Dream

Repeat.

Adam's eyes snapped open. Still on the sofa, he turned his head and looked around. He realised he was still in the living room of his house.

"What?" Adam patted his face and could feel the wetness of the fat bag under his eyes. He had been crying.

Then, he remembered. The gruesome scene he had seen of his sister's murder.

"Stop!" He yelled, to no one but himself, not daring to remember the lifeless look in her eyes.

At that moment, tears began to stream down his face. His psyche was heavily fatigued and beginning to deteriorate. Had he been dreaming again? Was this another dream?

Why was he stuck in a loop?

Adam glanced at the sky. It was morning this time.

"I'm tired. Please, whoever is doing this to me, please stop. I'll go mad…" As he spoke words that drowned in whimpers and tears, he sank into the sofa and drifted asleep once more.

…

After a few hours, Adam woke up. Slowly, he rose and exhaled. His face was pale and devoid of emotion.

He walked to the door, wore shoes and stepped out. The sun was still high in the sky and shining brighter than ever. He guessed it was afternoon.

With slow steps, he descended the slope and arrived at the city streets. Adam watched as various transport pods moved within large tubes, as well as people walking into different stores or homes, giving life and vitality to the scenery.

He proceeded forward and kept walking till he reached a certain spot. There, in the middle of the well-paved road, there was no metal rod sticking out.

Phew… He exhaled, relief washing over him. Even though he knew this was probably another dream, he couldn't help but feel glad that nothing had happened to his sister.

The mere thought scared him so much that he could crawl into concrete and cease to exist.

At that moment, he heard his name.

"Adam?"

Adam turned his head and his gaze settled on a Cafe. Inside, by the window, a girl with raven-black hair sat. Her skin was white, almost pale, and her eyes were of a deep black colour.

"Nina?" Adam's heart tightened as he rushed into the Cafe like a madman.

Ignoring the eyes that fell on him, he stood next to her and instantly pinched her palm.

The girl didn't flinch, nor did she exclaim– merely looking at him without expression.

Adam pinched her once again, as if to confirm something. He looked around, swallowed, balanced his breathing and said, "You remember me?"

"I do." Nina calmly replied.

"You remember what happened to us?"

Nina nodded. "The weird wormhole that took us Hell and back? I definitely do."

Adam almost yelled, "Yes!" He nodded in painful delight, before suddenly sinking into the chair across the girl. Nina stared at him, feeling quite puzzled about his actions.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

Adam shook his head. Okay? He was far from that. He sniffled and said, "Something is wrong with me. Or wrong with the world, I can't know. I don't know."

"Calm down, take it easy." The girl said in a low voice. Though she had only known him for a day's equivalent, she felt his current attitude didn't fit his initial calm and aloof persona.

"Explain whatever happened, or the little you understand." She said in a calm, assuring tone, almost as if she was a professional therapist.

Adam nodded and tried to relax by shutting his eyes for a full minute. Then, he said, "I'm stuck in a dream."

Oh? Nina raised a questioning brow, but remained silent, gesturing for him to go on.

Adam gathered his thoughts and explained, "I've been stuck in a dream, or a collection of dreams, and I cannot seem to escape. Every single time I wake up, it ends up being another dream. It's driving me insane, I can't tell dreams from reality…"

Seeing as he was beginning to get agitated, Nina carefully slowed him down. She asked, "Okay, so, this is another one of those dreams?"

Adam shook his head. "I'm not sure. Like I said, I don't know what's real or not. But, I think this much is real. You said you remember me, and the whole wormhole incident…so I guess that part's real too–"

He suddenly stopped.

Now that he thought about it, all that could've been a dream too! What if he had been dreaming from the very beginning?

"And what happens in these… dreams?" Nina asked, her expression solemn.

"Bad things." Adam swallowed hard. "The entire Middle Ring, destroyed… bodies everywhere. I- I don't want to remember!"

Nina gradually frowned as she listened to his description. She thought of when she had asked the mysterious old man about what they would be needing the Staff of Miracles for, and he had flashed an apprehensive look at that point.

Was this what the old man was hinting at?

She didn't disregard Adam's words as delusions. He could very much be telling the truth. After all, they had experienced weird events over the past day.

She looked at him after a while and asked in a soft tone, "What about the runes? Do you have them with you right now?"

The runes.. Runes… It took a while for Adam to peruse his memories, as he couldn't be sure which had been a dream.

"The runes that came from the staff?"

"Yes." Nina nodded.

Adam suddenly looked up with a frown. His mouth opened slightly as he muttered, "I don't remember anything from the point of climbing the ladder till when the dreams may or may not have started."

Hm? Nina's brows creased slightly. She pursed her lips and began explaining in her mellow voice, "After we left the lab, we realised time hadn't passed. You deduced that the wormhole spat us out at the exact time it had initially swallowed us."

"Then, you mentioned that you had to look for your sister, and you took the runes with you. We decided that we would speak no word of this to anyone, at least till we figured out what was going on. We gave you our Metaspace username, and we agreed to meet after two days. You said your head was aching terribly and you needed rest."

As she explained, the memories flooded Adam's mind. At that point, he suddenly remembered something.

Hastily, he raised his shirt–which stunned Nina for a moment–and pointed at his chest.

"Look!"

He had remembered when the dreams started. He had remembered how the runes had forcibly burrowed into his body.