REARRANGED

Lucid Dream Arc - (1) Broken Tools

:.:

The all-consuming blackness around me doesn't break. Still dark. Still placid. It remains this way for a long time. It's impossible to tell how long, exactly, but it feels like eons pass inside the void. Nothing changes. Until it does. There's a weight on my shoulder, I think. It shakes me gently. Then it does again, just a little more urgently. The blackness around me ripples. I can't see it, but I can feel it. Something has changed in a big way.

"Excuse me, Miss. Are you okay?"

Am I? My eyebrows knit together in confusion. My head is cloudy, heavy. It lolls in time with the rocking motion. I don't know what's going on. I think I was... In my car? Or outside? I remember being on the phone?

I need to see where I am, need to open my eyes. But they're already open, aren't they? No. They're closed. I can feel how heavy they are now. My whole body is heavy. So heavy. Like a weight. It's like being on the bottom of the ocean, with all the pressure and the absence of the sun. But I need to move. Need to open my eyes. I need to...

The void lightens as I struggle into wakefulness. It's an uphill battle, clawing myself out of the pit that I fell into. And when I finally blink away the last vestiges of shadow, I'm met with light and color like I haven't seen in so very, very long. My eyes focus on the face of the man who'd shaken me awake. He's young, handsome, with almond-shaped eyes and a pretty olive complexion. The worried lines around his eyes soften when my gaze meets his.

"Thank goodness," he sighs. "I was worried you'd never wake up."

I go to speak, but my tongue feels thick and useless in my mouth. All that comes out is a slurred, "wazzit?"

"I'm not sure, honestly. If you've been drugged, I can take you to a police station; there's one just down the street."

I shake my head and wobble into a fully seated position. And take note of my surroundings. I'm on a bus, I think. I note the dangling handholds for standing passengers and the chipper yellow paint on the walls. I'm at the very back, slouched in the middlemost seat. And I'm the only passenger. All of the others have either gotten off at their stops or I'm the first one on.

Did I get on a bus? I don't remember.

The man in front of me, judging from his uniform, is the driver. I eye his little conductor's hat with a hint of glee. It's cute. He's cute, my fuzzy brain notes, even though he's frowning. And he's been talking, too. Oops.

"Do you understand what I'm saying, Miss?"

I crinkle my nose. "Yeah. Words n' stuff." I make a little waving gesture with my hand, but it flops right back down to my side. My limbs are heavy. I must've been sleeping for a while, if I feel this out of it. Was I drugged?

The bus driver gestures to my other hand. "You have your phone on you. Is there anybody you can call to come pick you up?"

I thumb the button on my phone and the lock screen greets me. And my breath hitches. The family photo. In an instant, the fogginess dissipates. I shoot upwards, nearly headbutting the man. That's right! I was on the phone with my sister. Or, well... her voicemail. And Mom—

Oh.

Mom.

I swallow the grief that rises like a tide. This is not the time or place. The bus driver eyes me like I'm a wild animal. Like he's going to have to fend me off if I go feral. That's probably a reasonable response, given that he works on public transportation.

"I, uh." I clear my throat. "I have no clue how I got here. I was talking with my sister and then..." The fuzziness comes back. I don't remember much after getting out of my car. "Then it goes a little blank. Can you tell me where I am?"

"Okudo," he responds. And I give him a blank look. "Katsushika?" I blink and he sighs, muttering under his breath about 'tourists'. Then he points at a well-lit place down the road. "There's a station just down the road. I'm sure the police could help you get back to your party." His voice is pleasant, but ultimately dismissive. He's obviously written me off as somebody who's troubled and a bit stupid, some dumb girl who probably drank too much and wound up getting on the wrong bus line.

I don't drink, though. I don't think I'm drunk. Am I? Ultimately, I'm not sure.

