Chiharu Noma had a dream.

The Beginning of the Dream –

Noma sat in the cubicle in the office building of the company where he worked, typing on the keyboard as usual.

The work of the tedious machinery lasted for a long time.

Then, at a moment, she suddenly heard an exclamation.

"Fire! It's on fire! ”

Someone shouted.

Choking smoke filled the air from somewhere in the office building, screaming overshadowed it, and colleagues ran out in panic.

Chiharu Noma was pushed and shoved into the hallway, and black smoke could be seen billowing from the stairwell and tongues of fire flickering.

In the corridor, many people crowded the elevator entrance, screaming and crying with distorted faces.

In this situation, it is obviously unwise to take the elevator to escape.

Just when Chiharu Noma didn't know what to do and was desperate, she noticed a man in the crowd-

That man was different from the people around him who were desperate for survival.

He just stood there quietly, looking at Chiharu Noma. Many people crowded around him, rubbing shoulders one after another, but the men didn't care, just motionless, staring at Chiharu Noma alone.

The man wears a black suit, a white shirt, and a striking red tie.

He has thick eyebrows, a high hairline, a closed mouth and a big grin.

Strange facial features.

It looks a little unnatural, and I can't tell what's wrong.

Chiharu Noma stared at the strange man for a few seconds, and the other man suddenly pushed through the crowd and stepped forward.

"Come with me." He said.

The man's voice sounded ordinary, with no emotional ups and downs, but it had a strange persuasiveness.

Chiharu Noma was grabbed by his hand and followed him through the anxious and noisy crowd.

The two of them ran down the hallway and headed straight for the stairwell.

Smoke billowed and heat was blowing.

The fire below is spreading upwards.

The man pulled Chiharu Noma unconcernedly and ran upstairs.

Escaping from a high-rise building on fire is not a wise choice.

After a fire, the smoke rises at a very fast rate, and it is likely that people will be stunned by the smoke or even die.

But Chiharu Noma, who was in a dream, didn't think about this, just followed the man and ran like a life-saving straw.

It was hot in the stairwell, the smell of fireworks was choking, and screams could be heard from all floors along the way.

Chiharu Noma ran out of breath, and when she came to her senses, she had followed the strange man to the roof of the office building.

The wind on the rooftop was very strong, and the fire in the office building did not burn here for the time being.

I don't know if I can wait here for rescue.

"Thank you."

Chiharu Noma thanked the strange man.

The other party did not respond to her.

He just grinned in a strange proportion, and then continued to take Noma's hand and walk towards the edge of the rooftop.

"Well, you're hurting me."

Chiharu Noma didn't know what the man was going to do, and tried to break free of the other's hand.

But the strange man's strength was immense.

Five fingers were embedded in Noma's wrist, like steel tongs, and he didn't care about dragging her to the edge of the rooftop.

"Stop! Let me go! ”

Chiharu Noma, who had just recovered a little from the fear caused by the fire, felt scared again and continued to resist, but it was useless.

The man dragged her to the edge of the rooftop, picked her up, and pushed her to the guardrail.

"Don't! Please, don't. ”

The man showed no mercy to Chiharu Noma's plea, and raised his hand to push her off the edge of the guardrail.

The sound of the wind whistled in my ears, and a strong sense of weightlessness enveloped my body.

Generally speaking, when a person dreams that he has fallen from a height, his body, hands and feet will twitch due to tension, which will lead to myoclonic spasms and wake up.

This is a self-protection mechanism of the human body.

But Chiharu Noma didn't wake up for the first time, but her consciousness seemed to become awake the moment she fell to the rooftop.

She realized she was dreaming.

And she suddenly remembered that it wasn't the first time she had such a strange dream.

How many times has it been?

The sixth time?

The seventh?

I can't remember clearly, but I seem to have dreamed about it for many days.

I only remember that in the dream, she ran to the rooftop over and over again with a man in a suit and thick eyebrows.

Again and again, he was pushed down by the other party with malice.

The first time she had this dream, she woke up the moment she fell out of the rooftop.

And the second time, it was a period of time before I woke up......

The fourth time, she fell from a high altitude on the office floor where she was located.

Through the transparent glass, I saw the raging fire in the corridor, and saw the charred black figure burning all over and wailing and running......

