/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"My, this one's got it all! Fear! Shock! Worry! Confusion! It's a veritable feast!" I blinked once, then twice. Huh? I couldn't tell where I was, but it seemed to be a balcony. I'd definitely not been here earlier. And who was talking? I couldn't see anyone. Wait, no...There, in the distance. There was a light. I tried to run toward it, but noticed that I was moving very sluggishly. I forced myself forward, then burst out into the light and found myself...

On a rooftop. The night sky was a deep blue casting everything in a cool light. There was a slight breeze, enough to ruffle my hair and make my coat billow. Long strings of clouds littered the sky above cast in dark grey and breaking the sky up. I couldn't see any stars despite the clear segments of sky, which I found a little confusing. There was a railing in front of me which I stumbled forward to and wrapped my hands around to ground myself. I could hear noise, and a lot of it, though it was all fairly distant. A blaring noise which increased and decreased in volume, somewhere off in the distance, and the murmur of a thousand voices having their own conversations. Somewhere, I could hear faint music, something that sounded strange and unfamiliar to me. When I'd been kidnapped by Hearn, I'd heard music in the background of the restaurant she'd taken me to, but it hadn't been too unfamiliar to me.

I looked over the railing, keeping my grip tight, and felt my jaw drop. Below me was a blinding number of light, coming from all sorts of sources along the long street. It took my eyes a moment to get used to it, especially with the variety of colours. There was a light dusting of snow across everything, but it clearly wasn't showing. It was nothing like what I'd seen in the village, or anywhere in the valley, for that matter.

It was the Outside World. It had to be. Nowhere else looked quite like this. I could see countless figures walking past below, indistinct and blurry. Opposite me were more buildings, and in the distance, as much as I could see, taller buildings. They seemed to consist of mostly windows, a large number of which were lit up with yellow, orange, or blue light. I wondered what could possible be happening inside them. Could there be people in there, living out their lives? I wondered what sort of problems they had to contend with. Probably fantastical stuff, I imagined, like working with all sorts of strange devices and being able to go anywhere across the entire world. They probably didn't have to deal with their spider suddenly appearing as a hollow shell, though.

Ah. I remembered. I'd passed out, which was a little embarrassing, but in my defence, I'd had a bit of an exhausting conversation with Keine before finding Yamame like that, so I felt like I was allowed some slack. But...If I'd passed out, I couldn't have ended up here, could I? Plus, it was daytime, and the large signs I could see opposite me were still readable, so I had to be in Japan, but if so, it shouldn't have been night. And the sluggish way I'd moved...

A dream.

"Yes, yes, bravo, well done, salutations." I heard from behind me. Spinning, I wasn't surprised to see Doremy Sweet approaching me from the stairs that led up to the roof. I was surprised by her outfit, though. Gone was her sleeveless dress and strange shawl, replaced with a suit like the ones I'd seen on my last trip to Tokyo. The top button of her white shirt was undone, and she looked a little confused about the whole ordeal. "Funny thing, the Dream World." She said, strolling toward me, then spinning and leaning against the railing. Her hat was still the same, and I wondered where exactly her tail was coming from, but decided that I shouldn't stare. "An outsider or two shows up, and they start having dreams about where they've been, or where they wanted to go, or places that are an amalgamation of the two, and the Dream World begins to understand how to put it together. How to complete it. And before you know it, things from your dreams become meshed with things from other dreams. These clothes...I was curious, so I let the dream take control of it. Something from your subconscious?"

I thought about it. I supposed it could be. Maybe...It did look similar to the clothes that Ran had been wearing in Australia. Frowning, I asked Doremy why I'd appeared here of all places. "Hard to say...Something from your mind? Something from somewhere else? I call myself the ruler of the Dream World, but by no means does that mean I know what it's doing at all times. Dreams are malleable. They're just a little bit amazing and more than a little mad." Doremy reached out a hand holding it palm-up, and her book, the dream journal, materialized in a bubble of pink smoke before dropping into her hand. She flipped through it. "No, no, no - Oh, maybe...No. Hmm...Eugh, what's that supposed to be? No, no, mayb- No." I watched her in confusion for a moment, then asked her what she was doing.