They say a frog caught in a snake’s glare becomes unable to move, petrified by fear, and right now, my situation is no different from that frog’s.
Just like a frog awaiting dissection, my body is pinned to the wall.
Just its gaze alone has me more than terrified enough, and yet it splits the air with a threatening hiss as it sways its long neck.
What can I do… what can I do——
However much I try to find a way out, my body won’t move more than a twitch.
The only thing I can do is throw my thoughts in circles, circles, circles, circles, all useless.
And the thought that surfaces from that spiraling eddy is…
If only this were a dream——
Ahh, it really is useless.
To think I woke up in my room and found a snake, the story’s just too much to believe. Just because of that, this might as well be a dream.
And yet, if it were, surely all I’d have to do is wake up.
And if this were some kind of lucid dream, there’s no way a snake would appear in the first place…
…which is why, this probably isn’t a dream…
Reaching forth from a mouth that looks like a notch in its face, its forked tongue claws at the air.
With a movement so appropriately matched to that rustling sound, it slowly closes the distance.
The red snake edges closer.
As if influenced by the snake’s very presence, the air of the room appears to dye itself in a rust-red haze.
The red snake edges closer.
The rusted air carries with it a stench, thrusting up my nostrils the pungent reek of reptiles, mixed with the smell of blood.
A sickening smell.
Kei: *kahaugh!*…… *gehough! gehough, geough!*
Trying to push away the stink digging into my nasal passages, I choke. Tears blur my eyes.
Wanting, hoping desperately for clean air, I raise my chin up as if drowning.
In the corner of my red-blurred sight, a pure light tinged with blue darts across.
Dancing and flitting as if it knows no weight, it doesn’t look unlike a will-o’-the-wisp, but…
…that’s not it, this light, I think I’ve, somewhere……
……Ahh, yes, yes, that’s right.
Maybe this is a dream, after all.
Because this light, the person from my dream last night had——
Person from my dream: Kei-chan.
The voice of that person who somehow knows my name… is revived in my head.
Dream girl: Kei-chan.
And also… comes from right next to me.
A high pitched sound quivers through the air, and fills the room with moonlight.
The blue light smashes into the red air, upon which both melt into the dark.
The stench disappears, my breathing easing as it departs.
Dream girl: Kei-chan, it’s okay now.
A sweet, flowery scent reaches me——
As a hand enwrapped in thin phosphorescence touches me, the unseen knots that had imprisoned my body are undone.
My movement at last restored, I turn my head, and at my side I see…
…with countless butterflies at her side, that person tightens the gentle features of her face and stares icily at the red snake.
Dream girl: It’s okay now. I may not be enough help on my own, but——
Maybe it was by her volition, without a single hand to move it, the shouji door opens as if automatically.
But that doesn’t mean no one’s there, as when I drop my focus to a lower spot, standing there is Obana-chan.
With his four legs planted unbending, and his white hair standing on end, he directs his burning eyes towards the snake.
Kei: Obana-chan, look out!
Dream girl: It’s all right, Kei-chan, no need to worry.
Even if she tells me that, the snake has a body as wide as an adult man’s arm, and a length to match.
In comparison, Obana-chan is a baby fox small enough to stand on Tsudzura-chan’s head.
If only they were a little closer in size, I might expect something like a mongoose and a habu snake, but with a difference like this, I can’t see him closing the gap.
Kei: Obana-chan, run away, run away! If you’re going to do anything, go get—— but, I can’t make Tsudzura-chan do something dangerous… that’s right! If it’s Sakuya-san…!
Sakuya-san not only takes domestic pictures, but also goes to jungles and places like that in other countries.
I’ll bet she’s seen all sorts of constrictors and poisonous snakes you don’t find in Japan, and she might know ways to deal with them.
Usually his clever responses make you wonder if he can understand human words, but this time Obana-chan merely stands in the room, tense and unmoving.
At his position, he stands at a point of a regular triangle with us at the connecting ends. From the snake’s point of view, he and the two of us are equally close.
Maybe it sees him as a formidable foe, maybe as easy prey…
The red snake swivels its body around, and begins to glare at him.
The first one who moves… is the red snake.
Just when I wonder whether it pulled its body back, with the sharp speed of a whip, it lunges its fangs toward Obana-chan.
The snake’s head hits the floor.
Where it lands, Obana-chan’s form is nowhere to be found.
Just as I think I might’ve heard a sound from overhead, the Obana-chan I’d thought disappeared had pinned the snake’s neck down, biting at its head.
The ceiling overhead creaks and rattles.
I was amazed he could climb his light body onto Tsudzura-chan’s head, and I’ve heard foxes have enough jumping power to leap atop a desk, but——
—but, this was nothing like that.
Surely the ceiling is creaking because his legs kicked it.
Now feeling pain, in an effort to subdue its impudent prey, the snake twists its body, before which Obana-chan disappears again.
This time, I strain my eyes.
Even then, what crosses my sight appears as a white line.
The snake’s head falls low under the shock of another blow.
This time Obana-chan doesn’t linger, but whooshes away with another jump.
Using the ceiling and walls of the room, he flies horizontally and vertically without pause, each time laying blow upon blow.
Kei: Uwaa……
If I were to just move out of place, chances are he would have collided with me.
And with the last sound being the most painful of all, Obana-chan returns to standing on the floor.
After being freely trounced by his speed without a chance to retaliate, the red snake begins to fade like an unfocused photograph…
Kei: Eh? Why?
Blurring away further as it sits, just as it appears to be growing larger, it dissolves into a red mist, melts into the air and disappears.
Dream girl: Lacking a true existence, it is a mere phantom without form.
Kei: Phantom……?
Dream girl: Yes. Just like me, an existence removed from the reasoning of this world.
After spinning her words, the moment her mouth closes, just like the red snake from before, she also blurs…
Kei: Ah……
…and before I can say a word, vanishes.
Kei: ……A ghost?
My waist gives out, and I collapse in that very spot.
Press circle once more and then check your divergence map.
Note the branching of the white line and pick the appropriate path below.
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