DREAM OF THE ROTTEN APPLE: PART-2

“Hello! Nice to meet you all,” he said cheerfully.
“I hope none of you are damaged.”
He laughed softly. “All of you are precious ingredients, after all.”

Then he tilted his head.

“Let’s see… I think I should take you one by one.
You kids sure make this old man work, don’t you?”

WHY!

Why! Why! Why!

Move! Move! Move!

I was screaming inside my own head — begging, commanding, pleading my body to respond.
But nothing moved. Nothing even twitched.

How the hell were we paralyzed?
How did he do this to us?

I couldn’t move…
But I could see.

I could see him crouch down to grab Shaun, who had collapsed right in front of me.
Just lying there — helpless. Like me.

We were just meant to have fun. A simple trip. Our first summer vacations of college— then why is all of this happening to us?

Why did he come back again?
Why is he taking so long to take me?

I don’t care anymore. I shut down every thought, every calculation my brain was trying to run. Maybe this is it.

And this time... finally, he was coming for me.

He dragged us into a room.

A kitchen.

But not the kind I expected.

There was no blood on the floor. No rusted chains. No stench of rot or flickering light bulbs swinging above our heads.

Instead, what I saw was... clean. Gleaming. Almost surgical.

A modular kitchen — sleek, polished, pristine.

I don’t know if I am broken or something, but I think some kind of switch flipped inside me.

HOLY COW!

I guess there really is a difference between fiction and reality.
If, by chance, I were to get out of here alive and someday make a movie about a psychopathic cook, I’d definitely add this detail into my work.

This might just be the dream kitchen of every housewife.

The only thing I didn’t like was a human-sized pot and sword-length knives — or maybe those were swords themselves.

There was a table with two chairs. I wondered why there were two of them.

He was preparing something inside the pot, his back to our side.

“That should do the work,” he said and sat on the chair, reading a book.

I was cursed to see way more of him than I ever wanted to. I was kept at a very bad angle, from where I could totally see him exposed. He really wasn’t trying even a bit to hide his…— though what really caught my eye was the book he was flipping through.

[MAN: THE CONCEPT OF GREATNESS AND WOMAN: THE CONCEPT OF PATHETICNESS]

I see, this hentai might be one of my people. That book is written by my favourite author, ROTTEN APPLE, one of the greatest light novel authors. Fiction written by him is on another level — but sometimes, he also writes non-fiction. I am currently reading one of his non-fiction books:

[THOSE SLEEP PARALYSIS DREAMS]

It talks about his experiences with sleep paralysis, and about the dreams and its demons.

“You must be wondering what went wrong, isn’t it?” he suddenly started talking. He was looking at me while talking.

“I had my suspicion about Marshal — or should I say, ‘the good-hearted staff boy.’ I gave him a chance last time, but it seems he didn’t want to live, so I killed him.”

“Ahh, don’t worry, I kept his body inside the refrigerator. We’ll eat him later.”

Wait, wait, wait — this was too much information for me at once. Suddenly, I feel like I’ve leapt into a psychological light novel, with a psychopathic cook in a setting where the kitchen doesn’t look like my expectations. And then I got to hear that the staff boy was killed.

No offense, Marshal. You may rest in peace.

But the most important point — what about “we”?
Who is the other person who has this hentai hobby of literally eating people?

Well, things don’t matter anymore. I am too tired to think, and I am going to get cooked by this maniac anyway.

“The room that is locked has paralysis gas cylinders. I always keep them as a backup plan.”

“It was a nice try, reinforcing doors, but trust me, I have faced worse.”

Damn man, this guy’s got body and brain — both of them. I am in a hopeless situation where I can only see my death as a result. But why, I wonder, my heartbeat is not even pacing a bit? In front of death, why is my animal instinct not moving an inch? I am having no flashbacks, nor am I thinking of my loved ones— not even about the friends I’m going to die with. I wonder why I’m so calm

He came close to me, smelled me from top to bottom, and said, “You don’t smell of fear— not even slightly.”

“You are a rare meat. Mr. Watson once told me that he encountered one.”

Maybe tired from all-day exertion, or maybe from the exhaustion piled up by the lack of sleep during exam time, I was feeling very sleepy. He was saying something, but I wasn’t able to concentrate on him. He closed my eyes, saying he would save me until Mr. Watson comes. In a few seconds, I lost consciousness…

[NOTE: FONT IN ITALICS SUGGESTS THE DREAM WORLD.]

Being a little unconscious, I woke up to someone knocking at the door. The AC wasn’t working—maybe the power had gone out. Without being fully aware of my actions, I walked sleepily to the door and opened it. It was the same staff boy. He was saying something, but I wasn’t paying proper attention to his words; I only caught the part where he was asking if we had eaten lunch at the hotel. Maybe he was asking so it could be added to the later bill.

After he was done talking, I shut the door and sat on the couch in the living room. I had gotten my share of sleep and was planning to go see what the others were doing downstairs. As I recollected myself from that drowsy state, and stepped out of the room—Wait a minute. I feel like I’ve done this before.

Thinking, I got into the lift. As I entered and the door closed completely, I remembered —The power was out. The lift couldn’t work without electricity.

Inside the lift with the doors closed, my eyes landed on the panel of buttons. There were two extra buttons placed beside the one marked Ground Floor. One said Heaven, and the other — Heaven +1.

That confirmed it. I was in a dream.

Heaven itself was intriguing enough — but my curiosity led towards Heaven +1.
I pressed it.

The lift began to move upward, even though I knew there were no floors above this building.
While it moved, a song began to play — "Kaun Tujhe." It was a sweet and pleasant voice.

The voice felt familiar... like something I’d heard before. My mind was also thinking about the situation I was in.

The lift was taking its time to reach “above Heaven,” and I thought it was fair. I was realizing the fact that I am lucid dreaming, but I am also paralysed, so does that make me sleep paralysed right now? In the book, it was mentioned that sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming occur simultaneously. While thinking this and also curious about finding out where I had heard the voice, the lift arrived.

The doors opened into a blinding light, and I stepped out onto the Heaven +1 floor.

It looked like a fairyland.

The sky was light pink in colour, with clouds shaped like cotton candy.

The air smelled sweet — like warm sugar and fruit syrup — and every breath felt like I was inhaling dessert.
The streets and houses were made of cake, mostly blueberry and blackcurrant. The ground beneath my feet had a soft, spongy feel, like stepping on frosted velvet.

While I was still exploring this dreamy dessert landscape, a voice called out behind me:

“Uncle, who are you?”

I turned to see the owner of the voice — a little girl, maybe 9 or 10 years old.

And as soon as I looked at her closely... I remembered whose voice it was — it was hers.

The girl standing in front of me was Alaska, but about 8–9 years younger.

I GUESS I AM DREAMING LIKE ROTTEN APPLE NOW.