Chapter 5

“So nice that you took your sister with you”, the old lady smiled and gave me the key. “You know, the younger generation doesn’t appreciate it any more.”

She sighed.

“My grandson used to come here every summer when he was younger, but now…”

I zoned out. I hated dealing with people. Why did we need to hear this bullshit anyway? She already got my money, so give me the key… To make it worse, Hana encouraged her to keep going with the meaningless chatter. Fuck, she even seemed to enjoy it.

Who cared what happened in this pathetic village and how beautiful autumn was here. I really could have a beer now. I lit a cigarette and ignored her disapproving look.

“You are just like my daughter.”

She shook her head and smiled.

“I will not keep you any longer, you must be tired after your journey..”

Finally, she left us alone, but not before telling us all she knew about some random plant we could use for tea. I collapsed on the sofa. At least we were here. For good or bad… I watched Hana looking around with childlike excitement. If her sister were half as mindless as she was, I wasn’t surprised by what had happened to her.

Entering the dream for no apparent reason…? Foolish, they got what they deserved. And now I was stuck with her, forced to play nice and holding my stupid, naive side from believing this crap. At least it would soon be over. I took a deep drag and exhaled the smoke.

Hana tried to drag me for a random walk, but I refused. I would rather have a shower, a beer, and time to think. If I really cared about where we had gone, I could have looked at Google images. I had more important thing on my head than crap like that. So I lay on the sofa and tried to do some work, waiting for her to come back.

Finally, the door opened, and she ran in. I lit a cigarette, but she sat down on the sofa and hugged me. Fuck. It was so unexpected that I almost lost it. I took a deep breath.

“Are you okay?”, she asked softly.

I nodded and tried to deflect her attention from me.

“Are you ready…?”

She looked at me and took my hand. So here we go…

                                       —----------------------------

At least her sister had explained the basics, so I didn't need to treat her like a complete idiot. Still, some of her ideas were ridiculous. A Dreamquest? What the fuck was that? A really stupid way to die…at best. I hated Reddit with passion.

I took a deep breath.

“You don’t really need a quest to become a mahou shoujo. You just need to believe you are one.”

“But my sister….”

…was really stupid.. I kept that thought to myself and continued,

“Of course you can do something that will help you to believe, but you don’t need to.”

The last thing I wanted was to go into the dream with her; I didn’t plan to die anytime soon. She sighed and looked down.

“But..but I tried to believe…it didn’t work, and…”

Her voice trailed off. I put my arm around her, and she leaned into me. I could see where this crap was going. Crying drama with the sun slowly setting was the last thing I needed.

“What did you try to become ?”, I asked softly.

“I wanted to be like my sister… to be a mahou shoujo and protect others… like she did”

She sniffled.

“I really believed I could, but…”

Her body grew numb, and a quiet sob escaped her mouth.

“Hana…”, I said softly. “I think I know what went wrong.”

“What…?”

“You tried to be her… You probably even imagined yourself looking like her when you transformed.”

She nodded with a quiet sob. I ran my hand through her hair, combing it with my fingers.

“You cannot become like someone else. For this to work, you need to become yourself.”

She rested her head on my chest, and I kept playing with her hair.

“You can do it, you are strong and brave deep inside. Use this strength to become a mahou shoujo.”

I had no idea why it hadn’t worked in the first place, so my idea was as good as any. It didn’t matter, as long as she believed in it, anything would work. She smiled and took my hand in hers.

“Thank you, Ame.”

Letting her rest her head on my lap for hours after our chat was difficult enough, but at least it kept us safe from the Nightmares. For now. She would still need to try to transform and if she would fuck it up, it would attract all the Nightmares that lurked around.

She sighed.

“Ame… I got so stuck with how I wanted to look as a mahou shoujo that I cannot imagine myself as anything else.”

“Draw it, then”

“I cannot draw…”

“Okay, let’s see what we can do about it”, I smiled and reached for my laptop.

I went to DeviantArt and searched for “mahou shoujo + Dreamstone”

“Have a look at these, maybe you’ll get some inspiration”

She spent another hour scrolling through random images. Most of the shit looked like waifu drawn by incels in their basements but some… If you looked closer at the Dreamstone, you could see that the artist must have seen it in real life and probably had one themselves. They looked pretty cool… I shook my head. I was done with this crap long time ago.

“Ame…”

“What?”

“What about your Dreamstone?”

I frowned and looked away.

“It…it is broken”

She put her hand on my shoulder.

“But if you believe strongly enough in it, you can repair it..”, she said softly.

Fuck, at least she wasn’t stupid but… Fuck. If I told her that I had wished for it to break, and so it broke - all my hopes of her transforming into a mahou shoujo and saving my ass from the Nightmares would be gone. I sighed and looked down. Sometimes, silence was the best answer.

She hugged me and whispered into my ear,

“Don’t worry, Ame, I believe in you…”

Fuck.