Chapter 65: Welcome, Creator!

“Okay. Okay.” Leon raised his hands and took a step backward. He watched, confused, as she scrambled off the bed, the diary still clamped to her chest.

She ran into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

Bam.

The echo of the slam hung in the air while Leon stood there silently. “What has come into her?” he murmured, then walked to the bed, feeling a fatigue that was deeper than physical exhaustion.

He threw himself on the bed, letting the mattress ripple beneath him. He just lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, not bothering to remove his boots.

Shifting glances at the distorted rectangles that seemed to be painted there by leftovers of the afternoon light, his mind replayed the mask, the “CONTAINED” word, and Zoe’s terrified eyes.

Leon’s eyelids grew heavy, almost as if being pulled by the weight of the day, while the fragments of the reeling scenes swirled, refusing to cohere into sense.

The hum of the academy, which usually was a constant background noise, seemed to soften. Little by little, his breathing slowed as the tension in his shoulders unraveled, muscle by muscle.

Before he knew it, sleep swallowed him like a whale.

One moment he was in the twilight of the room; the next, he was standing on the shore of the placid green ocean.

“This place again?!” he screamed, smelling the thick and still air of the damp earth.

His blood turned to ice when he turned. At his front, just ten feet away from him, the strange, grey-skinned creatures with void-black eyes and needle-teeth smiles stood there.

This time, they weren’t in small numbers—dozens, standing in a silent semicircle along the shore where the water met the dark soil.

Leon’s tension began to calm strangely when he saw them not advancing but just standing there watching. “At least I won’t be ripped apart as they did.”

He moved forward, one step at a time, and they followed. He paused, and they paused. “What at all do they want from me?” he asked low in his thoughts, but saw a reaction in the creatures.

In an instant, their heads bowed; not in submission, but in a deep, unsettling reverence.

Leon stood frozen, unable to move, think, or breathe. With one voice and movement, the creatures screamed: “Welcome, Creator!”

The dream shattered in an instant like glass.

Leon jolted awake, gasping, the echo of the choral “Welcome, Creator” still vibrating in the marrow of his bones.

He sat upright, panting as if he’d been drowned. His eyes stared widely into the semi-darkness of the room. The ghost scent of the damp earth clung to his senses as if glued.

His heart pounded heavily against his ribs as he scrambled backward on the bed until his shoulders hit the cold wall.

In the darkness just a few feet from the bed, two faces resolved from the shadows—the old woman from Dusthollow and the lizard-lady from the simulation.

Their features merged and shifted like smoke over a fire, while their eyes held him pinned.

“No!” he screamed in a raw and desperate tone, then grabbed the pillow beside him. He hurled it at the ghostly figures.

The faces dissolved, letting the pillow pass through before thumping softly to the floor. They reformed instantly, their expressions turning into a grim grin.

A chorus of voices struck his ears, not as a sound, but as a pressure inside his skull. He clutched his head, fingers digging into his brow.

“FIGHT THEM, AND YOU WILL FIND THE SECRET TO THE CRASH. THE SECRET ABOUT YOUR FATHER.”

Leon squeezed his eyes shut, but the faces followed him into the private darkness behind his eyelids. He thrashed on the bed, sweat springing from his pores and tracing icy paths down his neck and back.

Then, as suddenly as it came, the pressure vanished, letting a deafening silence fall in the room. He couldn’t even hear the frantic pulse of his own heart.

Grey morning light filtered through the window, painting the room in soft, mundane tones as he cautiously cracked his eyes open.

At the area where the faces had been was emptiness; only a dust mote danced in the sunbeam.

“Get up, you’re on the list today.”

Leon’s head snapped to the left. He blinked twice when he saw Zoe standing by her cosmetic table, already dressed in her form-fitting pink training outfit.

She watched him with a neutral expression, as if she hadn’t just witnessed his silent struggle.

“Was I still dreaming? And how is she now behaving… normally? After last night?” Thoughts tangled his mind as he stared in a disoriented manner.

He tilted his gaze from her calm eyes to her lips, then down to the curve of her chest.

The bed vibrated softly beside him, followed by a sharp chime.

Leon flinched, then fumbled beside him. His hands closed over the rough black cloth he used as a sheet, and beneath it was the cool, scuffed datapad.

The screen lit the moment he pulled it up. On it, an official tournament communiqué was being displayed in moving text.

His name—STORM, L.—was highlighted. Beside it was a small, unflattering photo he had no idea of taking.

Haa.

He exhaled heavily. His eyes closed for a second, then opened. He shifted his gaze from the screen to Zoe and managed a faint, shaky smile.

Zoe didn’t return it. She turned to the cosmetic table and closed the small drawer that was open.

Leon’s eyes caught a flicker of a tiny silver key in her hand before she slipped it into the pocket of her trousers.

She didn’t place anything inside, but the finality of the lock’s click, and the way her eyes darted to him immediately, seemed enough to be an answer—the diary.

Leon pushed himself off the bed, his limbs feeling heavier and awkward. He moved past her side of the bed and into the bathroom.

“Why this early?” he muttered to himself as he stepped inside and closed the door shut. He stripped off his black shirt, trousers, and boots, then stood under the shower.

He inhaled, then exhaled sharply, then flipped the handle, letting the icy water needle his skin. He stood there for five full minutes, letting the cold clear the fog in his mind.

He emerged, toweled off, and pulled on the same black clothes, then exited from the bathroom.

“Is that the only thing you’re using for your match?” Zoe’s voice came in an assessing tone, then she laughed slightly and shook her head.

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