Chapter 3: Degenerate Detective

"Thank you all for listening to my debut, I hope you enjoy the other-"

Ina sprang upwards in her bed and clutched at her head, a migraine made her head want to explode! With a grimace ina looked at her bedside clock and sighed, "Three in the morning! Really?!"

Ina let out a long yawn before rubbing her eyes and entering the library. She had been having weird dreams as of late, someone eerily similar to her, yet not her, being a streamer. Maybe even a virtual Idol, but anytime the agency was mentioned she woke up.

The dream seemed too real and was happening too often to be a regular dream. Her first thought was google, but after it said she was going to die in three days she decided to go to the library instead.

She passed by the many rows of books and made her way into the area that talked about dreams and similar things. She looked at the different novels before finding one that stuck out of place, a Sherlock Holmes novel. Ina grabbed it and looked at the front cover, "What's this doing here?"

Her head immediately began to pound and a flash of a woman with golden hair in a detective hat went by before Ina could realize it.

"You're looking for something in dreams, aren't you?" A voice asked.

The artist turned and saw a woman with blonde hair and a confident smile. She had a few books tucked underneath her arm, all of them were...risque… to say the least.

"Um, yeah," Ina answered, "I haven't been getting much sleep recently and I think the dreams I've been having have something to do with it."

"Let me guess, they're not nightmares, but strange dreams," The woman asked.

"How'd you know?" Ina smiled, this woman was either a lucky guesser or an actual detective.

"Your demeanor, if it was a nightmare you'd be much more exhausted," The woman answered, "But the dreams are still strange enough for you to go to the library."

The woman smiled at Ina for a moment before handing Ina a pair of books, "The first one is the one you're looking for, the second is something a little extra."

When Ina looked at the second book, which was purple with black ornate symbols on them Ina frowned and looked up to the woman, only to find space, "Where did she?"

By the time she had gotten back home, her headache had gotten much worse and Ina had used her free time to sketch out a detective based on that woman in the library, however thanks to her headache it wasn't her best work.

There was something about the woman, something that reminded her of that detective. Was it the way that she had guessed at what had been bothering her? Or was it something else?

Nonetheless, the way she had disappeared was something to think about, seemingly there only to help Ina find the book she was looking for. There had to have been something more to it, it was like something out of a manga.

She shook her head with a small chuckle and grabbed the book that the blonde had helped her find, it would lead to the first restful sleep in a long time. Instead of weird images, she would dream of reading a purple book, the same one that the woman had given her.

It seemed to call out to her, pulling her hand to its cover. It felt old, ancient, but… familiar. Her fingers began to grip at the ancient tome before tipping the cover open.

She blinked and found herself standing over her desk, with her hand hovering over the cover of the tome. When she turned toward her bed she found the covers thrown out of place. She brought her hand away from it and made her way back to her bed.

She wouldn't be sleeping for the rest of the night.