The purpose of sleep is to allow for some time for the body to be less active, to allow time for recovery, and to conserve energy.

I feel exhausted. I am relieved, but exhausted.

"That was one heck of a dream." I said to my friend, nobody.

I sat up and looked around lazily. I needed more time to rest, but I should probably be going home by now.

6:43 AM

The time was displayed on the bottom right-hand corner of the monitor.

Luckily, my eyes happened to catch that before I left.

Unluckily, I didn't do any of my homework.

Even worse, I had morning duty in about fifty minutes, all thanks to orientation.

Well, I guess I should start to use whatever time I have to the best of my ability.

I'm screwed.

With that all said and done, I proceeded to open my text and notes to get to work. There wasn't a lot of homework given that it was the first day of class, but I still found it to be surprisingly difficult. Fifty minutes felt like hours as I struggled with each topic.

7:30 AM

"Time to go," I told nobody, "I guess."

The school day felt as if it had came and went in comparison to my early morning homework session, and I found myself walking back to that clubroom in the old shack as if I had just went to use the restroom. From how it felt like, brief would be an understatement if you were to describe my day.

When I entered, I found Momoka in the clubroom sitting in deep thought.

"Hey upperclassman, what are you thinking about?"

"The club's periodical could be a good way to bring in some members."

Was she talking to me? Or did she make friends with nobody when I was gone?

"But where would I get enough people to contribute. I only have a few, but there are so few people and so many pages."

Ishida-san, what are you talking about?

"All I need is three more people. That kid from yesterday was a godsend, but he didn't bring any buddies along with him."

That kid would also like to know what in the world you're saying. And if he knew what was going on, I'm sure he'd be glad to help out.

"You're here today Kobayashi, that's good. I need you to write something. Anything will do as long as it's not too short or too long. It can be whatever you want within boundaries.

It would be great if you could give it to me by the end of the week."

That was surprisingly frank.

After that we just sat there and read for a while. Well, she read her story while I did some of my textbook reading. The silence slowly started to get aggravating. I have to do something. I have to be the needle that pops the balloon, something small could lead to something big. Do your best Haruki.

"So," I began while eyeing the book's amber dustcover, "what's that you're reading over there."

"Wizard boy."

She hardly budged. Did her lips even move?

"How is it?"

"Cheezy."

"You think so?" I replied.

"But entertaining." She finished.

Dammit, this isn't working. I shouldn't expect any positive results though. I doubt most upperclassman care much about the freshman after orientation or when there's no need to pay attention to them.

"Do you enjoy reading?"

"Quite a lot."

Compared to when I had first met her, this one seems like an entirely different person.

"But you don't."

Huh?

"You don't like to read all that much do you?"

"What makes you say that?"

"You look around the room more than you look down at your book."

She knew the whole time? Well I read my textbook at the very least.

"That's different."

Defeated, I decided to drop the whole matter entirely. I really needed a break then. Once she leaves I'm playing on the computer. I'll play that game to blow some steam.

"Are you free this weekend?" She spoke.

"Yeah, I'm free." I responded.

"Could you meet me at the library Sunday afternoon? I'm going to try to get you into reading. There isn't any point of you staying here otherwise."

Is this like a date of sorts?

"Depends on how you think about it."

She got up and left.

The game which could only be referred to by me as cspc.exe stunk. The controls are simple, not requiring a whole lot of key combinations. However, the rest of the game was just controlling a stick figure and using certain pick-up items in order to defeat a variety of strange blue blobs revolving around one basic shape. Even, with the terrible graphics and gameplay mechanics, I still found myself playing until.

GAME OVER

I lifted my head toward the screen in awe. Whoever made this game is cruel to make it game over after being hit twice. I decided to quit the program. A blinding light came from the computer screen and I heard the computer. I winced and shut my eyes tightly before opening them again. The computer froze, so I decided to turn it off and go home.

While walking down the hallways, I heard a giant plop behind me. I turned around and looked back and saw something strangely familiar. A weird blue blob appeared before me and stood there with its body wiggling slightly as if there were no way to actually hold that thing still. Its lower body and legs were thin and slender, while the upper body was rather big. If you tried to picture the thing as a human, it would look very buff; however, closer examination brings the question of how that thing can even stand without crushing its own legs.

The blob decided to make the first move. On its head, I saw one slit begin to from into a red circle. I watched curiously as that circle seemed to bud out two smaller circles of the same color. A mouth budding out two eyes is a rather spectacular sight to see, though rather creepy.

I found myself unable to move as the thing seemed to slowly move toward me. It moved in a fashion that was between a walk and a bounce, not unlike that game where the kid finds the giant key and starts beating up those white-gray weirdoes. Unfortunately for me, I received no key to defend myself with, even if such a thing does look ridiculous.

The blob made its way toward me and formed its deformed fingers on his hand into a fist. And it did something that was quite expected, because most people would do such a thing if they were going to make a fist at someone.

It punched. Its fist went right through my chest.

Heart attack! Who wrote my name in the notebook?

The thing's fist and half of its arm had gone right through my chest, making a sound like a raindrop falling into a pond. My heart was burning, but the shock had allowed me to regain my ability to move. I ran away from the blob as fast as I could, feeling the same burn again as the fist came out of my chest. I had to find a way out of here as soon as possible. The thing chased after me, but I managed to get it off my tail as I ran out of the old shack and toward the tennis courts as the safest way out of the school. I tried hiding by one of the storage shacks where supplies were held to take a breather and wipe my sweat.

Not to far away, I saw a racket in its case that hadn't been put away yet, and decided to take it out to defend myself. It was conveniently placed, but I doubt it would actually help against a supernatural creature like that.

Still, I should probably see a psychiatrist and talk about this problem. I already had one messed up dream this week, and I don't want to begin building a trend of these freakish nightmares.

I opened up the racket case. There was no racket.

But someone has sent me my key.

Inside was the same sword I had used to fight that cave cricket with.

This is a phenomenon.

And while I was marveling at how this strange omen of coincidence had occurred, the blue thing was approaching me at my hiding place.

It's true when they say that problems you run away from will come back to follow you.

It's time for me to fight this guy face to face, one on one, man to thing- you get the picture.

I ran to the blob, and we were each on one side of the net. We stood for a moment, a déjà vu of our first encounter, before I decided to make the first move this time. I ran started to run forward and the thing quickly jumped to my side in response. Once we were close enough I swung and slashed the blob right across the body. It burst like the jellies in the field the moon was going to land on. The chunks that were the remains of the humanoid blob melted into a grayish liquid and became absorbed by the ground.

Eww

My adrenaline stopped flowing, and I became weary once again as I fell on the ground. I was weakened, but conscious. I saw more blobs coming. The thing had called its brothers. But at this point I saw the numbers and just gave up. Maybe if I played dead they'd leave me alone. I closed my eyes and waited for death or morning, which ever came first.