The city no longer looked like a city under nightfall.Towers leaned drunkenly, streetlamps flickered like lunatics, and the air reeked of a sweet, cloying blood scent—like someone had poured spoiled syrup across the sky.
Ethan and Carl stood atop ruins, staring at the black fissure splitting the horizon. It was no longer a crack, but the outline of an enormous pupil—slowly opening.
"Holy hell," Carl muttered. "Turns out that dossier wasn't prophecy. It was a user manual."
A low hum leaked from the rift, like millions grinding their teeth at once. Shadows condensed, shaping into a colossal outline.
It was something no mind could fully describe. It had no fixed form, but was stitched together from humanity's deepest fears: rotting corpses, a beast with a baby's face, angels weeping black ink, human heads with mouths stretching into infinity. All flashing across the same shifting shell, like a drunken painter smeared every nightmare onto one canvas.
The Nightmare God.Ancient, absurd, and strangely humorous.
Because the moment it appeared—it hiccupped.The tremor shattered every window in the city.
"…Did it just burp?" Carl gawked.
"Maybe it woke too suddenly," Ethan murmured. Yet terror boiled inside him. Nightmare energy raged through his veins, aching to respond to the presence above.
The sky whispered.Not one language, but all languages at once. Each listener's mind twisted the murmur into their most terrifying, shameful, ridiculous sound.
Some heard their mothers crying. Some heard their bosses demanding unpaid wages. Others heard their first loves breaking up with them.Ethan heard the Bureau Chief's line: "You're special."
"Damn, it even taunts with precision," Carl groaned. "Maybe we should hold up a sign: 'Humanity is helpless. Please toy with us responsibly.'"
But the truth was, the city was already being toyed with.Crowds collapsed in frenzied worship, chanting nonsense: "Devour me—make me an eyeball—let me become your nose hair—"
The Nightmare God seemed amused. Its shifting body writhed, weaving their babble into a grotesque choir, absurdly catchy, like a cursed ad jingle.
Suddenly, a memory Ethan had lost resurfaced.The dossier once said: When the Nightmare God awakens, only the Nightmare Key can resist. And you… are that key.
The problem: keys either open doors, or lock them. Nobody told him which.
"Ethan, you feel it calling you, don't you?" Carl's voice cracked with unease. "Don't forget—your blood's tied to it. If you lose control, we're both snacks."
Ethan gave a bitter smile. "Maybe we already are. Just different portion sizes."
The monster bent its head, shadow pressing onto the ground. Worshippers crushed instantly beneath it, then stood up grinning, like lottery winners.
"I hate this atmosphere," Carl muttered. "If humanity collapses, at least give us a serious soundtrack. Not this lunatic sing-along."
Ethan stared at the Nightmare God and realized: it didn't want to destroy humanity. It wanted to swallow humanity—absorbing all fear and absurdity into itself, weaving an endless grotesque play.
It needed an audience.And humanity had built the perfect theater.
"It wants to turn the world into a stage," Ethan whispered.
Carl raised a brow. "So what's your role? Leading man—or the next corpse?"
Ethan didn't answer. The nightmare power in his chest flared, burning, volatile.The Nightmare God's eye—if it was an eye—locked squarely on him.
As if saying:Key, decide. Do you open, or do you lock?