The nightmare world was a rotten stage: curtains torn apart, backdrops about to collapse, and the only audience were death and illusions. The sky above had been slit open, as if someone had used a rusted pair of scissors to shred it into scraps of cloth.
I stood with my "old friend" on a fractured street. Houses at the roadside looked like drunkenly assembled Lego blocks, their walls bent at grotesque angles. From windows stretched out arms, some even wearing pocket watches whose hands spun faster than my sanity could collapse.
"Nice stage," my friend sneered. "Perfect for dead men to perform."
I shot back, "Then let's hope we live long enough to bow."
Before the words finished, the Nightmare Agents arrived. Five of them, bodies blurred, like chunks of iron embedded in fog. Their faces were blank, except for a slit at the mouth, opening and closing like broken mail slots, spitting out mocking whispers:
"Run, run, your friendship isn't worth a handful of bullets."
Great. Even nightmare agents had learned black humor.
They drew their weapons—more like flashlights stuffed with nightmares than actual guns. When the beams hit the ground, the cobblestones morphed into pulsing flesh and veins. My shoe sank straight into it. It felt like stepping onto a massive wet tongue.
"Damn it, is this the VIP treatment of illusions?" I struggled to pull my foot free before the ground licked it clean.
My friend, unfazed, raised his hand. An old revolver materialized, its bullets glowing faint red. Not ordinary ammo—"memory rounds" stolen from dreams. One shot pierced an agent's chest. The thing froze, as if forced to sit through elementary math class, then crumbled into a pile of ash.
No time to marvel. Another agent lunged at me, body rippling like liquid. I raised my weapon—only for it to fire not bullets, but my mother's scolding voice:
"Why haven't you found a job yet?"
"Shit!" I cursed, nearly laughing. The agent staggered, rattled by the voice. Turns out this "ammo" was deadlier than expected.
The battlefield devolved into absurdity: the streets turned into flesh, we fired off memories, hallucinations, and bad jokes as weapons. The agents weren't in a rush to kill us. Like cats toying with mice, they folded the illusion over and over, trapping us in loops. Three turns around the corner, and we were back beneath the same broken streetlamp. Its bulb flickered: WELCOME BACK.
My friend muttered, "This is Bureau style—illusions within illusions, until you start doubting if you're even human."
I snorted, "Then I'd rather be a cat. At least cats can lick themselves and nap."
He didn't laugh, only reloaded in silence.
The five agents merged into one giant, made of endless stacked sheets of paper. Each sheet bore the word LOYALTY in bold letters, plastered across its body like cheap flyers.
"See?" my friend said coldly. "That's what they train: monsters loyal enough to not need brains."
"Problem is, we've got brains—but they're running out of fuel." I fired at the paper giant. The blast scattered sheets around us. One slapped onto my face.
I peeled it off, scoffing: "Turns out loyalty makes great toilet paper."
The fight grew absurd. The sky tore further, half of it falling onto the giant's shoulder like a ragged cloak. The ground rippled like water beneath our feet, turning combat into trampoline warfare.
"Don't get stuck," my friend grabbed me. "This illusion isn't for us to win—it's built for despair."
"Despair I'm used to." I grinned stiffly. "What I'm not used to is being eaten."
We retreated, but the paper giant chased us. The illusion stuttered like broken film, flashing frame by frame. Each frame showed a different death of mine: hit by a car, drowned, crushed by bills.
The last frame: me and my friend lying dead side by side, grinning like maniacs.
"Hell of an ending," I muttered bitterly.
"Shut up," he snapped, dragging me toward a fissure.
The illusion spat us back into a derelict warehouse. Behind us, the paper giant roared at the exit, like a forgotten audience clapping hollowly beneath the stage.
Flat on my back, I wheezed, chest icy.
"So that's Bureau's loyal attack dogs," I chuckled weakly. "Makes me wonder if I should switch sides—benefits look stable."
"Stable till death," he said, eyes unreadable. "Do you want that?"
I didn't answer. Somehow, the question was harder than the battle.