He helps me off while my legs shake at the effort it takes to walk. It's embarrassing, having to lean on this kind stranger for help. And when my feet touch the solid pavement, I thank him wholeheartedly. He only gives me a curt nod and plastic smile before closing the door behind me and going on his merry way. God, he probably thinks I'm on a bender. I feel shame curl in my gut. He might not be wrong.

Then I look up and flinch. It was... it was daytime when I got out of my car, right? So how many hours did I lose?! The nighttime sky stretches on until it touches the horizon. And I notice something else in the distance: a bustling metropolis, complete with towering skyscrapers. It's unlike any skyline that I've seen. The neighborhood around me is quiet, but the architecture is something altogether different than what I'm used to, with the buildings smushed so closely together.

"Holy shit," I whisper in disbelief. WHERE AM I?!

I pace under the florescent lamp of the bus stop, tugging anxiously at my clothes. Was I kidnapped? Who would want to kidnap me? And why the hell would they leave me alone on a bus? I wasn't robbed either, I realize with relief when turning out my purse onto the bench reveals that I have all my odds and ends.

I eye the buildings around me, looking for a clue. Some of them are shops, I note, closed for business for the day. But when I squint closer, there's something... odd about the signs. I can read them just fine. They're all well lit and in big, bold print. But I shouldn't be able to read them. Because they're not in English. And they're definitely not in Spanish, which is the only other language I know—thanks to public school requiring a foreign language course.

"What... what writing is this?" I squint, getting close to one of the street signs. "Chinese or Japanese, maybe?" I'm familiar with both in passing, since I frequent the little Chinese food place next to my apartment and read manga; but that doesn't make me an expert on the differences between the two. I tilt my head and touch one of the raised characters. "Well, I think this squiggly here is the character 'no'. That's the one that looks like a lowercase 'e', right, but flipped around and on its side?" I only know that because I had the Japanese poster for 'Spirited Away' hanging in my room for most of my childhood—the one with Chihiro and a pig.

So Japanese? Unless something similar exists in another eastern language.

If so... HOW DID I GET TO JAPAN?!

Okay, it's probably more likely that I'm in an ethic suburb of some American city. They have Little China and Little Italy, right? Maybe I'm somewhere like that? Is there even a place like that in the US?

I want to cry all over again. I sniffle and peer down at my clothes. Okay, at least I'm in the same outfit that I put on this morning: baggy jeans and a thin hooded sweatshirt. So that means that nothing untoward probably happened with my unconscious body, right? So whoever took me drugged me, shipped me off to a Little Japan somewhere and... what? Left me on a bus to be discovered by the driver?

Nothing makes sense. And everything is still a blur.

I crouch and pull my knees up to my chest, tears pooling in my eyes. This will be okay. I'll fix this, I tell myself. This will be okay.

I shake, a combination of the night breeze ripping through my clothes and the fear that lances down my spine. I... Oh, right! I can call somebody. I have my phone!

I open my phone and thumb through my contacts. My finger lingers over my sister's profile picture. What am I supposed to tell her? Will she even answer the phone? Will she even help me? I sigh and instead scroll further to Uncle Bub's contact info. At least somebody will know where I am.

The phone doesn't even ring before telling me that my service is out of date. Which is ridiculous because I just filled it last week. Fucking Straight Talk. I scowl and hook up to some free wifi nearby and open up my cell provider's website. When I go to check my subscription and refill my plan, it lets me know that the cell phone number is already in use. Yeah, it's in use, you dumbass website; it's my number. I scowl.

Okay, so I'm stranded with no way to contact anybody. That's fine. That's okay. I'm fine. I'm okay. I'm... fine...

I'm.

Fine.

A sob lodges in my throat. And I resist the urge to cry again. The sting of tears forces my eyes closed, and I bury my face in my knees to shield myself from the outside world. Because I am very, very not fine. I am so very, very not fine that I don't even know where to go from here. Because I want my mommy and my daddy, but both are so far beyond my reach that nothing can bring them back.

They'd know what to do.

And they're gone.

Right. They're gone. And I have to help myself.

