No, no, I’m just not quite awake yet.
The wind rustling grass and leaves sounding like human voices happens all the time.
Okay, I’ll just sleep. It’s okay for me to be out of it when I’m dreaming.
Covering my head with the futon, I close my eyes.
Dreams that are interrupted when you wake up sometimes continue when you go back to sleep.
And I’ve always been able to sleep easy, so it’ll work. If I just go to sleep now——
——: Don’t, Kei-chan—— you mustn’t sleep now——
——What?
Just as I’m about to try returning to that dream, the person’s voice from inside it reaches my ears.
As if sounding from directly inside my head, a close, yet distant voice.
In which case, is the me right now the Kei who’s sleeping and dreaming, or the Kei who’s trying to sleep?
As I yet lack any sense of danger, the voice quivers with tension as if to chase me away.
Person from my dream: Kei-chan, hurry, get up and run away——!
Kei: Eh!?
With a start, my body springs upright.
What in the world should I be running from? ——What lies in front of my eyes after I rub them…
…is a giant snake.
In the thin dark of this room, lit only by the pale blue faded moonlight, it’s such a bright red that it makes me squint——
Richer than the color of blood, but darker and denser than the color of fire are the scales that armor its body.
Silently it stares, scouting my movements with its emotionless, eerie eyes.
The hairs of my back stand straight on end.
Kei: No—— how could this—!?
Tossing away the futon, I move to run and flee the room.
But just as I’m about to move, the red snake comes flying.
Kei: Iyaaa———!!
Who knows where I was trying to shield myself, but in one of my two outstretched arms, pain rushed through.
Upon my forearm, near the elbow, a living thing thicker than my arm dangles there.
Kei: Ah…… aaahh!…….
I’ve been bitten. It bit me!
I imagine this was the result the reaction of my body was aiming for, but by no means did I want to be bitten.
Kei: Nonononono! Get awa~y!
I give my arm a violent shake. So as to shake it more easily, I stand. Even as I stand, the snake’s tail remains on the floor. Its body is longer than I am tall.
Kei: S-top! Get off, already!
Like the snakes you see in the story, Jagansou, they have to eat their victims whole, so perhaps their jaws aren’t very gifted in strength.
I don’t know if my strength took it off, or if it gave up when met with unexpected resistance, but at any rate, it opened its mouth.
As it falls with a giant “thud,” I try to escape before it can right itself.
Kei: Ah, oh no——
Natural enough that this would happen, but I found myself awfully confused, and I maybe even shut my eyes…
…and by the time I realize I was headed in the wrong direction, the wall is right in front of my eyes.
I’ve chased myself into a corner.
Kei: ——*Hiii!*
With my back pushed to the wall, I let out a scream that sounds like a hiccup.
I’ve been chased into a corner.
And squeezing me into that corner, a pair of lidless eyes.
Like charcoal fires brushed by a wind, they nourish a warmth and shine in the darkness.
Bright red——
Bright and clear——
And no scream like before will leave my lungs now.