Thought It Was 'The End', Only to Return to a Changed Genre - Chapter 107
Not being able to sleep was an unimaginable torment.
If she remembered correctly, it was a method used for torture during the Japanese occupation in Korea. Adeline steeled her resolve as if she had become an independence activist.
The lack of sleep was bearable, but the nightmares that flooded in as soon as she closed her eyes gnawed at her mind like ants swarming sugar cookies.
âShouldnât I get used to it if I get hit repeatedlyâŚ.â
Why does it hurt more the more I get hit?
Of course, it hurts more because they keep hitting the same spotâŚ.
Adeline mulled over these stupid thoughts with her dazed mind.
The impact of the nightmares was even greater because she had been at peace for the past few years. It was like how taking a break while climbing a mountain made it harder to continue.
The nightmares came several times in one night. Even in the brief moments she closed her eyes, days passed in the dream.
Thatâs why lucid dreams were so terrible.
Even if she knew it was a dream, the time never seemed to end. Adeline lived months within two days.
There was only one way to wake up from the dream. As always, the âAdelineâ in the dream had to die for her to wake up.
All senses were the same as in reality.
There was no difference.
Pain, air, smell, soundsâeverything was vividly real.
The grip choking her neck, the pressure pressing down below her throat, the pain of bones being pressed by fingertips, the blurring vision from not being able to breathe.
The sound and sensation of a sharp piece of metal stabbing into her stomach, the pain arriving a beat late, and the hot gush of blood spilling between her fingers.
Drinking poison, being attacked, being pushed and fallingâŚ.
Yet, from the beginning, Adeline knew it was a dream. If asked how she knew, she couldnât answer. Perhaps the criterion was simple.
Believing that it couldn’t be real.
Genevieve wouldnât kill me, Lloyd wouldnât betray me, Edwin wouldnâtâŚ.
âAh, that guy might.â
She tried to laugh it off as a joke, but only a dry laugh came out.
And above all.
Shane would never kill me.
So it had to be a dream.
No matter how many times she experienced it, dying never became familiar.
Adeline was afraid of death. Unlike the death in dreams, true death would end everything.
She didnât remember how she died in her past life, but that death gave Adeline a new life. She couldnât lightly think that she would just be reincarnated again after dying. The fear was that death would completely end her life.
Even if she woke from sleep, she couldnât return to her past life.
If she died for real, she could never live as âAdelineâ again. Even if she reincarnated and lived another life, what meaning would it have?
There wouldnât be a single person she cherished in that life.
Thatâs why she was afraid of death. Anyoneâs death.
The nightmares were both the same and different from the past.
Closing her eyes for a moment and being dragged into the dream and having to die to end it were the same, but this time she wasnât the only one dying.
âItâs not that I donât die.â
As before, Adeline herself had to die to wake up. That was the basic premise.
While showing her various situations as if simulating, she was killed, but during the process leading to that conclusion, many others died as well.
Close people, distant acquaintances, and strangers alike.
Sometimes just a few, sometimes an alarming number.
Some dreams had a massacre ending where people died endlessly.
âWhat is this, are you telling me to just die? Do you not need a ruined story, so everyone should die?â
Are you insane, world?
Adeline felt like cursing out whoever was showing her these nightmares.
Whether it was the author or some kind of force saying, âAnyway, you have to die,â they could have just killed her as before. Did they want to curse her by making her watch others die in front of her eyes while saying, âYou must dieâ?
‘What a kind yet damnable bastardâŚ.’