I swipe snot from my leaking nose and stand up. The bus driver had said that there was a police station down the street, right? That bright building just there? I move to take a step, but something stops me. I shiver, and this time it isn't from the cold.

Because I feel eyes on me. I peer into the darkness of night and don't see anything. But that doesn't mean that I'm alone. My arms tighten around my stomach, a shield against the gaze trying to wriggle its way under my skin. There's an alleyway across the street from me, a yawning black pit where the streetlights don't illuminate. And in the darkness, anything could be hiding.

The sense of foreboding stalks me, makes my legs shake as I force them to take a step. There's a police station just down the street; I can see the signs. If I can reach it, I'll be safe. My vision is still a bit blurry from my crying jag earlier, but that's fine. I have a clear line of sight, and the station is only...

I stop. And stare in horror.

Between the station and I, something bubbles in the road. A foul-smelling ooze that wells from between cracks in the pavement and grows with each passing second, slowly taking form. My feet plant themselves firmly in place, not willing to move again. The ooze twists and tangles together until a final shape emerges: a nightmarish thing cloaked in shadow and murk.

The creature is hideous and misshapen, a mockery of nature. It resembles a chameleon, covered in fleshy growths. The growths pulsate and leak some foul liquid that that dribbles to the ground. Bits of skin seem to slough off with every breath it takes, dripping onto the pavement below with fat plops that ring in my ears. Disgusting, I think with the half of my brain that isn't absolutely fucking petrified.

"Scary", the monster surprises me by speaking. Its voice is a warbling plea undercut by a horrid guttural growl, which makes it seem almost like beings speaking in stereo. "This is scary. I'm alone. I don't know where I am."

The monstrosity blurbles out something else unintelligible as it contorts its eight limbs in a painful looking display. Joints crack and break, shifting in place as it moves. Its five protruding eyes rotate in their sockets, until they all come to rest on me. I take a shaky step back. What... what is that thing? Its maw opens to reveal two rows of saber-sharp teeth, each as long as my hand. Is this for real? I back away again. Slipping through the ooze its own body discards, it limps towards me slowly. The lizard-like abomination is slow, but purposeful.

"Mom-my? Where's my... mom-my?"

Unable to look away, I scramble backwards. The hulking bulk of it shivers in vile anticipation as a tongue – covered in boils – snakes out to wet its jowls. It's going to eat me! I'm going to die here!

"Mommy's dead. Mommy's dead, and I'm going to die, too!" The thing laughs almost gleefully.

This isn't real.

This can't be real.

This.

Can't.

Be.

Real!

Then an epiphany strikes me. And realization hits me like a truck. Right. It can't be real. Because it's not. This is all just a bad dream—a nightmare! No wonder none of it made any sense! I let out a relieved laugh. If course! This whole 'not being where I'm supposed to me' schtick, being able to read a foreign language, the monster. All classic dream tropes. It's just a bad dream. Just a nightmare that I'll wake up from.

And when the thing lunges for me, I don't get out of the way. What's the point when it's a dream, right? I'll just wake up and all of this will have been some crazy product of my imagination. Too much manga before bed.

Maybe Mom passing away was a dream, too. Maybe...

The monster's foul breath touches my face. I close my eyes, ready for all of this to be over.

"Just a bad dream," my nightmare coos.

"What are you doing?! MOVE!" I feel a push as I'm launched out of the way of the monster's mouth. The ground rises up to meet me. Hard. "Get to safety!"

When I look up, there's a man going mano-a-mano with the monster. Just... bare-knuckle brawling the beast like two drunks in an alleyway. I shift from my position on the ground and notice the crimson sheen of blood on my forearm. And then the sting of pain where gravel falls from the wound.

"Hey," I snap. "That hurt!"

Then I blink. That hurt? Dreams don't hurt, right? Sensation isn't real in dreams. I shouldn't be... There's a scrape up the length of my arm that throbs in time with my frantic heartbeat. It's deep, and embedded in pebbles from the road. The smell of iron tinges the air as blood drips down my elbow. You don't bleed in dreams, either. But it hurts. I'm bleeding.

