"In a fully materialized mental world, cartoon characters appearing really didn't fit... didn't fit..." Jean trailed off halfway through, having always avoided mentioning that name.
Daisy followed her train of thought. "Didn't fit Professor Charles's theories? His theories only apply to normal people, and this guy is obviously not normal. Images in an ordinary mental world would only ignore us; they wouldn't show hostility toward us, because we don't belong to this world. But that yellow dog just now, and this knife-wielding cartoon character—they're different. They're hostile toward us."
The flickering, horror-movie-like surroundings; the paper cutout with a knife hiding in the corner; the icy ground beneath their feet; and that huge crowd of lunatics outside—any normal person would have pissed themselves by now. But they were skilled and bold, completely unconcerned. Following Jean's line of thought, Daisy began analyzing the situation as well.
But for now, all that analysis was just empty theorizing, completely useless in practice.
The two quickly followed the emergency passage out of the psychiatric hospital. This mental world was immensely vast, pitch-black in every direction. Only streetlights spaced more than ten meters apart occasionally gave off faint glimmers less than a meter wide, keeping the world from being entirely swallowed by darkness.
A bearded young man who had overdosed on laundry detergent lay by the roadside. A madwoman perched atop a garbage bin, her eyes tracking them the whole time.
As the two made their way along, they saw quite a few strange people.
"Why are you in this form? Stop right there!..." A two-meter-tall monster in a tattered black robe drifted past them. Its face was swollen, its eyes murky yellow, and it had an enormous chin. Jean finally couldn't hold herself back and acted.
The creature radiated evil. Just looking at it made