After that, I woke up covered in sweat.

"It's just a dream. But this time, where do I have to fall to wake up? ”

Chiharu Noma had such a thought in his heart inexplicably.

Falling, falling, falling and falling......

Noma looked up.

I found the man with thick eyebrows lying on the edge of the rooftop, staring at him and smiling at him.

Obviously, the distance between the two has been widened by the fall of Chiharu Noma, but the details of the man's expression can be seen very clearly.

He grinned, and his smile was stiff, weird, and unnatural......

In the blink of an eye, Chiharu Noma had already fallen past the office floor where she was and fell deeper.

Below is the road outside the office building, and the pattern of masonry on the sidewalk is becoming more and more distinct.

"Do you have to fall to the ground to wake up this time?" Chiharu Noma thought like this, "In reality, if you fall to the ground like this, you must be dead, right?" It's just a dream, it's just a dream, I'll wake up, though. ”

But then again.

Every time I have this dream, I will fall farther away than the last time.

What does it mean if it does fall to the ground?

I'll never have this dream again?

Still is...... Can't wake up again?

The thought was a little scary.

Jingle Bell – Jingle Bell -

And just as Chiharu Noma was about to land, beside her, a blurry red light suddenly flashed, accompanied by a crisp bell ringing.

"Poof, poof!"

Noma also heard the cry of some unknown small beast, ringing in his ears.

At the same time.

On the roof of the rooftop, the thick-eyed man who was still lying on his stomach, smiling, and staring downward, was shrouded in crimson light and torn to pieces......

……

The real world.

On the roof of a residential complex in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, the wind calls at midnight.

Chiharu Noma, dressed in a nightdress, climbed onto the concrete fence of the rooftop by herself with her eyes closed, as if she were sleepwalking.

The wind from above tore her nightgown hunting.

Just as she opened her hands and was about to jump down.

A hemp rope was thrown out from behind, and the "Karakala" stretched straight and stretched as if it were alive, wrapping around her waist and pulling her back.

The ghost couple in the hearse group, Toshima Oishi and Takayama Mai, appeared at the same time and caught Chiharu Noma.

Huangmao Dashi twisted his head 90 degrees: "It's okay, it's okay, we're very timely, boss!" ”

"Hmm."

Kamiyagawa, who was pulling the reins of the [Hanged Dead] on the other end, walked over quickly, staring at her pupils and looking Miss Noma up and down.

He did feel the smell of strange talk in the other party.

But it's not too heavy, and it's probably not too strong.

And now, that strange atmosphere of weirdness has dissipated.

As for Miss Noma, who was rescued, she didn't wake up right away.

Her body was shrouded in a blurry red light, and she still slept soundly under the power of the dream-eating tapir.

"How's it going, little tapir?"

Kamiyagawa retrieved the [Reins of the Hanged Dead] from Chiharu Noma.

"Poof!"

The tapir flicked its nose and appeared from Chiharu Noma's side, swinging its little paws, and ran to Kamiya's side as if to invite merit.

I've eaten the weird talk that hurt people in my dreams.

It tastes good, delicious, poof!

Buzz –

The phone vibrates.

[Dream Man is dead, get 56 soul crystals!] ]

"Dream man?"

It seems to be a strange story that I have never heard of.

However, judging from the number of soul crystals obtained, it should be a strange story with an F rating.

"It's done well, just fix it." Kamiyagawa tapped his phone, then bent down and patted the tapir's head.

Tonight, I was just thinking of taking the little tapir out for a walk and finding some nightmare to relieve its hunger.

I didn't expect to happen to encounter dream weird talk and hurt people.

Roughly judged, the dream man who entangled this young lady was probably a strange talk of the same type as the ape dream.

But now it has been eaten by tapirs.

The dream-eating tapir was originally the nemesis of dream weirdness, and now it's just on the C-level, so it's not too easy to deal with an F-level weird talk.

"Send this young lady back to her house."

Kamiyagawa didn't plan to stay on the roof of this neighborhood for long.

"Poof!"

The dream tapir, who had just eaten a good meal, happily shook his nose and led the way.

I know where that female human started having nightmares, poof!

