A Strange Dream

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Blankly staring up at a clear blue sky as her body floated around in the middle of a lake, Rei couldn't help but feel a little speechless as she held a long strand of pink hair in her hands.

Watching as bright pink cherry blossom petals elegantly swayed down from the sky as a gust of wind blew by, Rei took in a breath of air and closed her eyes.

Within the darkness of her mind, she searched through a barrage of memories. Calmly, Rei vaguely visualized images of people, things, and places that held an importance to her, each holding a nostalgic feeling, floating around casually within her head space.

Filtering through them, she eventually managed to find what she was looking for.

Flashing dimly in a corner of her mind was an image of a brightly lit television screen, a pair of slim hands gripping a wireless game controller facing the tv screen. Rei recalled that it was a memory of last night, the last thing she could remember doing before she had mysteriously ended up here.

With a small wrinkle between her brows, she dived deeper into the memory, with a hope of understanding how she got myself in this situation.

× × ×

"It's finished."

Like an old black and white film, the memory of slightly tanned hands gripping a PX4 controller slowly flickered to life with the familiar yet unfamiliar sound of Rei's voice.

She sat in the middle of a spacious living room, her eyes wandering over to the brightly lit screen of her unnecessarily large TV, a gift from her traveling parents.

While stretching her aching bones from sitting in such an awkward position on the couch for so long, she read the golden text written boldly on a fancy red banner displayed on the screen.

"Congratulations to player "aha" for completing all the love routes! As a reward for being the first player to complete Blossoming Heart Attack, accept this gift as our congratulations!"

Below this text was a luxurious gift wrapped box, with a sparkling pink ribbon tied neatly on top of it.

"..Ah."

Staring at this so called "reward" Rei didn't make any moves to unravel it, instead, she made way to her kitchen to heat up a plate of lasagna.

Petting the sleeping heads of her cat, Meow, and dog, Wuff, on the way to the kitchen, Rei felt a bit more relaxed then she did before when she was sitting on the couch.

Grabbing a cold drink as she waited for the lasagna to heat up, Rei blankly scrolled through the texts on her phone.

Eventually her finger tapped on the texts between her and a childhood friend, Wendy. Blowing away a loose strand of short jet black hair that fell between her eyes, Rei typed out a short two worded message.

"It's done."

Looking at the two ominous looking words on her screen, Rei let out a small shrug. It's good enough.

After sending out the text, Rei focused her attention on her lasagna. Once it was done reheating she let it cool off for a bit, before setting it down on the coffee table in the living room.

With a plate of lasagna in hand, Rei gazed over at the TV screen, wondering if she should open the bright colored gift.

She wasn't too keen on unraveling the gift anytime soon so she ate the lasagna as a way to distract herself from looking at the sparkling pink ribboned box in wait of a response from Wendy.

Ding!

Feeling her phone vibrate in her back pocket, Rei let out a sigh. So slow, she thought as she maneuvered her way to her inbox, looking for the response from her earlier text.

"It's done??? Oh... So you finally decided to bury the body."

"....." Rei didn't know what to reply to that so she simply sent out a string of dots.

"Heh. What a predicable response, alright alright, I won't joke around anymore. So you finished it all huh?"

"Mhm."

"Very impressive. I knew that you'd be able to clear it faster then anyone. No one is as good as you when it comes to lazing around."

"👍👍"

Suddenly feeling too tired to type out any words, Rei stiffly sent out two thumbs up.

"???"

"What's up with the thumbs? Lolol, don't be shy Rei. It won't hurt you to write a bit more 😅😅."

Frowning, Rei typed out another short reply.

"k."

"Hahaha.. 😌 Well, anyways. What did you get?"

"...Dunno."

"....What do you mean you dunno?"

"Just.. Dunno."

"Sigh~ Rei~ My lovely bestie for life~ Stop goofing around already. I've been dying to know what the big prize was for finishing that flashy game for months! So spit it out already! 😤"

Rei let out a small smile.

"..Ah, that."

"Yes~ That. So? Did you get it?"

"Mhm."

"I figured. Lucky bastard, I don't understand how you have so much time to laze off with that busy schedule of yours. Tsk."

"👍."

"Stop with those thumbs already. Tell me what you got. Is it as great as the rumors have said? I hope it's a paid luxurious cruise ship ride to some small island or something, it'd be cool to go swimming in a far away place for once. Ah~ That'd be nice."

"...Aha. Yes. Swimming."

"Okay. Nice reply, very good job, 5/5. Now tell me what it is."

Removing her sight from her phone, Rei looked up at the still brightly lit untouched pink ribboned gift box in a bit of curiosity then looked back down to write back a brief reply back.

