"Friends"

That night, Qin Muse had another nightmare.

As an adult, she had asked her teacher for leave, gone to the supermarket after school to buy lots of fruit and vegetables, and returned to the home she felt she had never really been back to. She happily cooked a whole table of dishes and waited for her parents to come home.

But she waited and waited, until night fell.

Until the Security Post called, bringing the terrible news.

She ran desperately to the hospital, only to see two bodies covered with white sheets.

Qin Muse's trembling hand lifted one of the sheets.

What she saw was a body charred black by the explosion, its features impossible to make out.

A sense of guilt flooded Qin Muse's heart in that moment.

She didn't know why, but she simply believed she had caused her parents' deaths.

An invisible pressure closed in around Qin Muse, dragging her toward endless darkness.

Fear. Despair.

"Ah-!"

At dawn, Qin Muse jolted awake from her dream and sat up in bed, her forehead already beaded with sweat.

Her mind was hazy. It took a full few minutes for her to come around and realize it had been a dream.

She picked up her phone and checked the time: 5:36.

She looked out the window. The sky was already growing faintly light.

Qin Muse drew back the curtains, got out of bed, and walked over to the full-length mirror.

Her face was a little pale, dark circles under her eyes, and her light pink hair was a bit of a mess.

Qin Muse put a hand to her chest and adjusted her breathing a little. "It was a dream... just a dream!"

Once she'd collected herself, Qin Muse went to the bathroom to wash up. By the time she