100CIM - Chapter 211



Gleason knew the dead student.

He was one of the students who held hands and recited a prayer during the ceremony held during every break.

But at first, he had no idea that his death had anything to do with consciousness.

Gleason thought he must have been under so much pressure to perform that he made the wrong choice.

In the first place, all the students who gathered for the ceremony were people who had gathered to rely on the ceremony because they were burdened by the great expectations of their family.

When Gleason first heard that he had fallen from the roof and died, he thought it could very well be true.

But as the second, third, and subsequent students who had participated in the ritual died in quick succession, Gleason began to feel increasingly uneasy.

While spending those anxious days, one day a strange rumor began to spread among the students.

“Did you hear that? The dead students.”

"What?"

“I guess everyone says what they dreamed about before they died.”

"Dream?"

“Yes, dreams. He said that he had dreams he couldn’t wake up from, that they were so painful he couldn’t bear it.”

Gleason's hand stopped reading the book.

At Prescia Academy, all students live in dormitories. So if there's anyone who behaves strangely, someone will notice right away and rumors will spread quickly.

Recently, the biggest topic of conversation among students has been the stories of students who committed suicide, so it is not surprising that rumors about them are spreading...

Kkaddeuk-

Gleason crumpled the paper of the book violently.

The problem was that the people in question were students who had performed the ritual with them. If the story was true, it was a rumor that could not be ignored.

Eventually, Gleason couldn't continue eavesdropping on their conversation and got up.

Gleason walked nervously down the hallway.

Although none of the people who performed the ritual together brought this up first, they all probably noticed that something was wrong with the situation.

As evidence, the number of students who participated in the ritual without fail was decreasing day by day.

“Damn...”

Gleason asked the female student who was leading the ritual what the hell was going on. He asked if people were dying not because of suicide but because of their consciousness. He asked if there was something wrong with their consciousness.

But she still smiled wickedly and dismissed his suspicions with a single word, 'I don't know.'

Only then did Gleason realize that he didn't even know the girl's name, let alone her family background.

It felt like waking up from a fantasy.

The days of finishing the second exam with a perfect score and dreaming about future events as if the world were in the palm of your hand are over.

All that remained was an indescribable fear.

In the months since, several more students have committed suicide.

Of course, there were those who performed the ceremony together, including a second-year student who had heard the rumor early on and came looking for him, even though he was not a classmate.

Their deaths spoke to Gleason, tapping him on the shoulder.

'You're next,' he said.

It was around this time that Gleason began having lucid dreams from which he could not wake up.

***

“A lucid dream that doesn’t wake you up?”

In response to Jace's question, Gleason nodded while repeatedly washing his face with dry soap.

“Once you fall asleep and enter a lucid dream, that’s the end.”

“What do you mean by the end?”

“From then on, I won’t be able to do what I want with my dreams. I won’t be able to wake up or control them, and I’ll have to keep running away. Until I wake up.”

Gleason groaned, clutching his head as if just thinking about it was painful.

Jace looked back at Simone. It seemed to mean, what do you think?

Simone watched Gleason quietly and asked.

“What do you mean by running away? Who do you have to run away from?”

Gleason flinched and answered in a trembling voice.

“I’m running away from some... woman.”

"Woman?"

“If I think about it, things started to get strange when that woman appeared in my dream.”

Before the woman appeared, lucid dreams were just lucid dreams that showed the future.

But after the woman appeared, the dream became a nightmare where he would constantly run away from her and wake up.

“Simone, do you have any guesses?”

To Louis' question, Simone nodded silently and moved a little closer to Gleason.

“Tell me more about that woman and the situation in the dream.”

"Yes, yes!"

Gleason, without realizing it, let his guard down and began telling Simone everything that happened in his dream.

“The first time I saw that woman was at the academy in my dreams.”

***

On a deserted night, Gleason in his dream was standing alone in the middle of an academy hallway.

It was just a lucid dream, no different from any other.

However, he has been feeling anxious every time he dreams because of the rumors that have been spreading among the students lately.

'Nothing has happened until now.'

Gleason was walking around the dark academy with that thought in mind. He just had a light thought that even this fancy academy would be extremely eerie at night when there was no one there.

That's when he met that woman.

Phew-

“Ugh!”

Gleason's movements were halted by the intense pain he felt in his back.

Something hot began to flow out from his abdomen and soak his clothes.

'It hurts?'

That can't be. It can't hurt. And more than that, there can't be anyone else in this dream besides me, right?

In this world where he has complete control, no one can attack him.

