Exhaustion plagued Mulan. After class, he went straight back to the faculty office on the top floor and rested against his desk.
Although poor sleep had been troubling Mulan, even sleep filled with dreams still counted as rest.
Not long after Mulan fell asleep, the sound of crows began echoing through his mind.
The cawing woke Mulan. He opened his eyes and found himself lying in a dark forest. Pushing himself up, he looked at the sky, where countless crows blotted out the light.
The crows wheeled back and forth, then suddenly seemed to notice Mulan. In the next instant, they all swooped toward him.
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
"Caaaw!"
"Caw, caw!"
Fuck!
The dream felt extraordinarily real. Even Mulan, who could actively interfere with other people's dreams through repeated suggestion and influence, did not realize he was dreaming.
Mulan started running, waving his arms to fend off the attacking crows.
"Get away! Get off me!"
The crows seemed to have gone mad. Their sharp beaks pecked painfully even through his clothes, while his exposed skin was covered in wounds.
The forest floor seemed to be sinking steadily. As Mulan ran, the densely packed crows obscured his vision.
Suddenly, Mulan glimpsed the path ahead through a gap between the crows. Alarm surged through him. He stopped abruptly and grabbed a nearby tree.
Dead branches and leaves, mixed with gravel and dirt, scattered from beneath Mulan's feet and tumbled into the abyss ahead.
Sweat covered Mulan's face. Breathing hard, he stared ahead with lingering dread. An enormous abyss lay before him, as though the center of the Dark Forest had collapsed. It was probably several hundred meters across, its pitch-black depths impossible to fathom.
I nearly fell in!
The crows filling the sky continued attacking Mulan, but whether they clawed him bloody