I don't have time to dwell on it before my dream snaps back at me.

"Please leave here! It's not safe!" The man hardly has time to turn towards me as the monster lashes out with dripping claws and teeth. But I can still sense his baleful glare. "What are you even still doing here, huh?! Run!"

What a jerk! The absolute nerve of my own dream, bossing me around! Whatever. I don't have to put up with this.

I stick my tongue out at him before whirling around and walking calmly down the street. Behind me, the sounds of combat fade into the quiet hum of power lines and vending machines. And I'm alone again, in some unfamiliar place, in the dark.

:.:

Daylight bleeds through the cheap motel curtains like a gaping wound through bandages. I blearily look at the alarm clock next to me and sigh.

It's the next morning. And I'm still trapped here.

"It's just a dream," I reassure myself—because what else could it be?! "It'll end soon; just wait it out."

Tiredly, I hold up my injured arm and inspect the white wrapping that covers it from wrist to elbow. And when I prod it, I have to suppress a squeal of pain. Still there. Still hurts. Why can't this be one of those superpower dreams, where I'm super strong and can fly—or whatever?

"This sucks", I announce to a mostly empty room.

"This sucks," agrees my creepy companion.

I'm apparently in Japan. 'COME VISIT FABULOUS TOKYO!' is splashed across the front of the brochure that rests on my nightstand. And it's definitely in English. I'd recognize my crappy Romanized letters anywhere, thank you very much. But everything else is very clearly in Japanese. And despite the fact that I can understand everybody here crystal clear, I get the feeling that it's not because they're speaking my language.

Am I speaking English or Japanese? How can I even tell if I'm speaking another language? Dream logic suuuucks.

I flop back into my bed and muffle my screams into the limp pillow.

The hotel that I'd found by chance is sketchy. The rooms are small and a bit filthy, and the desk clerk hadn't so much as batted an eyelash when I'd shown up on their doorstep with my arm covered in deep scratches. But it's cheap, which is fantastic for me, because money is apparently an issue in this particular nightmare. I'd been thankful when I'd opened my wallet to find foreign bills just chilling in the pockets. Score one for dream logic!

I'd been able to accurately gauge what was a good price for the room, and how much of each bill I'd needed. Which is wild because I've only ever seen the Yen in anime, and have no idea what the going price for a hotel room in Tokyo, Friggin' Japan is. Good thing my mind seems apt at making stuff up. I'd lain the money out on the bed and glared at each note. I poked the ten-thousand Yen bill with trepidation. And did the math in my head with my newfound powers. Over sixty dollars for that note alone. So I started this whole shebang with... over six hundred dollars in my pocket?!

Sad that I'm only rich in my mind. If I had this kind of money in real life, I could pay for another month's worth of rent and still have money leftover to buy groceries.

And now I'm staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Because there's another monster in the ceiling. Its wormlike body is half-in half-out of the paneling, like it's a ghost morphing through the solid structure. And its face is one giant eye. It'd popped into sight around midnight. So, we've been in the middle of a staring contest for the past few hours.

"This sucks", it repeats itself in a creepily upbeat tone.

There are others like it, too, prowling the streets. Most monsters are small, like birds. But I've seen one or two slinking around the nearby buildings that are the size of compact cars. I'd very quickly decided to stay inside and wakeup organically. No use in throwing myself at the things that go bump in the night. There was even a thing perched right outside my window most of the night. Talking. Like, saying actual words; strings of nonsense piled together.

"Are rice cakes your friend?" It'd asked in a guttural growl to my closed curtains. Lurking just beyond the glass. It'd moved on sometime before my little eyeball snake friend had started using my ceiling fan as a roost.

If this isn't a dream, then I'm having a hellaciously bad drug trip.

