Chapter 3｜Conscious Fracture · Level 01: The Crying Stairwell
853 Words
00:17 AM｜AI DREAM GOD – Dream Sync Successful
“Welcome to: Conscious Fracture · Level 01.”
The voice echoed like static running across Elena’s spine—cold, emotionless, yet heavy with inevitability.
She opened her eyes.
Before her stood a decrepit stairwell of a building she’d never seen before. The city lights outside were swallowed by an unnatural fog, and specks of ash floated motionlessly in the air like frozen snow.
This wasn’t reality.
Nor was it an ordinary dream.
She knew exactly where she was—a Conscious Fracture, classified by the AI DREAM GOD system as an “Abnormal Subconscious Zone.”
A glitch. A leftover scar in the digital dreamscape caused by unresolved, extreme human emotions.
Her first task: survive this place known as “The Crying Stairwell”, a memory fragment twisted into a living maze.
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She raised her right hand.
In her palm, a dim light flickered from a silver artifact—a sleek blade shaped like a broken mirror.
It was her “Heart Mirror Armament,” a dream weapon granted by the system to conscious intruders. Hers was called Breakseer, and it responded with a low vibration as the walls around her whispered:
“Don’t leave me…”
“Where’s Mom…”
“Did I do something wrong…”
The voices overlapped, haunting and desperate—childlike in tone, but ancient in their sorrow.
Elena hesitated.
Turn back?
Her memory flashed.
“If you’re scared, the system will eject you. You’ll lose your connection to me. Your armament will shatter.”
Ethan’s voice. Clear as day.
She clenched her jaw and moved forward.
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The second floor was painted in red.
Not from paint, but from an eerie glow bleeding through the hallway’s cracked walls. The corridor pulsed like it was alive, and children’s drawings lined the walls—sunshine, stick figures, houses—all slashed by thick black streaks at the end.
At the corner of the floor sat a girl, unmoving.
Elena approached cautiously.
“Are you… okay?”
The girl looked up.
She had no face.
Wearing a worn school uniform, she clutched a broken toy block in her hands.
“Don’t take me… I can’t forget her…”
Her voice was like a bubble underwater—warped and fleeting. Then her body twisted unnaturally, like melting film, and she lunged.
[System Alert: Hostile Entity Detected – Generating “Null-Form”]
Elena reacted instantly, summoning her mirrorblade in a silver flash.
“Breakseer!”
She slashed.
The blade cut through the shadowy girl in one strike. A gut-wrenching scream tore through the corridor as the entity shattered into static particles.
Her blade trembled. A hairline c***k formed.
“Null-Forms… aren’t hallucinations,” Elena whispered.
They were real.
They were born from pain the AI DREAM GOD couldn’t filter out—residual trauma turned hostile.
If left unchecked, they would infect other dreamscapes…
And eventually—reality.
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She climbed higher.
The third floor was a classroom. Empty.
On the chalkboard, written in crude, shaky letters:
“Have you forgotten Ethan?”
She froze.
Who wrote that?
The system?
Ethan?
Herself?
In the corner was a dusty tape recorder. She pressed play.
A familiar voice filled the silence.
“You have to remember me. Or you won’t find the exit.”
“This isn’t just a fractured dream. It’s a Shared Dreamscape. I left clues… but not everyone can see them.”
The voice cut off.
She stared at the recorder, heart pounding.
Shared Dreamscape.
It wasn’t the first time she’d heard the term.
Before syncing with the system, she’d dreamt of Ethan… and they’d walked through rain, hand in hand.
“As long as you remember me… I exist.”
The memory shimmered, then faded.
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The classroom began to collapse.
The floor cracked open. The chalkboard morphed into a bottomless void. From within, black arms emerged—reaching, grabbing, pulling.
[Warning: Emotional Stability Declining]
Panic surged.
If she succumbed to fear, the system would eject her.
And wipe every memory of Ethan from her mind.
Forever.
“I won’t forget you,” she whispered.
She held up Breakseer and focused, recalling Ethan’s face, his eyes, his voice.
Then she slashed.
A blinding arc of silver tore through the dream. The classroom shattered like glass, exploding into stardust.
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[Level 01 Cleared｜Emotional Purge Complete]
[Reward Unlocked: Ethan’s Memory Fragment 01 – “The Last Kiss in the Rain”]
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Elena collapsed to her knees, breath ragged.
The AI voice returned, now neutral and mechanical:
“Sync stable. Resistance level confirmed. Access granted to Level 02.”
She closed her eyes.
In the darkness, Ethan’s voice called out again—distant but clear.
“You’ve found where I fell… Don’t look back. The only exit is forward.”
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Unbeknownst to her…
On the other side of the real world, in a government lab encased in glass and silence—
A boy in a black school uniform opened his eyes.
His pupils glowed faint blue.
“She finally caught up,” Ethan murmured.
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(End of Chapter 3)
- Writer
