The way things had unfolded had far exceeded my expectations and gone beyond anything I could understand. I had a vague idea of what might happen next.
The scene around me changed.
It was a sign that time in the dream had shifted.
Once the chaotic, flickering scene settled, I was still in Room 409.
I saw Big Shrimp.
I was still inside the body of the boy Big Shrimp was playing.
I could see Big Shrimp and the NPC mother. In the hands of the Big Shrimp I now inhabited was a pair of scissors.
The dream flickered rapidly again. I saw Big Shrimp enter the elevator with his own body.
The elevator was haunted.
It wasn't the deceased Greenleaf from the previous dream, but a ghost NPC who was already part of the game.
When Big Shrimp realized the other version of himself had disappeared, he remained calm and expressionless. Even when he heard a loud thud from above and felt the elevator car shudder, he only glanced up slightly.
The elevator doors opened, and he stepped out, completely at ease.
The small room where the landlord lived was dark.
Once he passed that door, he would only have to feel for the handle of the apartment building's front door.
Click!
A door opened behind him.
Big Shrimp glanced back.
The door to the landlord's small room had opened. Light spilled out from behind it, forming a long strip across the hallway.
A person's shadow appeared in the strip of light.
The shadow was distorted, and only slowly took on a recognizable shape.
I saw the outline of a kimono.
An old woman with a stooped back, dressed in a kimono, reached out a hand like a rough, withered branch.
I immediately thought of that cherry-blossom kimono!
Big