I'm still ninety percent certain that this is a nightmare, though. Even if it's a long one. Maybe I'm in a coma? Or maybe I dug too deep into the melatonin again.

When I sigh and look away from the creature in the ceiling, it coos out a childish, "I'll wake up soon. Just a dream."

"I hope so, buddy", I hiss under my breath. Satisfied that this one won't try to eat me like the other one did, I roll over and get out my phone. Before I open it, I take a good long look at the happy family on my lock screen. And I stroke my thumb over my mom's face, caressing the digital image of her laugh lines. The wound left by her death is still raw and fresh.

I unlock the phone and bring up Firefox. And I stare at my last opened tab. Theres a black and white drawing of a man's severed torso. Right. Gojo died, I think, remembering with a bit of embarrassment how I'd broken down in my car after finding out.

The straw that broke the camel's back.

I don't back out of the news article, instead trying to open a new tab with the hotel's crappy wifi. I surf the web about information on Tokyo. And cringe. An airplane ride from the US is, at the bare minimum, 12 hours.

"Glad I never tried to come here in real life." I get bad airsickness, and a ride that long sounds like a little slice of Hell for me.

I look at the date on my phone and my eyebrows scrunch. It's definitely the wrong year; it's sure as hell not 2015 anymore, dumb dream. And it also says that it's the twenty-eighth; seven in the morning, dream time. Cool. Oddly specific, but okay. I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me. Just the wrong date. I glower at my phone. Maybe I should stop trying to make this logical when it's just neurons in my brain firing at random. Then again, the rest of the dream –monsters aside—has been remarkably grounded in reality. What's the term? Hyper-realistic? And definitely vivid. And, of course, there are the monsters...

Nothing makes sense in this universe.

I groan and roll over. When I notice that I'm sharing the bed, I recoil in horror. My little snake monster is coiled up on the opposite side of my pillow, glaring balefully at me with its singular, unblinking eye.

"Wrong, wrong, wrong," it chirps. "Nothing makes sense."

"I know, you creepy little shit. That's what I'm trying to figure out."

"Just a dream. Only a dream. Wake up."

I inch backwards off the bed and back towards the door of the room. The thing is gross looking, with its fat orange body and pursed lips. "Preaching to the choir. That's what I've been trying to do."

It repeats the same few phrases again and again, and I observe from the safety of the room's entrance. I lick my dry lips. And I get brave enough to ask it questions. But it doesn't respond coherently. It must not understand human speech. Maybe it's just repeating what it's heard before... like some parrot from the deepest pits of Hell.

"I can't wake up," it cries mournfully.

I resolve to find a different hotel to wait this out.

"This place is definitely haunted," I bluntly tell the concierge when I hand him back the keycard.

:.:

There's a cute little coffee shop a bus ride away. And the dream coffee isn't half bad. Which is a Godsend because I definitely look like a hammered piece of shit right now: bloodshot eyes, sallow face, and bloodless lips. When I caught a glimpse of myself in the window of a shop, I almost cringed at how ghoul-like I look. Even a quick finger comb hadn't been enough to work out all the kinks in my hair, and forget how rumpled my outfit is. I look like I went two rounds between the sheets with a rabid squirrel.

At least I look like me in this dream, though, and not some rando with horns or whatever. There's comfort in the familiar.

I rub my eyes and stare down at the cutesy chinchilla mascot printed on the café napkin.

Even sitting here, I can feel eyes on me. I glance upwards and scowl at the unwanted guest across from me. I crinkle the napkin between my fingers and then straighten it out again, tracing a nail-bitten finger over the cartoon mascot's cute face.

Another monster sits on the back of the chair in front of mine. It's the size of a canary, maybe, and just as sickly yellow. But the thing looks like an old man with a comically large head. Dragonfly wings sprout from its back. One arm is far larger than the other, and so deformed that the fingers can't protrude from the meaty main body of the hand—it looks like a club made out of flesh. Its bulging eyes boast red sclera and black irises that are fixated on me. I try my best to ignore it, but the thing is fixated.

