The Bureau—once humanity's proud guardian of sanity—finally tore off its mask, exposing rotting bone.
News anchors forced smiles: "The Bureau has the situation under control. Citizens may sleep peacefully." But screams and gunfire leaked from behind them. One anchor's makeup cracked, her face twitching like she might crawl out of the screen to bite someone.
On the streets, Bureau agents marched in black uniforms, eyes hollow, blaring through megaphones: "Embrace nightmare. Reject resistance." They moved like puppets, each step stomping corpses, blood spraying in rhythm.
Ethan and Carl watched from an abandoned subway station.
"I knew they'd fall," Carl muttered. "Didn't think they'd do it so… professionally. Look—their slogan's new: 'Traitors are worse than nightmares.' Peak dark comedy."
Ethan said nothing. Inside his blood, nightmare power pulsed, as if excited by the Bureau's corruption. Whispering: See? Your so-called order was just rot in disguise.
The Bureau's headquarters morphed too. The steel tower now scrawled with eldritch symbols, glowing violet at night like a single enormous eye over the city. Rumor claimed it wasn't even architecture anymore—just nightmare bleeding into Earth.
"Think about it," Carl sneered. "All those missions we ran—were we really protecting people? Or just helping the Bureau harvest souls for the nightmares?"
Ethan flinched. He remembered storming "traitors'" homes—scientists, skeptics, harmless dream researchers. He once thought they were threats. Now he knew they were sparks extinguished early, so the fire could consume everything at once.
In the shadows, survivors huddled, begging: "Don't hand us in. Please."
Ethan's chest twisted. In the Bureau's eyes, everyone was cattle now. Deliver one and you got a fake "safety certificate."
Carl sneered. "Relax. We're not doing their dirty work. The Bureau is the nightmare now."
His eyes burned with a fierce, hopeless resolve.
That night, alarms blared citywide. The Bureau announced "purification phase." Screens lit up with leaders' speeches:
"Human sin is born of traitors! Refuse obedience, and you serve nightmares! Only loyalty brings salvation!"
Their faces sickly, eyes blazing unnatural. Voices echoing like pits with no bottom.
Carl flipped them off. "Dogs."
Ethan didn't laugh. Those leaders… maybe they weren't human anymore. Maybe they were nightmare incarnate.
Drones swarmed the skies, buzzing like flies. They sprayed "purification beams" down streets. Victims didn't burn—they collapsed into nightmares, twitching, screaming, hollowed into walking husks.
"Christ, this is worse than execution," Carl spat, dragging Ethan deeper into the subway. "They don't just kill—they make you a container."
Ethan staggered, heavy. Hiding was useless now. The Bureau, the Black Shroud, the nightmares—one and the same.
"Carl," he whispered. "From today, the Bureau is our enemy."
Carl blinked, then grinned madly. "Finally! Thought you'd keep hoping they'd grow a conscience. Welcome to the real traitors' club."
They laughed—tired, bitter. Above them, the city burned, a requiem for the Bureau's decay.
Inside Ethan, the nightmare surged stronger, urging him: Be swallowed—or end it all yourself.