For a moment, a fear worse than the intense pain filled his mind.

Gleason stared blankly at the tip of the knife sticking out through his stomach, then slowly turned around with a hardened face.

“Huh... huh...”

She had thin, hunched shoulders and long, dark hair covering her teeth.

It was hard to see it clearly in the dark academy.

Gleason wanted to see the figure of someone who was right behind him. But no matter how hard he tried to turn on the lights of the Academy, the dream was strangely uncontrollable.

'That can't be true. Why?'

“Okay, what are you doing? You have to run.”

Behind him, he heard a scratching sound like a blackboard. It was a very hoarse voice, but it was clearly a woman's voice.

“If a woman you don’t know is chasing you in your dreams, climb to the highest point and jump off without hesitation.”

Gleason's mind flashed with the words an unknown schoolgirl had once said to him.

An unknown woman. Are you talking about this woman?

But the woman behind him didn't give Gleason time to think.

“What are you doing? Run quickly.”

Kuk-

“Kyaaaaah!!!! Stop it!!!”

The woman who had been speaking as if to encourage him thrust the knife a little deeper.

The flesh that had briefly clung to the knife was torn away and blood began to spurt out.

“We have to jump down quickly. Come on, go quickly. Go and jump down.”

“Keuu... Keu... Ha, I’ll do it. Please stop...”

Gleason began to walk on legs that looked as if they would collapse at any moment.

Finally, the knife was pulled out of his back. The woman seemed to enjoy this situation, and followed Gleason, widening and narrowing the distance between them.

‘Hey, why aren’t I waking up...’

I can't wake up from this dream. It must be a dream, so why can't I wake up?

Gleason, with tears streaming down his face and his bleeding abdomen, somehow managed to increase his speed.

If he didn't move quickly, the woman's knife would stab him in the back again.

After walking and walking like that, the highest place he reached was the rooftop of the academy.

Until the moment he stood on the railing, Gleason thought.

Why can't I wake up from a dream? It's a dream. It's an imaginary world that I control. Why.

A woman's shrill laughter could be heard from behind.

“Jump.”

“Ha, but...”

“Jump.”

Gleason looked down, sobbing.

Yeah, it's just a dream anyway. It's okay because you're not really going to die.

The moment when he tried to calm his fear, he threw himself over the railing with all his might.

'.....Huh? What if this isn't a dream?'

Thoughts that he didn't want to think about dominated his mind.

As he tried to check the face of the woman standing on the rooftop, feeling his whole body grow cold, he was able to wake up from his dream by hitting the floor.

***

Gleason, who had finished telling the story, looked at Simone with a frightened expression.

“That was my first dream. I’ve had the same dream every day since then. Today too.”

He had a dream about falling from a rooftop while being chased by a woman with a knife.

As time went by, he became more adept at running away from women, but the fear also became more intense.

“If this continues, I might die like those students...”

Gleason's eyes became desperate. He looked as if he wanted Simone to say something.

Simone chewed on his words expressionlessly, then tilted her head as if she didn't understand.

“That’s strange.”

"...Yes?"

“In the end, you’re saying that you had a nightmare.”

Of course, there are many things that are too strange to be considered a simple nightmare, but anyway, if we summarize Gleason's story, it was just a dream.

“Yes... that’s right...”

Gleason also felt a bit uneasy, but he nodded reluctantly because it was true.

“In my dream, I just climbed up to the roof to avoid a woman and jumped off, so how can that be related to my death in real life?”

Sleep is sleeping in bed. No matter how much you jump to your death in a dream, it is still a dream, and it is normal to wake up in bed and be fine. It is inconsistent to die in reality by jumping in a dream.

'Come to think of it...'

Gleason also frowned in doubt. No matter how strange it was, it was just a dream, so there was no way he would die.

'Then the students who died last time...'

“Is that really a dream in the first place?”

“Huh?”

Simone pointed to Gleason.

“To us, you seemed like someone being chased by reality, not a dream.”

“Oh, after hearing what Simone said, something came to mind.”

Jace said as if he had just remembered something.

“Don’t you remember, senior? You fell down the stairs and screamed, hitting your forehead on the floor.”

The moment he heard those words, Gleason's expression changed.

“It was a dream...”

I definitely did that in my dream?

He tried to climb up to the rooftop to avoid the woman, but his foot got twisted and he fell down instead.

He hit his head on the floor, thinking that it might be resolved if he died, even if it wasn't on the rooftop...

That's not a dream?

“Th, what is that...”

Simone said in a calm voice.

“That girl might be chasing you in reality, not in a dream.”


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