On the third day after the archive leak, the world finally exploded.Not the kind of "boom" with nukes, but the kind where media, citizens, and politicians all spontaneously combust together.
TV stations kept replaying footage of "Nightmares devouring the city," with gloomy narration and cheap background music. Unexpectedly, the effect worked—viewers shivered, convinced that the Nightmare would crawl out of their screens any second.Online, thousands of conspiracy theories mushroomed overnight:— "Nightmares are actually government-raised pets."— "The Bureau is working with aliens."— "Nightmare energy is the real elixir of immortality."Somebody even swore they saw their neighbor turn into a tentacle monster, posting a blurry photo online.The so-called "tentacle monster" turned out to be just a middle-aged man who forgot his towel after a shower.
Human society fell into a peculiar state of mass panic:When the mall's anti-theft alarm rang three times, people didn't think of shoplifting—they suspected Nightmare leakage.When the subway was delayed by two minutes, passengers began praying, convinced reality and dream had overlapped.Even weather reports about thunderstorms triggered forum posts like: "That's a signal flare from the Nightmare army."
On the street, I saw crowds lining up for charms. The vendor shouted, "Limited edition! Protects against Nightmares! Buy one, get one free!"Buyers wore devout expressions, as if sticking a slip of paper to their foreheads would stop bad dreams from drilling into their skulls.I couldn't help but add, "Can you throw in some mosquito repellent too? It's summer—mosquitoes are worse than Nightmares."The vendor's glare basically said: Get lost, you're killing my business.
Governments weren't faring much better.Some nations imposed curfews, reasoning that "dreams are more dangerous at night."Others shut down sleep labs, nearly forcing scientists to busk on the street.The most absurd was a certain island country that literally passed a "no-napping law."I almost spit my coffee all over the report—if our Bureau adopted that, half the agents would be dead from sleep deprivation within three days.
Meanwhile, the stock market put on the weirdest show in human history.Pharma stocks soared, thanks to a rush on sleeping pills.Coffee companies climbed too—"If you can't sleep, just drink more."Tourism stocks crashed, because nobody wanted to visit places called "Dreamland Town" or "Sleeping Beauty Theme Park."
Back at the European branch, things were equally farcical.Hallways were plastered with "NO NAPPING" warnings. Someone even installed an alarm in the elevator that beeped every thirty seconds.Colleagues whispered when they saw me, like I was a ghost: "Does he know the inside story?"I grinned and replied, "Inside story? Sure. Like how today's cafeteria mashed potatoes will give you three nights of nightmares."
The truth was simple: fear spread faster than the Nightmares themselves.Once unleashed, human imagination was harder to rein in than any monster.The invasion hadn't fully begun, yet society had already half-collapsed.
Sitting in my office, staring at the endless news ticker, I had a dark thought:Maybe Nightmares don't even need to act. Maybe if humanity just keeps panicking, we'll devour ourselves.Imagine the future history books:"The Second Great Fear broke out when people were too scared to sleep, eventually dying en masse at their keyboards."
Right then, the Director stormed in, face darker than usual."Agent," he said, "the panic outside is out of control. Our mission isn't to stop the Nightmares—it's to stop humanity from scaring itself to death first."
I nodded, unable to resist: "So should we distribute jokes to the masses? Maybe print your ID photo—guaranteed to make people laugh on sight."
The Director's glare could've killed me.I shut up fast, sipping cold coffee and muttering to myself:Fine. If the whole world's drowning in fear, at least I can still survive a while on black humor.