"Still don't know."

"....."

Receiving a message with only dots, Rei blankly dozed off, feeling a bit dazed.

Brushing the doziness off Rei started to wonder how long she's stayed up. Looking at the time on her phone, she blankly watched as another message from Wendy was delivered.

"😓😓 What do you mean you don't know?"

"Haven't opened."

"Haven't opened..?"

"..Mhm."

"Why?"

"....."

"....."

Receiving another reply with only dots, Rei kept the thought that it was 8 in the morning in her mind.

"Well, I guess it makes sense now why you don't know what the prize is.. But please open it already, like I said before I'm dying to know what it is."

Feeling too sleepy, Rei couldn't bring herself to play around with Wendy anymore, so Rei let out a defeated sigh and complied with her friend's demand.

"Ok. Opening."

"Right. Hurry it up please, gotta get ready for class in a few minutes."

Grabbing the controller Rei made her way to tap onto the ever so bright pink ribboned gift box.

With a click, a message appeared on her TV screen.

"Would you like to recieve the reward?"

Rei unhesitatingly selected the "yes" option below the message, only to be greeted with another message.

"Congratulations! Your reward has been obtained! We, the proud creators of [Blossoming Heart Attack!] sincerely hope you enjoy this once in a lifetime gift!"

Seeing nothing else happening after this message popped up, Rei realised that there was something strange going on.

Where was this promised once in a lifetime gift that she should be enjoying after spending a whole three months trying to finish this game for?

"Was it a scam?"

Sitting still on the sofa, Rei couldn't help but feel extremely tired. Unable to overcome her dazed state, Rei felt as if she was being sucked into a dark hole. Everything began to spin and her vision became blurry.

Eventually, Rei was enclosed in complete darkness.

× × ×

She was unconscious for an unknown amount of time before she had woken up. With her eyes wide open, Rei found herself floating in the middle of a lake with a throatful of cold water, surrounded in what seemed to be fallen cherry blossom petals.

As her eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, Rei felt the cold air caressing against her bare skin, making her shiver uncontrollably as she blankly stared up at a clear blue sky.

Wrapping her arms around herself in hope of warming up a bit, Rei felt that she should really just go back to sleep.

This was surely just a dream.

A short while later, she managed to get past the fact that she was definitely dreaming this nightmare up. Rei figured that she must've blacked out from exhaustion after playing that game for weeks on end without any proper rest.

Watching as a fluffy white cloud slowly passed by, Rei couldn't help but feel a bit impressed with how detailed this dream was.

"... It's awfully realistic." She told herself as she waved her hand through the cold water below her.

Observing her hand in fascination as it penetrated through the water leaving little ripples everywhere she touched, Rei noticed a portion of pink colored strings floating around her, it looked to be a piece of a lightly colored wig.

Holding the thing firmly in her hands, Rei gave it a rough tug.

"Ah.." She then immediately let out a quiet groan as her scalp felt a stinging pain.

Releasing the silky pink thing in her hand, Rei tried to rub the pain away with her palms. It didn't help much but at least the pain subsided a bit.

It didn't take long to realise that the strange pink thing was actually attached to her head.

Holding the hair within her hands Rei ignored the faint feeling of something being extremely wrong and focused her attention on the sky.

"...."

I want to wake up, she thought.

× × ×

As her memories flooded back, Rei opened her eyes once again, with still no clear answer as to why she was here.

Laying perfectly still on the water, Rei couldn't help but shiver.

It's too damn cold.

Ignoring the barrage of questions that had built up inside of her, Rei decided that she should probably swim to the shore. Judging by how realistic this dream was, she figured that being out of the water should warm her up.

Taking in a big breath of air, Rei then dived into the lake and swam to the shore ignoring the stinging coldness of the water that felt as if it was slicing up her skin with every stroke she made.

Minutes flew by before Rei was able to drag herself out of the water. Cold and exhausted she laid flat on her back and closed her eyes.

Laying completely still on the wet grass near the shore of the lake, she told herself that she needed to wake up from this terrible dream. Repeating this over in her mind, Rei relaxed her body, letting herself fully rest, allowing a sudden headache to take over her exhausted body.

As her vision began to fade into darkness, Rei faintly noticed a sudden crowd of dark blurry figures on the opposite side of the lake, it seemed like one of them had noticed her and looked to be pointing a finger in her direction.

"Young Miss?! Young Miss! Quick someone fetch a healer, the Young Miss—!!"

Hearing someone shouting this as her conscious faded into darkness, Rei felt even more confused then she already was.

"Young Miss? Who…." before she could even finish her question Rei had already blacked out.

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