On the hearse group's side, it was Satoru Mikami, one of the three Shang brothers, who carried Chiharu Noma, who had just been rescued.

In other words, after Kamiya's hearse group was promoted to the E rank, there was no obvious change in the ghost Mazda and the dominant "two and a half brains", and it was the pair of sturdy twin brothers, Satoru Mikami and Hiroshi Mikami, who changed.

The two brothers have never had a strong presence under Kamiyagawa.

Can't speak.,Expressionless.,Extremely wooden.,It seems that there is no autonomous consciousness at all.,All the time playing the role of a tool man under the command of Dashi and Takayama.。

But after the hearse group was promoted, the expressions of the two brothers became more vivid, at least when facing Kamiya, there was an obvious sense of deference and respect between their eyebrows.

Maybe it's starting to grow brains......

In the hearse group, the yellow-haired Dashi Junma was the happiest to see this change in the Mikami brothers.

He had a feeling that maybe his two friends, with the cultivation and help of the boss, would have the opportunity to get rid of the state of the "living dead" and realize the real sense of death and life.

It's great to be able to follow the boss!

……

"Hmm......"

Chiharu Noma, who was covered in sweat, woke up from the bed in his bachelor apartment in a daze.

She looked at the alarm clock at the bedside, it was one o'clock in the morning.

"It's just a dream."

Chiharu Noma still remembers some of the contents of the dream that fell just now, some heart palpitations, and dry mouth.

She got up and went to the kitchen to drink some water before going back to bed and falling back asleep.

In the last few days, Chiharu Noma has been plagued by strange dreams, strange men who appear in dreams.

Poor sleep quality.

But this time, when she fell asleep in the second half of the night, she slept soundly and deeply.

Nothing is a problem.

A dreamless night.

……

It was the same night.

Located in the middle of nowhere, in a study with a light on.

A lady with round-rimmed glasses, full of intellectual and literary temperament, was sitting at her desk, writing hard in the light of the lamp.

She was writing a story in her notebook, and at the top of this page, you could see the subtitle of the story—

Dream in the Dollhouse

She writes:

[…… The boy sensed something was wrong, and asked the familiar but unfamiliar figure in the dollhouse, "Mom, is that you?" ”]

[The back in the corner of the dollhouse, wearing his mother's favorite dress, with long curly hair and the familiar smell of shampoo, is slowly closing the messy toy box.] Hearing the boy's voice, "Mom" slowly turned around. What the boy saw was an unfamiliar face, the face of a man with thick eyebrows, a very white face, and a big grin......]

Finish writing this little thriller story.

The bespectacled, literary lady read through the text again and nodded in satisfaction.

Then, her expression changed, as if she suddenly felt something, and began to flip through the notebook under her hand.

This thick notebook is full of beautiful handwriting.

After flipping through for a while, she stopped at one of the pages.

The header of that page reads: "Falling Dreams"

[…… The woman continued to fall from the sky, and through the glass of the floor, she saw blackened figures struggling and writhing in the sea of fire, wailing and screaming. And on the rooftop, the man with thick eyebrows kept grinning, most of his body leaned out, staring at her......]

The handwriting on this page was obviously recorded with a fountain pen, but at this time, it was like pencil words that had been quickly erased by an eraser, and a page of stories became blank in the blink of an eye.

"Hmm...... This dream man story is obviously one of the best I have ever written. The story is good, and it will have a good communication value...... And in the last few days, it has been successfully manifested. The woman pressed the tip of the pen in her hand against her chin, "It seems that the dream man in this story was destroyed by some troubled soul slayer." ”

The woman didn't pay much attention to the accident and flipped through the notebook again.

The paper rattled.

As you flip through the pages, you can see more story titles flashing by:

"Dream of Companionship", "Dream of Revelation", "Dream of Madness", "Dream of Hospital", "Dream of Love", ......

The woman closed the notebook and pulled out a blank book with the same cover from the bookshelf beside it.

The night is still long tonight.

In the dead of night, most of them are always full of thoughts.

The woman is in a good state of inspiration and writing right now, and she has other kinds of stories she wants to create.

Urban legend Dream Man,Originated from a global large-scale psychological event in 06。 The premise of the story was created for the first time.

(End of chapter)