Petulantly, I stick my tongue out at it. It snuffles back, wings twitching.

There's a doodle on the table next to me: my new friend immortalized using the free notepad from the hotel room and a borrowed pen. The harsh ink lines only serve to make the tiny abomination even creepier. I scowl at the monster and add a mustache to the doodle; a curly one, like old cartoon villains sport.

The creature squeaks out something unintelligible, and I add a Viking helmet to the doodle. And then a little pike.

"Oho, so you can see them, after all," comes a rather chipper voice from behind me. A man's voice, smooth and lilting. I recognize it, but I don't know where from. I ignore it. Because, honestly? I don't want to talk to anybody. It's my dream and I'll dissociate if I want to. And stare out the window, where another monster is riding around on some poor woman's shoulders like a scarf.

I quickly add the scarf monster to the doodle as well, where it lives in the bottom corner of the page.

"Come on now; don't ignore me," the man playfully whines. "I know you understand me just fine, Miss Foreigner."

Then the monster in front of me explodes in a shower of viscera and gore. I watch in muted confusion as it evaporates into nothingness, leaving no evidence that it'd ever existed in the first place. And then a pale hand grips the back of the chair where the beast had once perched.

Long, lithe fingers curl as the man pulls the chair out. And I follow the lines of his body up to his face. And I note that he's tall—far taller than most normal people. And I flinch when my gaze meets the white material banded around his eyes. Familiar, his voice had been. Because I know this man. I know what lies beneath the blindfold.

But he can't be in front of me. Because he's not real. The world he's from isn't real. And more to the point, he's supposed to be dead. Which just cinches the fact that I'm not awake right now. Cool. Just what I needed; more craziness that doesn't make any sense.

He pulls the chair out with a quick flourish, then plops down into it without invitation, lounging like he owns it. He pops back onto two legs, one arm thrown casually over the back of his new seat, and rocks back and forth like a child. Those long legs of his make the table appear comically small, like we're sitting on a children's playset about to have a pretend tea party.

I grip my cup tightly and clench my jaw. Because whatthefuuuuck?! What manner of brainrot is this, where Satoru Gojo—not even my favorite character from Jujutsu Kaisen—is loitering in my headspace?

"You know, it's rude to sit next to a stranger without invitation."

His head tilts, and his snow-white hair waves gently with the motion. Then a Cheshire grin curls up at the corners of his lips. And, boy, is he pretty. Like, stupid pretty. Supermodel pretty. Mom would've had a heart attack, meeting him. I wonder if she ever dreamed about him, too?

"Look at that," he croons, sounding exactly like his English voice actor. "Perfect Japanese. You were just playing dumb earlier."

Okay, so other people around me aren't uncannily good at English. I am speaking Japanese in this dream. I guess that make sense, since I can apparently read it. That's fine. What's one more oddity in a long list of them? "Who's playing? Maybe I am dumb. You don't know me."

Satoru Gojo—or, I guess, Gojo Satoru, given eastern naming conventions—tilts his head back and gives a gleeful laugh. Holy shit... I just made a living god laugh! "You're right; I don't know you, do I?" He gives an energetic wave. "Gojo Satoru, at your service!" He's so exuberant. I can half-picture him turning into Chibi form, with little flags or something behind him. He leans forward, closing in a little bit on my personal space. "And you are?"

I hold his blindfolded gaze. And my first instinct is to shove him away, because he's very much in my bubble. But I also know that I probably won't be able to reach him. Not that it would matter, anyway, since he's not real. I open my mouth to introduce myself, but then think better of it.

What's the point, after all?

Don't engage with the brainrot, I admonish myself. You'll wake up soon anyway and none of this will matter. So I go back to my notepad and add another creature to the page: this one resembling a cat, but crawling upside down with dislocated shoulders, like the girl form the Exorcist. Its eye sockets are empty, just black voids. Eerie.

