Chapter 1

I had a dream.

A group of black monsters chased after me. I couldn’t make out their shape, or maybe, my brain simply refused to remember them. They looked scary. Their eyes were red, as red as blood. Their roars were vicious, like that of a hungry tiger. Their steps were quick and heavy. When I got close to them, I felt the ground tremble underneath their feet.

For me, a twenty-one-year old university kid living in Indonesia, a peaceful country far from war, they were the complete opposite of what I faced on a daily basis. None of my friends, professors, or people for that matter, were as scary as them. They were monsters, straight out of fiction. And, despite being in a dream, they felt real.

The sense of dread, the fear, the smell of blood around me, all fresh in my memories. It was as if I had experienced it first hand, as if I stood there, right at that battlefield.

I shook my head. It couldn't be real, there's just no way. It was all just a dream. I shouldn’t have watched that horror anime last night.

I knew I couldn’t trust his recommendations.

I let out a sigh, scolding myself for being dumb. In my defense, the cover had some pretty cute girls on it. As someone without a girlfriend, of course I found it appealing.

Urgh…

The dream sapped all my energy from me. I was tired, but I had a morning class today. If I didn’t rise quickly, I would be late. I opened the curtains, but the sky was still dark.

“Hmm?”

I glanced at the clock. I couldn’t see it clearly. Taking my glasses told me that my eyesight wasn’t the problem. I turned on the lights.

It was four in the morning.

What the? No, that can’t be…

The clock’s hands were still moving, and I had just changed the battery recently. I checked my phone. It gave me the same time as the clock. I prided myself with my ability to wake up just when I wanted to, so this was the first time I woke up this far ahead of my alarm.

Which I set up just in case, not because I actually need it.

I’ve had some pretty terrible dreams in the past, but none managed to wake me up like this. I guess none felt as real as last night’s, either.

Damnit, Frederick.

I’ll never trust him again… But… to be honest… what he gave me wasn’t that scary. I dislike horror stuff, regardless of whether it’s anime or live action, but as an Indonesian, it’s almost impossible to not interact with them at least once.

And I interacted with them quite a fair bit, probably more than the world’s population average.

I saw worse stuff before.

I’m probably just tired.

I just started this semester. Yeah, that’s probably why.

That dream had made me wide awake, and I’m not in the mood to sleep anymore. Taking a shower and doing some of my university tasks may be the better option. Oh well, waking up three hours early wouldn’t kill me.

I was about to walk to the bathroom when I stumbled upon something. Maybe it was because of me still being tired, so I lost my balance and stumbled onto the floor, landing hard on the carpet. I looked behind to see what I had stepped on.

The thing I stepped on groaned. Her eyelids fluttered open, and an annoyed expression spread across her face. Her long, sharp ears twitched, her bright blue eyes glared at me.

“Can you please be more careful?”

I was at a loss on what to reply.

“... Sorry?”

“This kind of sloppiness will get you killed.” She leaned forward, her eyes scanning my body. “Wait, how did you even survive this far out with your clothes? You should already be dead by now.”

I had zero idea on what she was talking about. I have so many questions, maybe too many. But, anime showed me one method I could use to calm girls down.

“You look pretty.”

Her face twisted, and in that moment, I knew I messed up.

Those words were supposed to be used on complimenting clothes, and on girls you’re already close to. Suddenly uttering that out of thin air made me look like a creep.

“Yo- Your clothes are also…”

I tried saving myself, but as I looked down, I was speechless. She wasn’t wearing a dress, or any regular clothes. Around her body was battered leather armor, a metal helmet covering her head, with a long yellow ponytail appearing from behind it. There were bite marks, slices, dents, even traces of some kind of yellow liquid on her armor.

Her expression was… indescribable. Just as I thought she was about to lash out, she stood up straight and brandished her sword, the blade letting out a sharp shing sound that pierced my eardrums. The black blade itself is thin and has a slight curve, similar to a katana. What's unique is the way she held it. She held it from a ring below the hilt. The entire sword could move with that ring as its center point. I jumped back, fearing for my life, but she wasn’t pointing it at me.

“Run away,” she said. I looked around my apartment. There was nothing not normal there, nothing other than her.

But I wanted to live, so I heed her words. I stood up, opened the door, and sprinted straight toward the elevator. I pressed on the elevator buttons. One of the two units traveled up, the number on the display increasing. Waiting for them felt like an eternity.

“I told you to run away!” she yelled all of a sudden. She was just several meters away from me, facing away. I didn’t hear or see her move. She must have noticed me standing there, staring at her, as she turned around and yelled again.

“You want to die!?”

The elevator’s bell rang. I ran inside, and pressed the button to the first floor. I heard a gasp after the doors closed. I took a little moment of silence to calm my beating heart. The second I reached the ground floor, she was still standing there, mouth wide. I fell to my butt, moving back toward the elevator’s walls.

“Do- Don’t kill me!”

She wordlessly nodded, sheathed her sword, and then… walked around the elevator?

She clipped through the walls, reappeared behind me, picked me up, and began running. “Hold on tight!”

Not sure what else I could do, I held onto her shoulders, and let her carry me away.

And by carry me away, I mean running right in the middle of the elevator. She was running as fast as she could, I could tell from just how fast her feet moved. They were touching the floor, but she wasn’t moving any forward. As one question got replaced by the other, the doors to the elevator closed, and the elevator moved up again. It arrived on floor six, one floor below where I lived.

The doors opened, and a young man in a suit stood in front of it. He must be one of those who needed to depart to work early… and unfortunately, he fainted the second he saw me.

“Are- Are you okay?” I asked in panic.

The girl replied, “This is nothing.”

“No! I mean that person!” I pointed toward where the man lay on the floor.

“Stop with your delusions!”

Delusions? He’s right there!

Before I could say anything else, the elevator’s door closed. The elevator went up a floor, this time greeting a group of young girls. They screamed and ran away the second they saw me.

“We- We need to go back!” I tried jumping off. There was some kind of momentum, and I was thrown forward, rolling on the floor. It was as if a ghost pushed me from behind, but I had no time to be thinking about that.

“Hey!”

“Please, wait!”

I ran back toward my room and closed the door.

“Now!” I climbed back on her and let her take me to wherever she needed to be.