I created a foundation

"It's that kind of... very high-quality material... even in such a dark place... you can see the high quality..."

This description forms a sharp contrast with people's stereotype of haunted house monsters.

"He looks... very young..." Miura's speech became a little hurried because of fear, "His hair is combed neatly... His face... He has a smile on his face..."

"But...his eyes..."

Miura took a sharp breath, as if she saw those eyes that she would never forget again.

"His eyes...are empty..."

"There's no... no spirit... just like... like those exquisite dolls displayed in shop windows..."

"Lifeless..."

Yuigahama covered her mouth tightly to prevent herself from crying out loud, but her violent heaving of shoulders revealed her inner fear.

"He... he was standing in the darkness... smiling at us..." Miura's voice was filled with tears. "That smile... was very polite... one could even say... gentle..."

"But...but it makes me feel cold from the bottom of my heart..."

"We...we were all so frightened...our legs...our legs felt like they were filled with lead...we couldn't move a single step..."

"I wanted to scream... but I found... my throat seemed to be blocked... I couldn't make a sound..."

Yukino lightly scratched the notebook with the pen in her hand, making a slight rustling sound.

"And then?" she pressed, her tone still steady.

"Then... he... he started talking..." Miura's voice almost became a weak whisper, filled with extreme fear.

"His voice... is very pleasant... like... like the deep voice of a cello... and has a... a strange rhythm..."

"Very gentle...but...but that kind of gentleness...is more frightening than any intimidation..."

"Because... you feel... like that voice can get right into your head... and control your thoughts..."

Hayato Hayama shuddered involuntarily.

"He... he also performed a chest-touching salute on us..." Yuigahama added in a trembling voice, as if the elegant and strange figure was right in front of her.

"Just like... just like those... medieval nobles in the movies..."

"In that place... in that situation... it's too... too inappropriate..."

Miura suddenly closed his eyes, and tears hung on his long eyelashes.

She took a deep breath, and when she opened her eyes again, besides fear, there was also a hint of resigned despair in her eyes.

She tried to regulate her breathing, trying to imitate the man's tone more closely, although every repetition seemed to drag her back to that nightmarish night.

"He...he said..."

Miura's voice became distorted due to extreme fear, and each syllable seemed extremely difficult.

"Nice to meet you, beautiful ladies..."

These words came out of Miura's mouth with a chilling imitation tone.

Yuigahama's body trembled violently and she almost slipped off the chair.

Ye Shan also felt a chill rushing from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

Yukinoshita Yukino's expression remained unchanged, but a barely perceptible glimmer seemed to flash across the depths of her ice-blue eyes.

Miura suppressed the fear that threatened to consume her and continued. Her voice sounded a little strange due to the imitation, but it also added a bit of a strange atmosphere:

"my name is……"

She paused, as if the name itself carried some kind of forbidden power.

"Nightmare..."

"Nightmare." Yukino repeated the name softly, without any fluctuation in tone, as if confirming an ordinary word.

"Yes..." Miura nodded vigorously, tears welling up again, blurring her vision, "He said... he is... Nightmare..."

She clutched the corner of her clothes tightly, her nails digging deep into her palms, trying to use the pain to resist the chill that penetrated deep into her bones.

"And then... he also said..."

She paused for a moment, as if mustering up the courage to repeat the spell-like self-introduction that had plunged her into complete despair.

The air in the classroom seemed to solidify into substance, weighing heavily on everyone's heart.

The sound of the wind outside the window also disappeared, leaving only Miura's rapid breathing due to fear.

She took a deep breath and, using all her strength, finally uttered the ominous and strange words that changed their lives:

"I am doing this for the Supreme Lord..."

Her voice was trembling with extreme fear, and every word seemed to be stained with sticky malice.

"Searching for and delivering the messenger of sweet dreams..."

Miura's pupils suddenly dilated, as if he saw the elegant and morbid smile on the man's face again.

She paused, her lips trembling, almost unable to make a sound, but she still persisted and revealed the final and most crucial identity.

"One of the lower twelve demon moons."

Yumiko Miura's voice was filled with a faint, broken sob, as if on the verge of collapse.

The air in the classroom became even more stagnant because of this belated truth, as if even the light was stained with a layer of desperate gray.

Yukinoshita Yukino looked at them quietly, without any extra emotion in her ice-blue eyes, just pure listening.

Hayato Hayama's face was pale, his lips tightly pursed, and even a thin layer of cold sweat oozed from his forehead. The calmness and composure he prided himself on had already been shattered in the face of such naked, unreasonably terrifying things.

"That man...the man who calls himself Nightmare..."

Miura took a deep breath, as if he had to use up all his strength to continue this painful memory.

"He...he didn't do anything to us immediately after he appeared."

Her voice was intermittent, and each word seemed to be squeezed out from the depths of her throat with difficulty.

"He seemed... even polite, like... a perfect host."

This adjective, at this moment, sounds full of extreme irony and chilling.

"He didn't show any malice, but...instead, he had a pleasant conversation with us."

joy.

This word caused Hayato Hayama's body to tremble almost imperceptibly.

He remembered that night, the joyful atmosphere that was deliberately created. Looking back now, every minute and every second seemed to be soaked in poison...

Miura continued, "He asked us...what each of us dreams is."

"His voice..." She paused, as if trying to find the right words, "His voice is very special, very gentle, with a kind of... a kind of irresistible magic."

"We...we were like we were bewildered and didn't realize any danger at all."

"I couldn't help but... I just let down my guard."

"I even feel like he's someone I can talk to."

"So, we...we all told him our deepest, most beautiful fantasies..."

Yuigahama Yui's crying became more suppressed, and her shoulders shook violently.

Those dreams that once represented hope and aspirations have now become death spells, recorded one by one by the devil.

Yukino's gaze lingered briefly on Miura and Yuigahama's faces, then turned to Hayama, whose face was ashen.

All three of them were participants in that "dream interview".

"After...after listening to all of our dreams," Miura's voice grew hoarse, "Nightmare...the smile on his face didn't change at all."

"He still has that elegant, enigmatic smile."

“Then he said to us…”

Miura's voice got stuck here, as if the words themselves carried the power of a curse.

She closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face.

"He said...your dreams are so sweet."

"Then I wish you all a happy evening..."

Miura suddenly opened his eyes, which were filled with bloodshot and extreme fear.

"…same sweet dream."

That "same" was like a poisoned knife, stabbing into their hearts.

"After saying this," Miura's voice almost became a whisper, "he just... he just disappeared into the darkness of the haunted house."

"We didn't even...see how he left."

"Then..."

Her body trembled even more violently, as if she had returned to that horrific moment.

"A… an irresistible drowsiness instantly… instantly swept over all of us."

"It's like... it's like someone forcibly turned off our consciousness."

"We didn't even have time to make a sound, to leave that damn place..."

"Just like that... one after another, they fell to the ground and collectively lost consciousness."

"I remember... my last consciousness was seeing... everyone had a strange smile on their faces."

That smile was exactly the same as the expression they had described on their friends' faces when they died.

Hayato Hayama closed his eyes in pain, clenched his hands into fists, and his knuckles turned white from the force.

He also remembered the sudden and overwhelming sleepiness that had come over him.

That feeling wasn't fatigue, but a higher level of irresistible forced deprivation.

"When we woke up the next morning," Miura's voice calmed down a little, but still filled with the trance of surviving a 0.8 catastrophe, "we found ourselves lying at the door of a haunted house."

"The sun... the sun shines on me, it's warm."