she was always there.
"She's not a ghost," Airi said, pacing behind him. "She's an afterimage. A system echo."
"No." Hiragi stepped forward. "She's a warning."
They all turned to him.
"Yuna's memory survived Eden. Not just survived—it evolved. She's not just a casualty of Eden.exe. She's the first anomaly born from it."
Airi narrowed her eyes. "You're saying... she's a Dream-Eater?"
Ishigami didn't answer. He just tapped a folder labeled:
PROTO-TYPE: DREAM-EATER PROTOCOL (LEVEL ONE)
Ten years ago, Eden.exe wasn't the first attempt.
A predecessor system, codenamed Project Nursery, was run by a government-backed think tank. Its goal: simulate dream environments to predict child development in controlled unconscious states.
The results were horrifying.
Children exposed to the prototype began manifesting dreamscapes in real life. Buildings would melt around them. Rooms looped infinitely. Their parents forgot them. Some were declared legally nonexistent.
Only one subject survived the project:
Yuna Shinohara.
"She was the first," Ishigami said. "And possibly... the only one who made it through with memory intact. Eden.exe wasn't just built on that foundation—it buried it."
"And now," Airi added, "those memories are resurfacing."
Hiragi nodded slowly. "Because I'm connected to her. Somehow."
He placed a hand over his heart. Something pulsed.
"I saw the Spiral. She was inside it. Beneath the layers."
That night, they initiated The Protocol.
Level One involved controlled dream entry: synchronized lucid immersion into a subject's persistent nightmare. It was high-risk—if they stayed too long, they'd lose the tether to reality.
Ishigami prepped the interface.
"Once inside, you locate the anomaly and sever the memory loop. Simple," he said.
"Simple?" Airi raised an eyebrow. "In whose vocabulary?"
Hiragi stepped into the chair. His vision darkened.
And then—
He opened his eyes to the smell of iron.
A kindergarten classroom stretched before him, blood dripping from paper stars hung on the ceiling. Children sat motionless at their desks, skin cracked like porcelain.
And at the front of the room…
Yuna stood holding a crayon.
On the blackboard, in her shaky handwriting, she'd written:
"EVERYONE DIED BUT ME."
The dream pulsed. Reality twisted.
Behind her, the walls peeled open like skin, revealing rows of faceless children whispering in reverse.
Yuna turned.
"You're finally here," she said. "They wouldn't let me forget you."
"Yuna—"
"You're the one who left me behind."
The walls collapsed.
Hiragi was falling. Through layers of dreams, spiraling past memories that weren't his. A burning tree. A classroom submerged underwater. A hand reaching from a coffin filled with petals.
He screamed.
Then—
A voice.
"Level One Complete. Signal Reacquired."
His eyes snapped open.
Back in the office. Ishigami's face pale.
"You brought something back," he said grimly.
From Hiragi's chest pocket, a small paper crayon sketch had appeared.
It showed Yuna, standing alone, in front of a giant creature made of shadows and faces.
And beneath the drawing, written in crayon:
"PLEASE WAKE ME UP."
[End of Chapter 73]