Gojo, with all his... err... Gojo-ness, though, is unphased by my behavior. "I know you're probably shocked by my incredibly good looks and endearing personality, so don't worry! I often render those around me speechless," he exclaims, with an exaggerated head tilt. I get the feeling he's winking at me under those bandages.

I roll my eyes and start moving the pen in random spirals on the page. Maybe if I ignore it, it'll go away. And then he snags my half-finished coffee, downing it in a few gulps.

"Hey! I needed that!" I snap at him and snag the cup back, only to stare woefully at its foam bottom in desolation. Empty.

"So bitter," he hisses with his tongue out. "No sugar?"

"I only take cream," I snap. "And that's what you get for stealing somebody else's drink!"

He leans forward, cupping his chin with those long fingers of his—oh, I think I suddenly have a hand kink. "It got you to talk, though, didn't it?" And Gojo grins again.

"I... Well, uh. Whatever," I pout, still cradling my cup. "Listen, Gojo. What do you want?"

The pout that crosses his face should not be as cute as it is. "Ah, no Gojo-san?" He wags his finger at me, like he's scolding a puppy for tinkling on the carpet. "So impolite."

Right. They use honorifics in Japan. I'll have to get used to—WAIT A MINUTE! I still haven't gotten over the absurdity of talking to a manga character, thank you very much! How is this something I can just 'get used to'? I'm actively losing my mind. Mom dying broke me mentally. Forget dreaming! I'm probably in the nuthouse babbling to a brick wall, right now. You know, in the real world. Where curses and sorcerers don't exist. And Gojo Satoru isn't trying to play footsie with me under a table in a rodent-themed café.

I blink and take a deep breath, trying to center myself. "Okay, Gojo-san, let me speak plainly. This is all a dream, and I'm waiting to wake up from it." I give him my best customer service smile. The one that says 'good morning', but implies 'go fuck yourself'. He. Drank. My. Coffee. And then I make a 'shoo'ing motion with my free hand. "So go bother somebody else?"

"You think you're dreaming?! Oh, this is too good!" He slams his hand down on the table and guffaws loudly. Wow. I hate him, I think. "Then again, at least you're not babbling like an idiot and drooling all over yourself like some people would be."

With a rip, I reveal a virgin sheet of paper on the notepad. And I start drawing him. In the end, I'm satisfied by little Chibi Gojo, with his tiny fingers making a peace sign. And his stupidly fluffy white hair hidden under a dunce cap. I don't know if he can see It, since his eyes are hidden, but I'm hoping.

"I understand that you're probably under a monumental amount of stress right now, since you've suddenly started seeing things that weren't there before." His hands talk just as much and just as loudly as he does. He flails like he's seizing. "You see, I want to help you."

"I don't want your help, weirdo. Thanks." I just need to wake up, then everything will be fine.

His jaw drops, and I can almost picture him morphing into a stone statue with how still he goes. Then he pouts even bigger. And he touches his index fingers together all cutesy. And... honestly, there's something so wrong about a grown ass man doing cutesy actions.

"You didn't even let me finish. I had a sales pitch and everything," he grumbles under his breath.

I groan. He isn't going to leave, is he? I can't even enjoy my nightmare in peace. "Okay, Gojo-san. Give me your sales pitch."

"Well, now I don't wanna."

Is... is he even an adult?

"I want to hear what you have to say, really," I lie through clenched teeth.

He perks right back up. "Well, let's start with those things you've been seeing; they're—"

"Curses. I know." I rest my palm on my cheek and reply with a blasé tone. "They're responsible for a lot of disappearances, yeah? Mysterious deaths? Spooky stuff. Very spooky."

His head tilts. "Are you a foreign member of a jujutsu family?"

"Nope," I state, popping the 'p'. And I wave him off. "Just jump straight to the end. Skip the tutorial level."

