Rika finds herself strolling down a dank, muggy alleyway. She knows for sure that she is not anywhere within the limits of Hinamizawa in spite of the hazily warm weather. She's completely baffled as to how she ended up here— the last thing Rika recalls is her nodding off after finishing a cup of water she wanted before she retired to bed.

At least this soothes Rika into the knowledge that she's dreaming. Unlike the multitude of worlds she so often found herself in, a bad dream or even a mundane one is easy for her to awake from. Just try to morph something into an alarm clock, right?

Someone is walking a distance behind her, shadow towering over Rika's petite form. She lets out a tiny breath and begins to quicken her pace, a bit uncomfortable. It's stupid to think that this person is following her, but in something like a dream…

The figure is walking faster, trying to match Rika's pace.

'There's a way to get out of this dream, right?' She thinks. By this point Rika is borderline running, trying to distance herself as much as possible between her and that queer person.

Rasping breaths come from behind her.

The stranger's finally caught up with her. Rika forces herself to keep a lid on her fears, that this is just a nightmare and she'll wake up right before the catastrophe happens. She sees several gleaming blades glisten in the light behind her, and tries to imagine a knife materializing within her grip— if Rika's going to die within her dream, at least she'll go down swinging.

The blades come down, slashing through the back of Rika's sundress and barely scraping against the small of her back. The cuts actually sting, the pain somehow isn't dulled from it just being a dream. She whirls around to face the stranger, gasping as she stares up. What came down to attack her weren't just knives, but they were attached to some sort of glove this figure was wearing.

A low chuckle, then came a scratchy voice not unlike her true self. "I guess I made the cut."

Rika's hands are clenched as she breaks into a sprint to try and dodge him, nearly crashing against some trash cans as she tries to sprint away from her attacker. The sound of metal slicing through air swishes behind her, and Rika speculates that some of her hair might have accidentally been chopped off in the chase.

The last thing the Queen Carrier sees before she awakens from her nightmare is the burned, marred leering grin as her dream comes crashing down.

—

Then Satoko's shaking her awake, pleading frantically, "Rika! Wake up!"

She turns her violet gaze upwards towards her close friend, whose maroon eyes are filled with fear.

"What's the matter?"

"You started running in your sleep, you almost knocked over things and you were dripping blood onto the floor! Look!" Rika feels half-clotted slashes stinging against her back. "You're bleeding! What happened?"

Hanyuu is here too, and lifts up the back of the nightgown before she dabs a dampened washcloth on Rika's cuts. "Hauuu! We tried to stop you in the middle of it, but you just kept running!"

Her back stings where the spongy washcloth presses on the scratchy cuts, but she suspects that the ointment that will soon be applied will most likely sting even more.

The lavender-haired female starts scrubbing away some of the sticky crimson residue that's half-dried. The blood melts off, staining the washcloth with a rusty brown. All that's left as evidence from Rika's nightmare is angry red marks slashed against her back, along with thin rips dragged across her nightgown.

Satoko applies the ointment on Rika's back, and the patient finds that her previous prediction was correct. The ointment DOES sting.

"We'll take you to the clinic as soon as we can, alright?" Satoko nods. She tries to smooth down her mop of unruly blonde hair.

"Alright, thank you Satoko." Thick bandages are wrapped and plastered around the creases of raw skin before Satoko heads back off to sleep once more. While her friend sleeps soundly, Hanyuu shoots her friend a look of dread.

Just when they thought they finally had won a world where their friends were finally happy, something had gone wrong.

oh hello.

my name is amethyst, and you may know me from quotev and deviant art.

today we have my new higurashi fanfic which is a crossover. very random idea.

so forgive any hints of cringey-ness.