Splash— Splash—
The relentless downpour showed no signs of abating.
The air was damp and frigid, each breath carrying a sticky thickness that clung to the throat.
Shinomiya Kaguya's eyelids fluttered open to find herself lying on an oversized bed cluttered with dolls.
The room was pitch-black, save for the faint glow seeping through the windows on either side of the bed. Night had fallen, and beyond the drumming rain, silence prevailed—only the flickering streetlights outside offered any illumination.
Turning her head, Kaguya's gaze met the sewn-on smile of a monkey plush slumped against her pillow.
She slowly pushed herself upright.
Ding-ling—
Something brushed her forehead, producing a delicate chime like glass ornaments colliding.
...Stars?
Squinting in the dim light, Kaguya saw them—crystalline decorations dangling from the bed's canopy, shaped like stars, crescent moons, orbs, and snowflakes. They swayed at the slightest touch, tinkling softly.
Her attention shifted to the bed itself, strewn with toys: stuffed animals, Western-style dolls, even a few traditional Japanese ningyō. All clearly meant for a young child.
The bedding, too, was sized for someone much smaller.
A child's bedroom, then?
Takakai was nowhere in sight.
After a cautious visual sweep, Kaguya confirmed it—they'd been separated upon entry.
This wasn't her first experience with such division. In Nutty Putty Cave, she and Maki had spawned at the research base while Takakai was dumped deep underground. While her side had been relatively safe then, his had been fraught with peril. Now, facing a crimson moon dungeon alone from the outset, Kaguya's guard was fully raised. Who could say whether she might be the one encountering horrors this time?
Yet for now... no overt anomalies manifested.
After several wary scans of the room yielded neither threats nor anything resembling rule instructions, Kaguya inched toward the bed's edge, preparing to investigate further.
...■
A sound froze her mid-motion.
Breathing.
From beneath the bed where she sat—soft, rhythmic, like a sleeper's gentle exhalations.
The instant she registered it, the room shifted.
Childish giggles threaded through the air, though no source was visible. Tiny footsteps pattered across unseen floors. The sensation of presence—of being watched, accompanied—was undeniable.
Kaguya's own breathing grew labored.
Even with two dungeon expeditions under her belt, this sensory dissonance unsettled her deeply.
Steeling herself, she focused on the pile of dolls.
There must be rules here.
One constant held across all dungeons, from Twilight to Crimson Moon: players always found guidance upon entry. Whether those rules were outdated, misleading, or outright traps mattered less than their existence. Even Fujisaki Academy, with its irregular entity Alice, had provided (deadly) instructions immediately.
So where were hers?
The disturbance had triggered when she attempted to leave the bed. Perhaps the clues lay on it?
Moving with painstaking care, Kaguya began sifting through the toys. A bear plush set aside, a doll lifted away—until her fingers brushed a hidden notebook beneath the pile.
Its pages bore the clumsy scrawl of a young child:
[Little Flower is a good girl, Little Flower is an obedient girl]
[Good girls sleep at night, good girls stay in bed]
[Obedient girls don't leave their rooms, don't trouble grown-ups]
[Shh, shh, go to sleep now]
[When you sleep, the Black Thing won't come for Little Flower]
[When you sleep, you won't hear the Black Thing calling]
[When you sleep, Little Flower won't be taken away]
[Little Flower, Little Flower, are you asleep yet?]
Boom—
Thunder rattled the windowpanes.
Lightning flashed—
—illuminating the figure standing at the room's center, its shadow stretching toward Kaguya's bed.
The thunder momentarily drowned out the window-tapping.
Takakai yanked the curtains shut before examining the room. After a pause, he approached the computer, booting up the chunky CRT monitor.
Windows 98? Talk about retro.
Compared to the bloated mess of modern OS updates, this interface was refreshingly straightforward. But nostalgia wasn't why he was here.
As expected, the machine had no internet access.
The desktop held a folder labeled [Survival Logs], containing sequentially numbered text files and one JPEG—a crudely drawn image.
The room's temperature dropped further.
From the single bed's underside came a new sound: something slithering, its full-body contact with the floor producing faint scrapes.
Takakai ignored it, clicking open Log 1.
[Log 1]
[My name is Yoshitaka. Just an ordinary guy.]
[I don't know why my bedroom door leads to those horrible places. I don't know how this place still has power. I don't know how long I'll last.]
[Before whatever's out there kills me—or I kill myself—I'll record everything I can. To remind myself what I've endured. To remember how to survive. And... if anyone comes after, maybe this will help.]
[This place feels like a shattered dream stitched from countless memories. Nonsensical. Terrifying.]
[Every time I open a door, the landscape changes. But one pattern holds: it's all rooms. Living rooms, bathrooms, storage closets, kitchens... fragments of dwellings.]
[I've survived six days here, per the system clock. In that time, I've learned a few things.]
[First rule: Once you're in bed after dark, STAY THERE.]
[Leaving the bed at night—lights on or off—triggers phenomena.]
[Sometimes, it's just scary. Endure it.]
[Other times...]
Click.
The bedroom door creaked ajar.
Takakai's eyes dropped to the next line:
[HIDE!]