I can tell I've really piqued his interest. The weight of his eyes presses down on my shoulders. "Well, I've been sent to evaluate your threat level," he admits, tone blithe. "And now, I don't know quite what to make of you."

My eyes narrow. "Well, I'm stuck in a dream with no coffee and no way to wake up. Make of me what you want, I guess," I state dismissively.

"You still think you're dreaming, huh?" Cute head tilt in three... two... one.

"Yeah. Because there's no way this is real." Then I mutter under my breath, "And this isn't some shitty isekai fanfiction." I flag down one of the servers –dressed in a cute filly pink maid dress—and get a refill of my drink. Adding in some cream, I stir and watch as the white swirls overtake the dark liquid. "I was in the US before I woke up here on a bus; I don't speak Japanese, and have never learned it; things like curses and sorcery don't exist where I come from; and you, specifically, don't exist in my world." I wag my spoon at him. "So? I must be dreaming."

"Wow. That's some logic. Seeing those curses really broke your brain, huh? Must've had weak mental fortitude to begin with." The man snickers.

"Thanks, my guy. Not rude at all." I watch him spoon a small mountain of sugar into his own drink with disgust.

"So, what did you mean earlier? When you said that I can't be real?"

"Because you're a manga character."

There's a heartbeat's worth of silence.

Then another.

Another.

"A manga character?" And then Gojo's laughing again, banging away at the table like a deranged toddler. "No, really. Say it again with a straight face!"

His laughter grates at my already frayed nerves. It keeps going and going until my jagged nails press crescents into the palms of my hands and my knuckles turn white as bone. I throw the spoon at him, and when it comes to a complete stop in midair just shy of his perfect nose? Something in me snaps.

"Yeah, and you die at the end!" I jab my finger accusingly in his direction. "Sukuna cuts you right in half!"

The laughter abruptly stops. Gojo turns uncharacteristically serious. And there's a dangerous aura forming around him that I choose to ignore. "How do you know about Sukuna? He was scrubbed from the archives; only a select few people even know his name."

"The same way I know about curses and jujutsu sorcery. I read the manga, watched the anime." I roll my eyes and sip my coffee, unafraid of the brewing danger. "Sukuna isn't even that big of a spoiler; he appears in, like, the first chapter."

Suddenly, a steely grip encases my wrist, threatening to grind the bones. "Hey—" And then the world shifts and whirls and condenses into a single point, melding into impenetrable darkness. Light funnels through a pinprick in my vision, pulled through so quickly that I barely have time to see anything in the darkness before I blink. When my eyes open, I blanch in horror.

Because the ground is several stories below me. We're hovering in the middle of the freaking sky, eye level with the tops of the monstrously tall high-rises that I'd seen earlier. And I'm supported only by Gojo's hand, which feels like it's a hair shy of breaking bones. My shoulder aches as it supports my entire body weight, while my feet kick uselessly at the air. When I look down my stomach flips. It feels like reaching the apex of a hill on a rollercoaster, just before the drop. And looking over the edge in horror.

Sometimes in dreams it really feels like you're falling. I remember a few that ended with me tumbling down a dark abyss or missing a step while walking. I'd jolted awake immediately. Not this time, though. There's no waking up in the safety of my nice, warm bed. There's no relief to the gut-churning terror that lances up my spine. There's only the me and the imaginary man standing in the sky like physics have no effect on him.

Then again, they don't. The laws of nature bow to Gojo Satoru, not the other way around.

With seemingly no effort at all, Gojo raises me until I'm eye-to-blindfold with him. He's strong enough that he can lift me with a single hand. And there's a part of my brain that screams that I probably shouldn't have antagonized the godlike being from another dimension. Nightmare or no, maybe I should've been a bit more polite?

Then again, this is starting to feel less and less like a dream as it drags on.

And maybe...

...just maybe.

This. Is. Real.

"Now, you're going to tell me exactly how you know about Sukuna." the white-haired man purrs chillingly, a far cry from the jovial goof he'd been only moments earlier, "And about my supposed death."